At today’s association meeting of the regional regional transport association in Freiburg-Zähringen, the speech by the association’s chairman, District Administrator Hanno Hurth, was preceded by the discussion on “Breisgau-S-Bahn 2020 – progress report with information on an urgent decision”, in which the East-West Axis was thematized.
In general, it was found that stable operation on the routes is not possible due to several factors, which, however, are beyond the control of the ZRF. Therefore, several attempts have already been made to get in direct contact with State Transport Minister Winfried Hermann in order to find joint solutions, since the many failures and other problems on the route have significantly reduced acceptance and trust in local public transport. Unfortunately, this has not yet been achieved.
After his speech, District Administrator Hanno Hurth received the full approval of Deputy Chairman Martin Horn, Lord Mayor of Freiburg, and Deputy Chairman Dorothea Störr-Ritter, District Administrator of the Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald district.
Speech by District Administrator Hanno Hurth:
“Ladies and gentlemen,
After the false start of the Breisgau S-Bahn 2020 on the east-west axis in December 2019, the state, as the responsible authority, and DB Regio AG, the transport company commissioned with the operation, with the participation of the ZRF, agreed to come together from December 2020 to drive the so-called interim timetable. This provides for the continuous east-west axis to be split up into the following three lines, each running hourly:
The first line unites the Breisacher Bahn and the Kaiserstuhlbahn Ost, which come from Breisach and Endingen, in Gottenheim and goes via Freiburg to Kirchzarten, with a two-minute stop in Freiburg. Another second line has the same route to Freiburg and runs via Titisee to Neustadt or Seebrugg; the holding time in Freiburg is 10 minutes. The third line runs from Freiburg via Titisee-Neustadt to Villingen.
Between Breisach / Endingen, Gottenheim, Freiburg and Neustadt there is a half-hourly service that is extended every hour to Villingen or Seebrugg. There are three trains an hour between Freiburg and Kirchzarten.
Since the interim concept went into operation, we have unfortunately had two perspectives on reality. Almost like a mantra, the state points out that punctuality on the east-west axis has developed positively, and emphasizes the high punctuality values that exist only a few times within Baden-Württemberg.
Unfortunately, this perception of the situation does not correspond to the realities on site. It is not denied that many trains run on time. However, the punctuality statistics of the country do not include those trains that have been canceled. Unfortunately, we have had to complain about this failure of trains over the past few months. In addition, punctuality is partly bought by the fact that certain stops are not made. A particular annoyance is that in Gottenheim the connection from the Breisacher Bahn to the Kaiserstuhlbahn Ost does not work because the train to Endingen or Breisach is not waiting. This means that connecting travelers have to wait 25 to 30 minutes before they can continue.
Unfortunately, this poor connection quality, the cancellation of trains and, last but not least, the omission of stops has resulted in the acceptance of public transport in our region, especially on the east-west axis, falling significantly. The fact that the trains are always on the move with insufficient capacity because vehicles are malfunctioning or are in the workshop according to schedule has certainly made a major contribution to this.
The chairmen of the ZRF have pointed out this very unfortunate situation to Transport Minister Hermann in several letters over the past few months. Unfortunately, we have to state that our 8 letters from Transport Minister Hermann since February 2020 have not been answered himself, but the problem has obviously been delegated within the Transport Ministry. Unfortunately, mostly only the reference to the punctuality statistics comes from there.
After all, we have been able to achieve success in the past few weeks: the ministry has agreed to commission an expert report examining how operations can be improved on the east-west axis and whether the vehicles used are suitable in order to be able to run the originally planned offer concept; an offer concept was the basis for the expansion of the infrastructure and the tendering of the S-Bahn traffic.
Regardless of the report, measures should be taken now that are obviously suitable for achieving an improvement. So it is z. It is urgently necessary, for example, that further electric vehicles are made available in order to increase the existing reserve and to be able to compensate for short-term train cancellations. The past few months in particular have shown that necessary maintenance and repair work on the existing vehicles – both scheduled and unforeseen – has led to train cancellations. Incidentally, DB AG shares this assessment. Today’s resolution in the proposal therefore once again requires the state, as the responsible authority, to provide additional electric vehicles for the east-west axis. This measure can already start now; no further expert knowledge is required.
Ladies and gentlemen, a lot of trust has been lost in the past few months. So that we can look forward to increasing passenger numbers in public transport, it is important to rebuild this trust with concrete measures but also with discussions. The ZRF has therefore already issued an invitation several times to the ministerial office that Minister Hermann comes to us at the special purpose association assembly. We can only hope that he will not delegate this invitation, but will take a position on site in the special purpose association meeting on how the state intends to advance public transport in our region. “
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