If you plan your next train journey with bahn.de or the DB Navigator app, it may be that this journey takes longer than it used to. This is the amazing reason and how to avoid the problem. Plus: Disadvantages in the event of claims for compensation threaten.
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Curious: Bahn is canceling trains from the Bahn app and bahn.de to be more punctual.
© Deutsche Bahn
Deutsche Bahn trains are not punctual, so the delays on the train are a long-running issue in the media and the train itself admits that: “We are not satisfied with our punctuality”. But now Deutsche Bahn is taking an unusual measure to make traveling by train easier to plan: it is removing a number of connecting trains from the bahn.de ad and the DB Navigator app.
Literally, Deutsche Bahn writes: ”
We make travel easier to plan. To ensure that connecting trains can be reached more reliably, we are now paying attention to more generous transfer times in the timetable media. Short connections, which are difficult to reach in the current operational situation, are no longer indicated during planning and booking. This affects 800 connections
.” Or as Deutsche Bahn puts it: “From now on, digital timetable media will show more generous transfer times”.
However, this also means that one or the other trip now takes longer, at least according to the display in the DB Navigator app or on bahn.de, than it could be the case in practice under favorable circumstances. Because if you know which platform such a tightly dimensioned connecting train is on, you might still be able to reach it with a courageous sprint when changing at the station and thus get to your destination faster than the train app actually shows. Because the tightly dimensioned connecting trains are not deleted, they are just no longer displayed. But these trains run, of course.
Tip: Set the transfer time yourself in the app
You can set the “transfer time” yourself in the DB Navigator app under “Options”. The change now being made by the web affects the default “Normal”.
Negative impact on compensation claims
As the Tagesschau reports, citing Karl-Peter Naumann, Honorary Chairman of the Pro Bahn passenger association, the change in the display of transfer times could have a negative impact on compensation rights. The Tagesschau writes: “If the DB Navigator shows a transfer time of six minutes, but the first train is eight minutes late, you miss your connecting train and therefore arrive at your destination an hour later, you get a 25 percent refund of the ticket price today. If the connection But if you’re no longer reported and you take them anyway, you do it at your own risk, says Naumann. You don’t get the money back.”
Records, records, records
Deutsche Bahn also reports record occupancy rates: “Never before have so many people traveled as many kilometers on the ICE and Intercity as in the past three months from May to July 2022. Traffic performance rose again by around three percent compared to the record year 2019. “People travel longer distances by train than before the pandemic. Leisure and holiday travel in particular is contributing to this positive development. International travel has also almost doubled in the first half of this year.”