Deutsche Bahn (DB) CEO Evelyn Palla has criticized what she called "organized irresponsibility" within the state-owned rail group. This, she said, must become a thing of the past. Palla told "Welt am Sonntag," in an advance report published Saturday, that punctuality begins with a "clear and transparent allocation of responsibility in the right place."
Palla told the newspaper: "Key decisions, including those on operational improvements, were often made centrally by group management." However, she said, those in headquarters who made these decisions bore no responsibility for implementing them out in the field. "The colleagues out there had to implement them.
And they, in turn, said: I didn't decide that, and it doesn't work for me either." Headquarters would then respond that those in the field hadn't implemented it correctly. "In the end, that was a kind of organized irresponsibility."
The manager also criticized the fact that in the past, repeated failures to meet targets rarely led to consequences. "You just had to explain well enough why the targets couldn't be met. That often worked for years." She said she was not interested in explaining problems, but in solving them. "At Deutsche Bahn, we've never had a problem with insight, but for far too long we've had a problem with implementation. That has demonstrably not led to success."
Overall, Palla told the newspaper, the "performance culture of the past is not sufficient for Deutsche Bahn's performance." "We want to change that," she said. Since taking office in October, the company has "restructured a great deal, streamlined operations, and introduced a new leadership principle with significantly more decentralized responsibility."
But real change will only come once management itself changes, and once responsibility is genuinely taken up and lived out in the decentralized units. That, she said, has a lot to do with building a new culture. "And that is the much harder part of Deutsche Bahn's fresh start, and it requires courage and time."
Palla emphasized that her criticism was "explicitly not" aimed at train conductors, train drivers, signalers, track workers, and dispatchers. "Everyone who battles an unsatisfactory situation every day and has to improvise a great deal, those are my heroes, the ones who keep the railway running day in, day out."
Palla could not promise quick improvements in punctuality. "Punctuality will remain difficult this year, simply because there are still too many disruptions on the network and too many construction sites. Anyone who promises otherwise is deceiving people," she told "Welt am Sonntag." In the end, she said, everything depends on how quickly the rail network can be brought back into shape.
"Here too, we have to be honest: this will not happen quickly." Deutsche Bahn will celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2035, "and that should also be the year in which we have the worst behind us."
DB presented its half-year results on Thursday. Long-distance punctuality stood at 59 percent from January to June, while regional punctuality reached 88 percent. Palla noted that the company transports 1.8 billion people a year in regional traffic, compared with fewer than 140 million in long-distance traffic. Before becoming group CEO, she headed DB Regio.
Palla stressed that the overall picture always matters most. "Even though we are still not satisfied overall, we must not always talk down Deutsche Bahn more than it deserves."
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