Cologne –
It is the first annual quality report that the Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe (KVB) submit to the political committees. And he considers 2020 to be a year of crisis. “We had around 40 percent fewer passengers,” summarizes KVB CEO Stefanie Haaks. Because of the corona pandemic, many passengers avoided buses and trains for fear of being infected in the locked rooms. From a KVB perspective, however, the pandemic also had advantages for driving operations. “Overall, the traffic in the city was significantly lower and this had a positive effect on our punctuality statistics and in the number of cancellations,” Haaks continues. Last year the council applied for KVB to operate local public transport for a further 22.5 years. Part of this is a regular quality report that the KVB must prepare for the previous year.
In addition to punctuality, the report looks at aspects such as the equipment of vehicles, the condition of stops, escalators and elevators and customer satisfaction. According to this, 85.9 percent of all light rail vehicles and 78.7 percent of buses were on time last year. Punctual is when a bus or train leaves a stop no later than three minutes according to the timetable. Accordingly, the shortest tram line 17 was the most punctual with 95.1 percent, the longest line 18 with 80.9 percent the least punctual. The rather poor punctuality rate for the buses is due to the “often critical traffic situation on the city streets”, explains the KVB. Occasionally, if rarely, entire courses were canceled for technical reasons. “The biggest problem was door malfunctions,” reports Haaks. If two doors on a train were to fail, a replacement vehicle would have to be found. But some passengers also contribute to the disruption. “I have never seen so many people in the door in any city,” says the KVB boss.
Repair broken escalators faster
73 percent of the stops met the quality criteria. Mostly it was missing notices such as line network maps that were criticized. But defective escalators and elevators also had an impact. 95 percent of the total of 264 escalators were always available. Once a defect was found, 84 percent of the time it was fixed within four hours, the report said. Of the 61 elevators, 98.5 percent were working, and malfunctions were rectified within four hours in 74.4 percent of the cases. However, some repairs would have taken longer, “too long,” says Haaks. That is why the KVB wants to fix defects more often on its own in the future instead of outsourcing the contracts to external companies.
The customers showed that they were moderately satisfied in terms of the friendliness of the staff, cleanliness and the equipment of the bus stops. In particular, the feeling of security while traveling in buses and trains has decreased. At this point, the KVB will work particularly, Haaks assured.
Eleven million euros in damage from heavy rain
The heavy rain events of the past few months, which had also caused considerable problems for the KVB, do not belong in the quality report. Nevertheless, Haaks drew a conclusion. According to previous estimates, the damage amounted to around eleven million euros. The tracks and stops have been flooded or submerged, the electrics at some stations failed, the depot in Merheim was 40 centimeters under water, three to four railways would have suffered a total loss. “It is therefore to be expected that there will also be impairments in the quality of operations in the coming months,” said a message to the transport committee.
– .
