32% is a remarkably large change in a demographic behavior. Of course the majority make no trips, and a relative few take it frequently.
More meaningful numbers would be how many use it 5 times or more in a year, and how many miles they traveled. Anybody who doesn't use the train at all doesn't really count, unless there was a likelihood of enticing them aboard.
Which is still an absolute number. Just in another context.
It's a relative improvement of 32% which is approximately 3% per year. Not ground breaking, but a nice steady improvement.
ICE usage is also much higher (~6x ) than in-country plane usage to give another point of context. [1](percentage of domestic flights) [2](total air passengers)
I think trips per capita is misleading as a high percentage of the population isn't doing much in-country long distance travel to begin with.
[1] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2021/06...
[2] https://knoema-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/knoema.com/atlas/G...