It‘s unfortunately not as great as it sounds… in 2022 about 40% of trains were delayed (with some cities probably well above that). In my hometown I would have delays almost every day, costing me about 10-30 minutes more time. Once every 2 months I would also be on a train coming to a full stop with no alternatives. Most the people I know from south Germany don’t trust trains to ever arrive on time and rather commute by car, because going by train you have to assume you’ll be late to whatever appointment you have. It is good to finally have affordable tickets, but there’s a lot to be done and invested to the infrastructure before I would consider it a worthy substitute for a car / bike.
Also: apparently the providers of public transportation are losing money on the discounted tickets - which could lead to fewer connections and more delays in the future…
i’ll take a delayed train over no train any day of the week. and honestly all public transportation should be highly subsidized. it shouldn’t need to make money. it’s a public service
I mean, a train getting delayed is indeed a major issue - but one that can be fixed a thousand times easier than traffic from overabundance of cars.
I was taking the ICE from Berlin to Frankfurt and it broke down halfway, and they basically just left you there at the station to deal. I didn’t speak much, if any German, and I was alone tasked with figuring out how the heck to make it the rest of the 3 hour journey. To top it off, the next train we tried to get on wasn’t able to leave because another train had been cancelled, so everyone tried to hop on that one, and at triple capacity it wasn’t safe to depart. I ended up sitting on the floor of the train going 200km/h for two hours, plus the 45 minute transfer, trying to get to the airport. It was a shit show. I don’t trust German trains much anymore
Last time I was in Bavaria and needed to go to a town about an hour away from Cologne. I decided to take the ICE, mixed with some regional express trains to get there. Seemed fine.
First ICE was delayed and I missed the connection. Went to the Information Office and got a separate route. Sounded good as I only needed one change instead of two. Well, turned out, the train was late again and I missed my connection again. I was now about 2-3 hours late already, in a planned 5.5 hour journey.
Then I waited for the next train and it was cancelled. There was no train scheduled for another 1.5 hours so I went to the pub next to the train station to watch some of the World Cup football final that I missed because of this mess. Walked out again to the platform. No information at all but I just stayed waiting. No information coming in at all at the platform but I saw something online about a train coming in “soon”. That info disappeared again.
I had been waiting in 0°C weather for about 1.5 hours on the platform already and after the beers at the pub, I needed to take a leak. Went to go for a piss, come back to the train already at the platform, literally 3 minutes later, and I almost missed it.
In the end, I was at my final stop about 7 hours after the planned time. Never again. Plane would have cost less and I’d have been there a lot quicker.
Man trains in my route are about 98% on time (anecdotal for my route!) with exception of the summer break. Sadly a 8 minute ride costs about 5€.
Really hoping more countries start to subsidize public transport.
If it’s always delayed, why not just plan to take an earlier route?
If you leave work at 6pm and want to take the train at 6:15 to get home at 7, including one change of trains, and your train has 15 minutes delay, you miss the connection. Then you have to wait for the next train, which might be an hour wait. Then that train is delayed by 20 minutes and you get home at 8:30. That’s the real problem of the delays.
Right, so my point is that it’s actually a 6:30 train now.
That doesn’t help because the connections are planned to be meeting this train at the planned time. They plan the trains so that you can move from one to the next to reach your destination. And they know who is on which train and sometimes they’ll delay a connected train to get everyone aboard. But that’s rare and you can’t plan for shit like that. And if your plan is to count it as a 6:30 train, your 45 minute commute turns into a 2h+ commute. At that point, I’d buy a car.
What if you need to get the last train of the day or there are just two or something trains a day in total?
That doesn’t fix the issue. No food? Why not eat less.
I value my time and time with my family. By car my work commute (only one way) was 30min long. By train, if it would be on time 50min - in reality more like 1.15-1.45h, and like I said sometimes the trains would not go for an hour (especially on the way home). I am willing to make a sacrifice of 30 minutes but losing about 1-1.30 hours a day because of delays, I would rather drive by car if I really need to go to work. Thankfully I work Homeoffice most times now so I don’t need to take either one.
I would be more than happy to take public transportation more often again when needed, but like I mentioned - I think that Deutsche Bahn has a lot of work to put in.
I never said to use less transit …
If only my country had the ability and willingness to do the same… Here boarding a train is a borderline death wish.
While there are many problems with trains here in Germany when it comes to longer travels, the cost cutting measures includes almost all public transport. (ICE excluded I think?)
That means most of the benefits from the cost cutting measures are affecting a lot of people in bigger cities with internal public transit. You already dont really need a car for these circumstances, but now you really dont need ANY car (at least were I live) anymore. Even companies offer now to pay it as part of general benefits, further pushing trains.
With prices so low and on easy sign on to the ticket (its a subscription service) and even further subsidisation if you are on social wellfare, the extend is far greater then just public transport push. Its a whole social programm in itself.
Overland trains were always a bit shoddy, now you just see more of it and I hope with further use now, the infrastructure will be revitalised.
Yes, ICE are excluded. The “Deutschland Ticket” (they quickly moved away from the original title “49 Euro Ticket” to allow for changing the price lateron) is only valid in local and regional public transport, but in all of Germany.
I heard the French are planning a similar kind of ticket, and there even have been talks of reciprocative acknowledgement of the tickets.
Mean while, open pit coal mines!
also worth noting is that most states are looking into making the ticket even cheaper for people with little income. in hesse, where i live, they already decided to lower ticket price from 49€ to 31€ a month with the state paying for the difference.
Cool. Meanwhile, my city is trying to encourage the same by boosting parking prices into the stratosphere and reducing spending on public transport. 😮💨
I can’t even imagine life in a place this would be physically possible. (Wisconsin, US)
laughs in swiss
In America we slash public transportation to encourage fuel use and cars
