Because Kriesel is a frequent railway passenger, and as a data analyst, the 36-year-old is used to dealing with numbers and data. The fact that he has had to wait for delayed trains in Bonn and Cologne on almost every second trip made the Rheinbach native ponder. "I asked myself: am I just unlucky, and how does that fit in with the actual punctuality values of the trains," says Kriesel. An assumption was confirmed: delayed long-distance trains are a special problem of the stations in Bonn and Cologne.

Kriesel doesn’t doubt the transparent punctuality statistics of Deutsche Bahn, which cover the whole of Germany. For the year 2019, it determined that 75 percent of long-distance trains and 90 percent of local trains were on time. But this is something you need to know: A train is always considered punctual if it is less than six minutes late at its destination station. Stations that are no longer served by the train because they have been taken off schedule or have broken down, are immediately excluded from the statistics. In other words: the statistics of the railway represent radically summarized average values. And they do not exclude the possibility that the delay at stations on the route is greater or less than at the destination. And due to its location, Bonn's main station in particular seems to suffer from this effect.

But what are the reasons for the fact that in the former capital of Germany, of all places, rail traffic is so slow, while cities like Halle, Leipzig and Magdeburg, for example, have particularly good punctuality rates?

Kriesel does not want to rule out the possibility that the poor Bonn performance has something to do with the renovation work at the main station. In his presentation, however, the entire Cologne/Bonn region shows a deep red, as he described the severe delays. Added to this are the ongoing construction sites on the rail network around Cologne. And last but not least, the Hohenzollern Bridge is considered a sensitive bottleneck in railway circles.

The Pro Bahn passenger association can only confirm this: "In fact, the main stations in Bonn and Cologne have always been plagued by problems that have a negative impact on the punctuality of the trains running there," says its national chairman Detlef Neuß. He also considers the figures calculated by Kriesel to be plausible.

And even the railways do not fundamentally doubt the Rheinbach native’s expertise. "Punctuality for individual stops, lines or regions can be subject to strong fluctuations, for example due to construction work, strikes or major individual disruptions," says a railway spokesman.

Kriesel sought permission from the Deutsche Bahn before doing his analysis. The Rheinbach native went through the arrival and departure times of long-distance trains at 350 German stations and had them analyzed on his computer. In total, he evaluated a good 25 million train stops in this way.

He reports that he has made many new contacts at DB, adding: "Everyone was very nice to me, apparently they responded to my project in a sportsmanlike manner". He was finally mentioned in an internal DB newsletter under the heading "Tip of the week". He doesn’t want his work to be understood as a hasty criticism. On the one hand, he can confirm the 75 percent punctuality of DB's overall statistics in principle - except for Bonn; in addition, local transport has extremely high punctuality rates. But he had not even investigated this part.

(Orig. text: Rüdiger Franz, Abir Kassis; Translation: ck)