The Deutsche Bahn (DB) intends to continue restricting its Navigator application to selling only its own tickets, a policy confirmed by the Federal Ministry of Transport in response to an inquiry from the Green party, as reported by the “Rheinische Post”. According to the ministry’s reply, the fundamental rule is that DB AG must initially promote its own products within its sales channels. It may then complement these with products from transport associations or partnerships where DB holds a stake, designed to meet customer needs. Furthermore, the ministry stated that there are no plans to transition the DB Navigator to the publicly beneficial DB InfraGO platform.
Green politician Paula Piechotta strongly criticized this approach, arguing that the DB’s actions demonstrate a lack of interest in the best interests of its passengers. Piechotta told the newspaper that the reluctance to adopt a universally usable app for ticket sales-one that could be used by various rail providers-is highly problematic. She also pointed out that even the Ministry of Transport conceded that DB Fernverkehr can retain the profits generated from ticket sales through the DB Navigator. She lamented that this shows the distribution of costs and profits in the rail sector is currently unfair.
Despite these criticisms concerning its sales policy, the Deutsche Bahn is committed to improving its customer communication through several planned initiatives over the coming months. The goal is to achieve a “perceptible and immediate improvement” in service. By the end of the year, the company aims to ensure timely information regarding maintenance outages in over 90 percent of cases. The ministry, however, offered no information on the current percentage of cases where such alerts are provided. Additionally, the response indicated that an AI chatbot will be rolled out on the company’s homepage by year-end.
