The word cantus refers to a steel rail-wheel tyre and is written in all lower case in the company's style.

The company took over local rail passenger services on four routes in December 2006 for ten years.

After the re-tendering of the unchanged Northeast Hesse network on 15 June 2013 for 15 years from 11 December 2016, cantus was again awarded the contract on 24 March 2014.

Since then, annual traffic of 3.9 million train kilometres with 21 Stadler FLIRT electric multiple units has been operated.

In addition, Cantus took part in the Bavarian subnetwork around Würzburg, which reaches Schlüchtern in a branch south of Fulda but was subject to a competition procedure from DB Regio AG.