I don't want to invalidate your experience, but as a frequent public transport user here in CZ and an avid tourist who uses public transport abroad, I notice th

I don't want to invalidate your experience, but as a frequent public transport user here in CZ and an avid tourist who uses public transport abroad, I notice that the tourist experience tends to be a lot better for many reasons. First, tourists frequent certain routes that aren't the same as routes for daily commuters. They tend to be much shorter. Second, tourists rarely travel around in the rush hour and delays are not as crucial for them. You aren't under such a tight time budget when on holiday, unless you need to catch a plane or so. (And most people take a taxi to the airport, given that they travel with baggage.) On the other hand, even a 15 minute delay experienced four days out of five during an average work week gets old fast. Third, tourists tend to visit cities in periods of good weather, when long waiting etc. isn't very arduous. The real resiliency or fragility of any system tends to show under stress, and the most stress that a public transport system can be in is in the rush hour under inclement weather conditions (heavy snow, wind causing trees to fall on the track, freezing temperatures etc.), 30 km from the city centre. So those are precisely the conditions that tourists tend not to encounter during their holidays, and form an inadequately rosy overall picture as a result.