GERMAN Rail (DB) says more than 3 million passengers travelled on ICE and InterCity (IC) trains during the first week of the Uefa European Football Championship in Germany. “There has never been as much rail traffic as at the European Championship in Germany for an international football tournament,” DB says.
DB has sold 182,000 fan tickets, around 60,000 Fan BahnCards and about 7000 Interrail passes.
DB is operating 14 additional trains each day and providing 10,000 additional seats around match days. About 150,000 DB employees are working to get passengers to their destinations, with 300 guides and around 16,000 Uefa volunteers deployed at stations to help fans. DB has set up special welcome desks at the stations in the host cities of Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Dortmund, Leipzig, Gelsenkirchen, Stuttgart and Düsseldorf.
The German team's games are attracting the most passengers to DB's long-distance trains - 20,000 fans travelled to Stuttgart on June 19 for the Germany-Hungary match.
Disruption
“At the same time, there were repeated disruptions on the main rail routes during the opening week of the European Championship: DB would like to thank all fans for their patience and caution,” DB says.
This is despite reducing construction work to a minimum so that arrivals and departures can be planned reliably and having 3000 technicians on standby to ensure that any faults with escalators and lifts are repaired immediately.
The Euro 2024 tournament director, Mr Philipp Lahm, was badly delayed during his rail journey to Düsseldorf on June 21 to watch the match between Ukraine and Slovakia and did not make it to the stadium in time for the kick-off. “We are sorry that Philipp Lahm did not make it to the game on time,” DB said in an apology. “At least he was able to watch the second half in the stadium.”
