Case Study: Deutsche Bahn achieves natural-sounding, widely accepted passenger announcements with Nuance Communications' Vocalizer TTS

Deutsche Bahn's customers embrace text‑to‑speech

Deutsche Bahn faced the challenge of deploying automated connection announcements that passengers would accept as natural and clear—especially on regional trains without conductors—while keeping a uniform, recognizable voice. To meet this need they selected Nuance Communications and its Vocalizer Text-to-Speech solution to produce realistic, branded announcements.

Nuance Communications developed an exclusive synthesized Vocalizer TTS voice based on Deutsche Bahn spokesperson Ingo Ruff and deployed it in a pilot on DB Regio trains; the system speaks any text without further studio recordings, saving time and money. Passenger surveys (n=295) showed extremely high acceptance—52% rated the content as helpful and quality measures like volume/tempo averaged over 4/5—improving clarity, customer satisfaction and reinforcing Deutsche Bahn’s brand.

Deutsche Bahn

Christoph Rothfuss

Bid Planning Department,Responsible for Passenger Information