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In case of severe train disruptions, under what circumstances do I have the right to get taxi costs reimbursed, and under what restrictions?

Example: I'm on a regional train operated by DB Regio AG between Frankfurt (RMV) – Aschaffenburg (VAB) – Würzburg (VVM). At ca. 18:30, lightning strikes in a signal box ahead of us. After a 20 minutes wait, the driver announces that the train is cancelled and will head back, because no trains can pass until the box has been repaired. The operator has made no announcements about rail replacement buses (neither on the train nor on the platform nor in the app nor on the website). My destination is around 40 km away and it is too late to reach it by other modes of public transportation before the following morning.

Can I take a taxi at my own initiative and expect a reimbursement? Can I do so immediately, or should I give the operator time to organise buses? Do they have a deadline? Is there a price limit per person or per taxi?

In this case, it turns out rail replacement buses started running around 21:00, around two hours after the train was cancelled, but we did not know that there would be any such buses at the time. I don't know at what point in time the operator first announced that such buses would start to run and/or if they had a reliable estimate on when they would do so. Trains continued to run around 00:30.

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    The best way is to find someone or call them. Else: you will find no rule (I think on purpose): usually you get reimbursed (if it seems reasonable). Try to get in touch with any DB (or regional transportation company) employee: you may get better service (maybe unofficially).
    – Giacomo Catenazzi
    Commented Jul 12 at 7:56
  • It depends on where you were travelling. DB's conditions do not give you any rights to have a taxi refunded in this case, but certain local transport authorities (which conditions also may apply for regional trains) may do so.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Jul 12 at 8:30
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    The general EU rules (europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/rail/…) don't mention taxis. "if the railway company does not inform you of the available re-routing options within 100 minutes of the scheduled departure of the cancelled train, you are entitled to make your own alternative travel arrangements without the agreement of the railway company with other public transport services i.e. rail, coach or bus. The railway company must then reimburse the necessary, appropriate and reasonable costs that you incurred(...)".
    – jcaron
    Commented Jul 12 at 9:40
  • But (a) they may not apply to regional transport in Germany (haven't checked the exemptions), (b) there may be more favourable rules in Germany and (c) the operator may have even more favourable rules.
    – jcaron
    Commented Jul 12 at 9:41
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    @Hilmar Maybe I have been extremely lucky, maybe the disruptions I experienced were minor, but I have always been able to find staff and get information from them. But even if your experience has been different, past staff being unhelpful should not be an excuse to not at least try to talk to them, especially if "being unable to contact the company" is listed as an requirement for reimbursement.
    – Sabine
    Commented Jul 12 at 10:59

1 Answer 1

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Since your trip is not entirely within the area served by one transport authority, but crosses several transport authorities, you are AFAIK only covered by DB's passenger rights and not by any potentially more favourable conditions from one of the transport authorities.

Under certain very restricted condidtions, DB will reimburse taxi costs in case of operational disruptions (limited to €120 per passenger), but from how you describe the situation, I can't see that any of these conditions were met:

  • your scheduled arrival time is between 00:00 and 05:00 and you expect a delay of more than 60 minutes on your destination (your scheduled arrival time was however around 19:00)
  • the last scheduled departure on a day is cancelled and there are no other means of public transport available to take you to your destination (you were not on the last scheduled departure)
  • your train is cancelled, DB is not offering a replacement service and you are not able to contact them (lack of immediate information is not enough to fulfill this conditions)

Even if one of the conditions had been met, you are still required to use alternative means of transport if provided by DB, and even if it took some time, DB did provide rail replacement buses in your case. Since this was an unexpected failure caused by bad weather, I don't even find it particularly unreasonable that it took two hours to arrange alternative transport.

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  • I was not on the last scheduled departure, but all later scheduled departures were also cancelled. Surely if the last and next-to-last services are both cancelled, passengers on the next-to-last service are not worse off than passengers on the last service?
    – gerrit
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:07
  • @gerrit You stated yourself that the trains resumed running around 0:30. With 'last scheduled service', the last scheduled service before end of operation is ment and not before 0:00. If I understand your question correctly, you decided before 21:00 to take a taxi (it sounds as if you only later found out that rail replacement buses started to run around 21:00), so at that time you could not have known wether the rail service would commence or not during the evening.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Jul 22 at 13:45
  • Ah, I phrased it poorly. The track was reopened around 00:30, but there was no scheduled service any more at that time as far as I know. At any rate, it sounds like travellers would indeed have to wait for many hours to see if rail replacement buses turn up, before they can conclude that no replacement service is coming at all and the very restricted conditions apply. (In the end, I was lucky enough to get a ride with someone, but I might not be so lucky if it happens again.)
    – gerrit
    Commented Jul 22 at 14:00

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