Deutsche Bahn wants to improve its customer communication and is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to do it. With the AI-based assistance system Kiana, passengers will in future be able to retrieve "precise and personalized information" about their journey, Deutsche Bahn announced on Wednesday. "By the end of the year, Kiana will be available to all passengers on bahn.de and in the DB Navigator app."
The introduction of the assistance system is part of the group's immediate, multi-million-euro program "Better Customer Communication." According to the company, around "an additional 50 million euros" are to be invested in this by the end of 2027.
"Because especially in operationally strained times, customer information plays a central role," Deutsche Bahn explained, a company that continues to struggle repeatedly with delays and cancellations due to extensive renovation work on its long-neglected rail network.
To improve customer communication, the IT systems and processes in the control centers are also set to be modernized, likewise with the help of AI. "Incoming information about disruptions is processed, prepared and forwarded to the relevant customer channels more quickly," Deutsche Bahn explained. As a result, passengers will receive "more reliable information faster than before, for example on cancelled stops, delays or connection options."
Information about short-notice platform changes is also set to become available significantly faster: "Instead of only after around 60 seconds as before, it will now already be shown in the DB Navigator app after around two seconds," Deutsche Bahn explained. In addition, there should be "more clarity on the platform" thanks to 7,000 new display boards at stations, which are meant to offer travelers "better readability and more space for important information."
"Until now, the information for travelers during delays or train cancellations often left much to be desired," said Federal Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder (CDU). He said he very much welcomed the fact that this was now set to change: "Because better communication gives travelers orientation, planning certainty and options for action."
Deutsche Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla emphasized that customer information is meant to become "more reliable, faster and better." "As a frequent traveler myself, I know how important it is to be able to access the information relevant to me at all times," she explained.
The ecologically oriented Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD) welcomed the announced improvements to passenger information. "Travelers still experience situations in which they are not adequately informed during disruptions, get stranded along the route, and don't know how to continue their journey," explained VCD federal chairwoman Christiane Rohleder. What matters now, she cautioned, is "that the announced measures lead to noticeable improvements for travelers."
The "Bahn für alle" (Rail for All) alliance, which includes unions such as IG Metall and Verdi as well as environmental associations and other organizations, called the immediate program overdue. "Rail customers suffer a great deal today, from severe delays and train cancellations to locked toilets and escalators broken for months," spokesperson Carl Waßmuth told the Rheinische Post (Thursday edition). Reliable, concrete information, he said, could therefore make traveling significantly easier for passengers.
However, he added, more staff are also needed, "people who can answer questions, who'll also lend a hand with luggage and help out in the bike compartment," Waßmuth told the newspaper. "Not everyone can or wants to do everything via smartphone."
Criticism of Deutsche Bahn's immediate program came on Wednesday from the Green Party's parliamentary group. "Every rail customer longs for stations where the display board shows the same platform as the app, longs for correct information in the DB Navigator, and early communication about construction sites," said MP Paula Piechotta.
Rarely, she argued, had Deutsche Bahn's "nice-sounding programs" actually delivered real improvement, the company needed to be judged on its core task instead: creating "plannable mobility."
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