They are private in how they act - improving profit by cutting costs while raising prices. Well, raising prices is now effectively capped by the Deutschland Ticket (for slower trains at least) so the focus is even more on cutting costs.
As much as “they” recently really screwed me due to the strikes, which was not really their DB fault since the strike was the conductors’ union, which related to your comment about “acting private” while not really being either private or public, probably leading to the worst of both, rather than the best of each.
To give the DB entity some credit though, it appears they are in that very kind of bind of being stuck dealing with the bad conditions of both being private and public, and in a country which was set up after the war to be as self-deconstructing and self-sabotaging as possible.
How do you deal with problems you both have immense responsibility for and over, while at the same time being unable and not having the power to actually affect, and the very avenues by which you could change that condition are also sabotaged and feckless and mired in self-sabotage to improve it? … you simply abandon, throw up your hands and walk away, but considering the nature of the system, you can’t of course do that as a whole, so you become passive in areas; which is what I experienced when it wasn’t actually the DB that sabotaged me, it was the conductors’ union that really committed a breach of contract and engaged in what should and possibly is criminal activity against me, causing me damages and suffering through their stupid strike in which they didn’t even want more money, they wanted to work less.
I’ll leave it at that, and I agree that I don’t see any of these things really improving, considering the fatal actions and atrocities that have been imposed on Europe now too, but on the sinking ship that is European civilization, it is surely not the DB that is there worst among the bad simply because it is no longer exceptional in the public transportation segment. I won’t go into the mind blowing impressive nature of the freight handling and hauling and logistics efficiency of the DB rail system, but is one of those things that is not nearly as respected as it should be for what it is, once you actually realize what you’re looking at.
1. Transporting people is less profitable than transporting goods, so those trains have to wait for the more important ones. They share tracks due to cost and difficulties with planning new routes.
2. Until the 90s there was a person physically using the railroad switch lever. This meant that these almost never malfunctioned, and if they did, someone was there to immediately fix it. Today they are centrally managed and electrical, and one of the biggest reasons for delays.
Now the thing is that there are many areas where the DB could both cut costs and increase reliability, but are blocked by the unions / Betriebsrat. Rails is an area ripe for automation but in my experience at every little nook a union representative will find a way to block it as it might make some employees redundant.
Which results in tracks getting blocked for traffic, as there is no-one who could monitor the system.
So the issue is not really about unions blocking automation. Now, the recent union win about the 4 day week is not going to help with that.
But generally, the problem seems to be more with infrastructure management/investment and less with the people or the unions.