With these words, Deutsche Bahn is leaning pretty far out the window!
“We make the everyday life of our passengers noticeably better.”
This should happen with a seat revolution. In the technical jargon of the state-owned company, this means: Intelligent real-time utilization displays.
Sounds complicated, but it is a useful invention. And it works like this: Sensors scan how many passengers have entered and exited the car. The display on the track and in the app converts this information into a traffic light system. Red means full car, yellow means there is still some space and green means that there is a yawning emptiness.
This is what the traffic light display of the railway will look like in the future. Useful thing – if it works
With the seat offensive, Deutsche Bahn wants to kill two birds with one stone. On the one hand, customers should be able to find a free seat more quickly. On the other hand, the trains should be more punctual.
Because: “Delays when boarding and alighting are the main reason for exceeding stopping times and thus for delays. With the new system, passengers are better distributed on the platform and trains can depart more punctually,” Deutsche Bahn wrote in its press release.
Punctuality, a tiresome topic at Deutsche Bahn. Last year, the company was as late as it had been for a long time. Only a meager 65.2 percent of all long-distance trains were on time. That was ten percentage points less than in 2021. After all, in regional transport, 91.8 percent of all stops corresponded to the timetable.
And with the Regios, Deutsche Bahn is now also testing its new seat display. The traffic light system will first be used on pilot routes of the S-Bahn in Hamburg and in the Stuttgart S-Bahn network. Regional traffic between Hamburg and Lübeck is scheduled to start in February.
The S-Bahn in the Rhine-Main area will be added in April and parts of the Berlin S-Bahn from May. The state-owned company promises that by the end of 2024, a quarter of all DB regional trains (more than 1,500 cars) will be capable of smart traffic light displays throughout Germany.