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Deutsche Bahn starts €330-million quality campaign

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Deutsche Bahn starts €330-million quality campaign
Photo: DPA

German national rail provider Deutsche Bahn plans to put €330 million towards improving its service quality over the next five years, CEO Rüdiger Grube announced on Thursday.

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Measures for the “quality offensive” will include additional customer service representatives for regional services, more focus on cleanliness in trains and additional trains on reserve.

“We want to improve the overall situation for our customers,” Grube told daily Bild. “With these first measures we’re working hard, first to improve quality and service, second to insure reliability, and third to improve information for our customers.”

Deutsche Bahn has struggled in recent years with train cancellations and delays in winter, and air conditioning malfunctions in high summer.

“We want to further improve the entire situation for our customers,” Grube said. “With these first measures we’re working hard, first to improve quality and service, second to insure reliability, and third to improve information for our customers.”

Some €100 million will go to modernising the older IC and ICE-2 fleet, while regional stations will get 120 new customer service representatives, and train stations will also see more security personnel.

The lengthy process for filing complaints will be simplified, as will the often difficult to understand train platform audio announcements about delays and changes. By the end of 2011, some 2,800 new digital notice boards will be placed in train stations to provide visual notification of scheduling revisions.

But Grube said announcements in English would only be made in those stations with a high number of international passengers.

By 2013 almost all of the country’s 5,400 stations will be fitted with better weather protection too, the paper said.

Meanwhile €100 million will be spent on de-icing tracks at hub stations during the winter months to prevent delays.

The Local/DAPD/ka

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