Deutsche Bahn: Deutsche Bahn to invest 13.6 billion euros in infrastructure digitization

Renewed expansion of Deutsche Bahn’s rail network. Over the course of 2022, Deutsche Bahn plans to invest 13.6 billion euros in digitizing the infrastructure and expanding capacity.

Deutsche Bahn digitizes rail network

Deutsche Bahn is making its rail network and stations fit for the future. To this end, it plans to invest a whole 13.6 billion euros in the digitization of the infrastructure in 2022, which is around 900 million euros more than in the previous year.

The plan is to renew a total of 1,800 kilometers of track, 2,000 switches, 140 bridges and 800 stations, as Deutsche Bahn announces. This year alone, 4,800 additional engineers and specialists for expansion and maintenance will be deployed for this purpose, as Ronald Pofalla, DB’s board member for infrastructure, reveals.

Of course, this means additional construction sites, which have already taken their toll on train punctuality in the past year. Around 75 percent of all long-distance trains were on time in 2021. However, the company said it wanted to further intensify its cooperation with the construction industry and “implement construction work even faster and more reliably”.

Stuttgart 21 again in focus

“This year’s investment offensive has two major focal points: First, DB is creating more space on the railways. For this, it continues with the expansion and new construction of important infrastructure projects at a high level,” it says on the part of Deutsche Bahn further.

At the end of 2022, as planned, the approximately 60-kilometer-long high-speed line Wendlingen-Ulm should be put into operation. It marks an important step on the way to the commissioning of Stuttgart 21 and will simultaneously reduce travel times between Stuttgart and Ulm by around 15 minutes.

In the course of digitization, the focus is also on work on the Stuttgart digital hub and the Scandinavian-Mediterranean corridor from Hamburg via Erfurt and Munich to the Austrian border at Kufstein. At the same time, the expansion with the modern new control and safety system ETCS with the European standard is also continuing.

“A strong infrastructure is the basis for an attractive offer for all rail passengers,” Profalla continues. “We want to convince more people to use rail as an environmentally friendly mode of transport. Every euro in the rail is therefore also a euro in climate protection.”

Modernization of train stations

At the same time, however, Deutsche Bahn wants to modernize and improve the existing network. In doing so, DB is also relying on small and medium-sized measures to make the rails strong and less prone to disruption.

Around 800 stations are to be modernized this year alone, which corresponds to around 15 percent of all stations in Germany. The focus is primarily on feeder and hub stations. Around 700 million euros (just under 40 percent of the budget for stations) has been earmarked for this.

By the year 2030, the transport performance on the railways is to double according to the will of the German government. To this end, a campaign called “New Network for Germany” accompanies the projects, such as the expansion and new construction of the Karlsruhe-Basel line or the construction of the new S-Bahn line 4 between Hamburg and Bad Oldesloe includes.