Since the end of November 2025, malfunctioning digital passenger information displays (DFI) have been causing considerable frustration among passengers in the Karlsruhe city area. Despite several announcements of improvements by the Karlsruhe Transport Association (KVV) by the end of February 2026, the reliability of the displays remains inadequate. In view of this situation, city councillor Friedemann Kalmbach has now submitted a comprehensive inquiry to the city administration on behalf of the FÜR Karlsruhe electoral group.
Passengers complain about inaccurate departure times, the complete disappearance of individual lines from the monitors or completely inactive displays. The cause is officially attributed to a complex system changeover in connection with a new control system. Nevertheless, promised deadlines for commissioning, especially for the light rail tunnel, have not yet been met.
Councillor Friedemann Kalmbach finds clear words for the IT failure:
“It is a bad sign for our self-proclaimed IT capital that the official display systems only run unreliably or not at all for months on end. This raises the urgent question of the effectiveness of the previous solutions and the monitoring of external service providers. Citizens do not need any more delays, but reliable information and as promptly as possible.
Due to all these shortcomings, the voters’ group FÜR Karlsruhe has submitted a question to those responsible in the city. In the inquiry, the group of voters asks questions about the responsibility of the external service provider Lumino and about possible recourse claims by the city or the transport companies (VBK/AVG). It also clarifies whether and how the city plans to compensate for commuters’ frustration – for example through goodwill arrangements.
“The reliability of timetable information is a basic prerequisite for the acceptance of local public transport,” Kalmbach continued. “The public’s trust in the technological competence of our transport companies has been damaged. We now expect a transparent error analysis and a binding deadline for when all systems will be working properly again.”
