Hamburg - Berlin is one of the busiest long-distance routes in Germany, carrying around 17,000 passengers a day. Passenger numbers increased from 4.5 million in 2014 to 6.1 million last year.

Under the plans unveiled by Lutz at the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) rail summit in Berlin, six new Hamburg - Berlin ICE services will operate in each direction, complementing the existing Hamburg - Berlin - Halle/Leipzig - Munich ICE and Hamburg - Berlin - Prague EuroCity services. This will take the total number of trains linking the two cities to 30 a day in each direction.

Seating capacity will increase from 30,000 seats a day in the current timetable to 36,000 from December 2021.

DB says it is currently in discussions with regional transport authorities in Schleswig-Holstein (Nah.SH), Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (VMV) and Berlin (VBB) on optimising timetables to accommodate additional long-distance services.

DB says the half-hourly service is in line with the aspirations of the so-called Deutschland-Takt, which envisages frequent regular-interval inter-city services across the country.