Federal Network Agency forces railway to improve construction site planning

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Passengers are not the only ones who have to contend with delays on the railway. Other rail transport companies (RUs) are also annoyed by them – but in a different context. For some time now, they have been complaining about drastic delays in railroad construction site communication. As a result, they say, they can barely react, if at all. There is talk of chaotic planning processes, delayed and canceled trains and economic damage to railroads and their customers. The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has now clearly backed the rail companies against the DB infrastructure subsidiary DB InfraGO.

In several partial decisions, the most recent of which was delivered on Wednesday, the Federal Network Agency now wants to force Deutsche Bahn to significantly improve its construction site planning.

With the first partial decision in proceedings BK10-25-0043_Z in April, the authority already imposed two penalty payments of 500,000 euros each – a total of one million euros. At the same time, it threatened to impose staggered fines of up to one million Euro per month for future violations.

Systematic breaches of deadlines for construction announcements

The background to the drastic measures is DB InfraGO's persistent and massive violations of its deadlines for announcing construction measures. The so-called “Zusammenstellung der vertrieblichen Folgen” (ZvF) – a document that informs railroad undertakings about path changes due to construction work – is systematically submitted too late.

In January 2025, the rate of adherence to deadlines for ZvF end sections for A measures was only 36.6 percent, and only 34.3 percent for B measures. The situation hardly improved in February 2025 either: the rates here were 44.9 percent (A measures) and 49.8 percent (B measures).

Particularly problematic: According to the Federal Network Agency, DB InfraGO has stopped making any notifications at all. In the months from February to July 2024, more documents were not produced at all than were submitted late. If the documents that were not created were counted as late, the rates would be below 10 percent in some months.

The BNetzA is now threatening to introduce a graduated system: if less than 95 percent of documents are submitted on time, a penalty payment of 100,000 euros will be due. The amounts increase to Euro 200,000 (below 85 percent), Euro 300,000 (below 75 percent), Euro 400,000 (below 65 percent) and finally Euro 500,000 (below 55 percent). This regulation has applied to both A and B measures since July 2025.

In its reasoning, the ruling chamber was unimpressed by DB InfraGO's arguments. The company had argued that the only way to comply with the deadline would have been to cancel or postpone many construction measures, which would have been unreasonable due to the consequences for the condition of the facilities and the interests of the public. However, the BNetzA counters that the Cologne Administrative Court has already ruled that such a decision by DB InfraGO would be reasonable.

New weapon for railway companies

The BNetzA announced a second, possibly even more effective lever in the second partial decision. In the future, this will enable railway undertakings to lodge an objection to construction measures that have been announced late so that the booked train path can be used as planned.

Peter Westenberger, Managing Director of the association “Die Güterbahnen”, welcomes the decision: “DB InfraGO is probably the only large company that repeatedly fails to announce its plans to its customers in good time. The fact that the companies can now demand that the booked journey be carried out at the expense of the planned construction site strengthens their position.”

Huge regional differences

The new reporting obligations, which apply until January 2027, require DB InfraGO to provide a detailed monthly statement – both for the entire network and broken down by region. According to the railroad associations, delays in some regions are currently up to 100 percent.

The figures must be shown exactly for each train – - a demand that DB InfraGO itself had put forward and which is now to be implemented.

SB² as a beacon of hope?

DB InfraGO had already announced in June 2024 that it did not expect any fundamental improvement in meeting deadlines for 2025 and 2026 as a result of the “SB² – System beruhigen, Stabilisierung Betrieb” programme. This programme provides for a clocked blocking period system for maintenance measures.

The ruling chamber is sceptical: the measures taken so far have not yet resulted in a significant increase compared to the figures in June and July 2024, and in some cases the current figures are even lower.

Outlook: New communication formats from 2027

DB InfraGO is planning a new system from 2027. Instead of ZvF documents, it then wants to provide a rough and a detailed planning result.

However, the current decision has no impact on short-term, unplanned construction measures. These must continue to be accepted and handled by the companies.

(mki)