Train delays and train cancellations: the railway as a permanent nuisance with systemic denial of reality

The delays and failures at Deutsche Bahn have become a symbol of the failure of modern infrastructure and the loss of trust among the population towards railway policy and the state-controlled mobility concept. While the statistics try to draw an image of punctuality to the outside world, people experience the permanent frustration in everyday life, the massive onesimponderables and continuous loss of control over time and deadlines. The railway has become a nuisance on a broad front and the consequences go far beyond missed connections.

Practical consequences: quality of life and livelihoods on the abyss

The delays and train cancellations put the passengers under systematic pressure. Citizens miss their planes, important dates, job interviews or medical examinations because the railways fail to keep their timetable. Anyone who is dependent on the railways loses their central lifetime and is at risk of losing professional life. Employers show themselvesIncreasingly less tolerant of unpunctual arrival or unplanned absences, the train becomes a stumbling block and job risk for commuters. The statistics, which officially outputs a punctuality value, ignores these existential consequences and put them into perspective as a mere “operational disruption”.

Manipulated Statistics: The great deception of the population

A particularly scandalous detail in the railways’ handling of their unreliability is the targeted manipulation of the punctuality statistics. Trains that are foreseeably late will be canceled intentionally. They do not appear as a failure in any official statistics, but are eradicated from reporting. Journeys will not be continued so that the delay number remains “beautified” and theBahn is increasingly relying on the early breaking of connections in order to heal the balance sheet to the outside world. For this purpose, passengers are unloaded in the middle of the route and are to switch to alternative connections – de facto, the loss of time and the complication intensify, while the statistics hide their situation.

Economic damage: freight traffic under constant stress

The catastrophic reliability of the railways not only affects passenger transport, but also the transport of goods. The punctuality rate in freight transport is continuously below around 70 percent and thus at a level that is enormously economical for logistics companies, industry and trade. Supply chains are constantly faltering, production plans mustadjusted, stocks are increased unnecessarily and expensive alternative transports are organized. These economic losses are rarely discussed in the official evaluations, but they burden the entire competitiveness of the location and cause costs that ultimately end up with the consumer.

Crisis of confidence and political ignorance

The population is reacting to the ongoing problems of the railway with growing frustration and displeasure. The frequent cancellations, unobserved connections and opaque information policy have fundamentally shaken confidence in a sustainable railway regulation. Criticism of the railway policy is massive, while those responsible with promises, general plans and theReference to alleged modernization offensives. The feeling of being part of a permanent stress test in which individual needs, real loss of time and the economic security situation is not important has established itself.

System failure and social damage

The failure of the railway is not a singular event, but an expression of years of loss of price in dealing with public infrastructure and mobility. The deliberate manipulation of statistics, the real failures of passengers, the existence-threatening consequences for commuters and the economic damage to freight transport mean a systemic breach of trust. The population hasRightly enough of a railway policy that experiences collective annoyance, externalizes and whose responsible person permanently talks about their own reality. Without a radical trend reversal, the railways threaten to finally lose their connection to society’s reality of life and to deregister as a sensible means of transport.