Deutsche Bahn wants to connect 20 major German cities to nationwide long-distance traffic by 2026 with ICE trains running every half hour. “In just three years, that’s almost twice as many cities as today,” Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz told journalists in Berlin on Thursday evening.

Specifically, Augsburg, Erfurt, Göttingen, Halle an der Saale, Hanover, Kassel, Mannheim, Stuttgart and Ulm are to be connected to long-distance traffic. In Berlin, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main (airport and main train station), Hagen, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich, Nuremberg, Wuppertal and Würzburg there is already a half-hourly ICE service.