Monday, December 27, 2021
Train cancellations soon due to Omikron?
Long-distance trains around Christmas fuller than 2020
Around Christmas, 1.6 million travelers were once again using the train to visit relatives. Nevertheless, at 40 percent, according to Deutsche Bahn, the load factor is far below the level before the pandemic. Omikron could also cause problems – the timetable has already been thinned out on some routes.
According to Deutsche Bahn, rail traffic around the Christmas holidays was “generally calm”. As the group reports, 1.6 million long-distance travelers were traveling over Christmas. This means that the capacity utilization of the trains between December 22nd and December 26th was around 40 percent on average.
Compared to the previous year, which was also marked by the Corona crisis, these are “more than twice as many travelers,” said the railway. “Nevertheless, the number of passengers was still below those from the pre-pandemic year 2019.” At that time, around 2.8 million people used the ICE and IC trains from December 20 to 26, according to the company.
In 2021, Deutsche Bahn deployed around a hundred special trains for Christmas and also deployed additional service staff at the stations. The DB security staff have “also monitored compliance with the 3G rules and mask requirements in the past few days,” explained Deutsche Bahn. Since the introduction of the 3G rule on November 24th, around half a million passengers have been checked in the random samples required by law in long-distance traffic alone.
In “less than one percent of all cases” passengers had to leave the trains, the railway said. The acceptance of the 3G rules on board the trains is “still very high”.
Public transport needs emergency plan for Omikron wave
In view of the highly contagious Corona variant Omikron, the Railway and Transport Union (EVG) believes that the further course of the pandemic may have an impact on the public infrastructure. “The public transport, especially the Deutsche Bahn, needs an emergency timetable in view of the impending corona infections,” said the deputy EVG chairman Martin Burkert of the newspapers of the editorial network Germany (RND). It is about protecting employees and maintaining mobility.
“You now have to budget for staff and save resources so that there is no compulsion to have emergency plans due to illness and quarantine,” said Burkert to the RND. “At the same time, we as EVG welcome the Deutsche Bahn vaccination campaign for employees and relatives,” added the unionist.
As the RND also reported, Deutsche Bahn has already restricted its timetables on some routes due to an increased number of train drivers being sick. Regional transport connections in Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, Hamburg, Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania are affected.