Deutsche Bahn: Despite additional billion, hardly any more construction

Berlin – The additional billions that the federal government has made available to the railway in recent years have barely accelerated the renovation of the rail network. Instead, they have primarily driven up prices in the construction and railway industries, according to a study by the Ifo Institute led by railway expert Felix Berschin, reported on by the "Tagesspiegel" (Thursday edition). This is particularly controversial because the railway is currently demanding €148 billion from the federal government's special infrastructure fund – three-eighths of the total. In the study, the consultant used railway annual reports to examine how much primary investment the railway made in tracks, switches, bridges, and overhead lines between 2006 and 2024. The result: The amount installed increased by only around 21 percent between 2011 and 2024. However, the federal government and the responsible railway subsidiary DB InfraGO invested more than four times as much in this last year as in 2011. "Rail construction prices have thus risen almost twice as much as road construction," Berschin told the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper. This is demonstrated by a comparison with corresponding construction price indices. The cost explosion cannot therefore be explained by the general inflation in construction prices following the coronavirus crisis and the Ukraine war. The industry expert considers it striking that the construction of new signaling technology and bridges, in particular, became significantly more expensive as early as 2018. Due to the intense climate protection debates, politicians began to provide significantly more money to the railway at that time. By 2018, however, prices for railway construction had only risen by 25 percent compared to 2010. From Berschin's perspective, there is some evidence that the railway and construction industries used the increased government investment to achieve higher margins – for example, in signaling technology, where there are only two major suppliers in Germany: Siemens and Hitachi.