German transport minister to tie Deutsche Bahn bonuses to punctuality

Germany's new transport minister, Steffen Bilger, is stepping up pressure on the leadership of the national railway operator Deutsche Bahn, announcing plans to tie bonuses for management to punctuality.

Bilger told the Sunday edition of the Bild tabloid that bonus payments for rail managers would be directly affected if government-set targets were not met.

"There will be a concrete impact on the bonus payments of rail managers if the targets set by the federal government are not met," Bilger said. "I think rail customers and taxpayers have a right to have success genuinely measured."

The minister said he wanted to make clear that many Deutsche Bahn employees do excellent work, but where performance is unsatisfactory, there must also be an impact on pay.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's government is currently preparing a new financing agreement with the state-owned company that will set out exactly how many billions of euros will flow into rail infrastructure. The funds are to be tied to specific targets in future.

Political backing for Bilger's push came from within Merz's conservative-led coalition with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). 

"I expressly welcome the fact that Transport Minister Bilger wants to link the bonus payments of rail managers to punctuality," Isabell Cademartori, an SPD transport expert, told the Tagesspiegel newspaper. "People expect the railway to become more reliable. As politicians, we are providing record investments in infrastructure and expect this to be reflected in punctuality."