5 ms·

I used to complain about trains being late in my home country before moving to the USA. I had a 90minute commute each way which sounds terrible but it was actua

I used to complain about trains being late in my home country before moving to the USA. I had a 90minute commute each way which sounds terrible but it was actually wonderful. It was 3 hours of bliss each day. I would board the train near my home, sit down and enjoy a smooth, quiet ride (electric and quiet carriages) all the way into the stop next to my work (no changeover). I had internet for almost the whole way. Anyway i would complain when it was 5minutes late. "This is ridiculous!! How can the trains be so bad here!!!". Now having lived in the USA for almost a decade i will never again complain like this. I long for the 90minute each way commute on a train that was silent and silky smooth. The 5minute delays here and there wasn't nearly as bad as i thought at the time. I just didn't have perspective. This article has no precise details on the time trains are delayed. It just says they often run late and gives vague non-specific "The degree of lateness ranged from minutes to several hours" and it's really not based in fact. You can ask anyone anywhere in the world what they think of the delays on their train system and even for the world class train systems people will complain due to the lack of perspective while not realising just how lucky they are.

flohofwoe 3y ago
On my connection from bumfuckville in south-east Germany to Berlin, all involved trains run on a 1 hour schedule, but they are not perfectly connected to each other (for instance in Leipzig I miss the ICE to Berlin by just ten minutes). Sometimes when the previous train is delayed I'm lucky and catch that. Paradoxically saving me time despite a train being delayed ;) All in all I can't complain, last 6 months were bad because of an unbelievable amount of construction work so some flexibility was required (eg going over different cities or taking an "express bus" between two cities, but now the connection is working normally again. With at most one hour until the next train, I guess it's mostly ok if one plans ahead with some wiggle room. People are really getting riled about the tiniest things these days. PS: the most likely delay on that connection is the ICE between Munich and Hamburg via Leipzig and Berlin, the regional trains are pretty much always on time (except when there are construction sites of course).
MandieD 3y ago
My perspective: grew up in Texas where I was not able to leave my little housing development (void of anything but houses) independently until I got a driver's license and car at 16, then went to university in Baltimore with its sketchy buses, subway that appears to have been built to bring housecleaners from the inner city to the wealthy suburbs, and commuter trains that were mostly good for getting to the stadium downtown from various suburban Maryland parking lots. Germany's rail system, despite irritating delays, is a wonder to this Texas gal, and changed my relationship with driving. Intercity rail is about as irritating as flying, delay wise. Getting good with the schedule app adds a lot of agency - I've made lots of spur of the moment connection change decisions (having the 50% off flexible fares card also helps). The rail system has been a bit of a victim of the Deutschlandticket's success. When everyone who kind of takes the subway or train sometimes and can commit to 49 EUR/mo now has unlimited rides on everything but the high speed trains, they use it. And Germany had a really nice summer that extended well past the usual summer time, resulting in packed trains to anywhere vaguely scenic up to this weekend.
- fidotron 3y ago
  > subway that appears to have been built to bring housecleaners from the inner city to the wealthy suburbs Yep. This right here is why North America, with tiny exceptions, has terrible public transit; it is built under the assumption only the poorest will use it and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
ghaff 3y ago
People who commute regularly remember the days when there was some problem--not all the days when things worked pretty much as expected. I will say that I went in maybe 50% of the time into my city office at one point and it was about 90 minutes each way. It got old. Get up at 6am, drive to train station, take train, 10 minute walk to office. It's just a big chunk out of your day and the train could get very crowded. Almost never go into another office these days and that's about 2 hours each way.
- AnotherGoodName 3y ago
  The difference for me was that my home was a 2 minute walk to the train station and work 5minutes. Without changeovers it was essentially 3 hours of "Do what you want to do online guilt free without distraction" sitting in a seat on the train. I'd hate to do any form of intermodal commute but zoning out on a single train? Easy! In fact kind of a nice forced escape.
vlz 3y ago
Here is a quote from a different article with numbers (apparently self reported by Deutsche Bahn) for January 2023 for one station: > Less construction work in cold weather normally means fewer delays. But only 71,8 percent of Deutsche Bahn trains that ran between January 1 and February 9 managed to pull into the station on time, or with a delay of no more than five minutes and 59 seconds. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/2023-deutsche-bahn-delays-already-worse-expected https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/2023-de... Notice that trains which are about five minutes late are not reported as such. These included, the ratio of delayed trains might well be more than half. (Canceled trains are also sometimes not included as delayed, it is unclear if that is the case here.)
fsh 3y ago
The reliability of German long-distance trains is objectively bad (and getting worse). Here are the official statistics: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-6878476 https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... The middle tab ("DB Fernverkehr") shows the percentage of trains arriving less than 16 minutes late (black) and less than 6 minutes late (red). In September 2023, 23% of trains were more than 15 minutes late! Compare this to Switzerland's SBB: https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?highlighted=e68508fb2043b7a18b16ea59ebcdd868 https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?highlighted=e68508fb204... The SBB already considers a train late when it arrives more than 2 minutes after the scheduled time. Yet, they routinely achieve more than 90% punctuality rates.
- josefx 3y ago
  > Here are the official statistics: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... A few years ago David Kriesel did some independent data mining on the reported delays. One point that came up is that official statistics do not even cover train stops that where cancelled and I think it was also mentioned that cancelling stops was one of the ways used to make up for lost time if needed to avoid knock-on effects. German presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
  - mro_name 3y ago
    popcorn!
  - majewsky 3y ago
    The same presentation without Google tracking: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit_ist_eine_zier https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit...
- JW_00000 3y ago
  Interesting. As a point of comparison, here are the official statistics of the Belgian railways: https://punctuality.belgiantrain.be/nl/dashboard https://punctuality.belgiantrain.be/nl/dashboard Last year, 10% of trains were delayed by > 6 minutes; this year 12%. Note, some common complaints about these statistics are: 1. They measure delay at arrival at the end station. However, many trains have some margins built in during their ride, so they may be delayed en-route but "catch up" by the time they reach their end destination; resulting in more favorable numbers. 2. Cancelled trains are not counted in the statistics. So ironically, to improve punctuality statistics, it is "better" to cancel a train than having it run with a delay. 3. Trains are more delayed during peak hours than off-peak or during the weekend, but all trains count equally in these numbers. 4. If a (e.g. 5 minute) delay causes you to miss your transfer, you arrive much later at your final destination (e.g. 30 or 60 minutes). 5. If you inflate travel times (adding some extra "margin"), you can avoid bad statistics but passengers still don't get at their destination faster. This has happened in the past. A fairer way to calculate delays would be to take a sample of all passengers and measure how delayed they arrive at their (final) destination. An organization that advocates for public transport users (TreinTramBus) has done this in the past, I thought, but I can't find it back.
exitheone 3y ago
Having commuted 55 minutes each way into Munich for more than a year, I'd say my average daily delay is about 15 minutes with >30 minutes delay happening at least once a week. That's a level of regular delay that makes early morning meetings impractical because I'll be late more likely than not.
- musha68k 3y ago
  Are there any investigations into what changed? I remember DB had always been looked up to by Austrians but now OEBB seems to run a better service?
  - marsa 3y ago
    anecdotal, but my experience a year ago when i travelled international was: 2/2 delays by OEBB that made me miss connections (and absolutely rude and inconsiderate customer service reps in Vienna HBF on top of that), 1/1 on time trains by DB ICE
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
aleph_minus_one 3y ago
> Anyway i would complain when it was 5minutes late. "This is ridiculous!! How can the trains be so bad here!!!". > Now having lived in the USA for almost a decade i will never again complain like this. The German way is rather to compare the punctuality of the German trains to Swiss or Japanese ones: these are a lot more punctual, so this problem is mostly solvable. Thus German citizens legitimately ask why are the Swiss and Japanese able to solve this problem, and we can't? In particular in consideration that this is considered to be an engineering problem where many German citizens consider Germany to be better in than Switzerland or Japan (legitimately or not shall remain undecided).
- lispm 3y ago
  Japan has dedicated lines for high-speed trains and a mostly north-south corridor. Germany has mixed-use lines in a meshed network directly connected to neighbour countries. > where many German citizens consider Germany to be better in than Switzerland or Japan (legitimately or not shall remain undecided). I think you made that up. Germans complain a lot about their infrastructure and you can read&see a lot of reports&comparisons with other countries train infrastructure.
solarkraft 3y ago
I don't really mind a few minutes here and there. I mind random cancellations, platform changes (announced at the last second of course), mind-bogglingly unreliable (late, overcrowded, unable to carry bikes) replacement buses and incorrect (and sometimes conflicting - this has gotten worse!) information about all of it on the apps. Never take the last long-distance route of the day.

flohofwoe 3y ago

On my connection from bumfuckville in south-east Germany to Berlin, all involved trains run on a 1 hour schedule, but they are not perfectly connected to each other (for instance in Leipzig I miss the ICE to Berlin by just ten minutes). Sometimes when the previous train is delayed I'm lucky and catch that. Paradoxically saving me time despite a train being delayed ;) All in all I can't complain, last 6 months were bad because of an unbelievable amount of construction work so some flexibility was required (eg going over different cities or taking an "express bus" between two cities, but now the connection is working normally again. With at most one hour until the next train, I guess it's mostly ok if one plans ahead with some wiggle room. People are really getting riled about the tiniest things these days. PS: the most likely delay on that connection is the ICE between Munich and Hamburg via Leipzig and Berlin, the regional trains are pretty much always on time (except when there are construction sites of course).

MandieD 3y ago

My perspective: grew up in Texas where I was not able to leave my little housing development (void of anything but houses) independently until I got a driver's license and car at 16, then went to university in Baltimore with its sketchy buses, subway that appears to have been built to bring housecleaners from the inner city to the wealthy suburbs, and commuter trains that were mostly good for getting to the stadium downtown from various suburban Maryland parking lots. Germany's rail system, despite irritating delays, is a wonder to this Texas gal, and changed my relationship with driving. Intercity rail is about as irritating as flying, delay wise. Getting good with the schedule app adds a lot of agency - I've made lots of spur of the moment connection change decisions (having the 50% off flexible fares card also helps). The rail system has been a bit of a victim of the Deutschlandticket's success. When everyone who kind of takes the subway or train sometimes and can commit to 49 EUR/mo now has unlimited rides on everything but the high speed trains, they use it. And Germany had a really nice summer that extended well past the usual summer time, resulting in packed trains to anywhere vaguely scenic up to this weekend.

fidotron 3y ago
> subway that appears to have been built to bring housecleaners from the inner city to the wealthy suburbs Yep. This right here is why North America, with tiny exceptions, has terrible public transit; it is built under the assumption only the poorest will use it and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

ghaff 3y ago

People who commute regularly remember the days when there was some problem--not all the days when things worked pretty much as expected. I will say that I went in maybe 50% of the time into my city office at one point and it was about 90 minutes each way. It got old. Get up at 6am, drive to train station, take train, 10 minute walk to office. It's just a big chunk out of your day and the train could get very crowded. Almost never go into another office these days and that's about 2 hours each way.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago
The difference for me was that my home was a 2 minute walk to the train station and work 5minutes. Without changeovers it was essentially 3 hours of "Do what you want to do online guilt free without distraction" sitting in a seat on the train. I'd hate to do any form of intermodal commute but zoning out on a single train? Easy! In fact kind of a nice forced escape.

vlz 3y ago

Here is a quote from a different article with numbers (apparently self reported by Deutsche Bahn) for January 2023 for one station: > Less construction work in cold weather normally means fewer delays. But only 71,8 percent of Deutsche Bahn trains that ran between January 1 and February 9 managed to pull into the station on time, or with a delay of no more than five minutes and 59 seconds. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/2023-deutsche-bahn-delays-already-worse-expected https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/2023-de... Notice that trains which are about five minutes late are not reported as such. These included, the ratio of delayed trains might well be more than half. (Canceled trains are also sometimes not included as delayed, it is unclear if that is the case here.)

fsh 3y ago

The reliability of German long-distance trains is objectively bad (and getting worse). Here are the official statistics: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-6878476 https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... The middle tab ("DB Fernverkehr") shows the percentage of trains arriving less than 16 minutes late (black) and less than 6 minutes late (red). In September 2023, 23% of trains were more than 15 minutes late! Compare this to Switzerland's SBB: https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?highlighted=e68508fb2043b7a18b16ea59ebcdd868 https://reporting.sbb.ch/punctuality?highlighted=e68508fb204... The SBB already considers a train late when it arrives more than 2 minutes after the scheduled time. Yet, they routinely achieve more than 90% punctuality rates.

josefx 3y ago
> Here are the official statistics: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen... A few years ago David Kriesel did some independent data mining on the reported delays. One point that came up is that official statistics do not even cover train stops that where cancelled and I think it was also mentioned that cancelling stops was one of the ways used to make up for lost time if needed to avoid knock-on effects. German presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk
- mro_name 3y ago
  popcorn!
- majewsky 3y ago
  The same presentation without Google tracking: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit_ist_eine_zier https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit...
JW_00000 3y ago
Interesting. As a point of comparison, here are the official statistics of the Belgian railways: https://punctuality.belgiantrain.be/nl/dashboard https://punctuality.belgiantrain.be/nl/dashboard Last year, 10% of trains were delayed by > 6 minutes; this year 12%. Note, some common complaints about these statistics are: 1. They measure delay at arrival at the end station. However, many trains have some margins built in during their ride, so they may be delayed en-route but "catch up" by the time they reach their end destination; resulting in more favorable numbers. 2. Cancelled trains are not counted in the statistics. So ironically, to improve punctuality statistics, it is "better" to cancel a train than having it run with a delay. 3. Trains are more delayed during peak hours than off-peak or during the weekend, but all trains count equally in these numbers. 4. If a (e.g. 5 minute) delay causes you to miss your transfer, you arrive much later at your final destination (e.g. 30 or 60 minutes). 5. If you inflate travel times (adding some extra "margin"), you can avoid bad statistics but passengers still don't get at their destination faster. This has happened in the past. A fairer way to calculate delays would be to take a sample of all passengers and measure how delayed they arrive at their (final) destination. An organization that advocates for public transport users (TreinTramBus) has done this in the past, I thought, but I can't find it back.

exitheone 3y ago

Having commuted 55 minutes each way into Munich for more than a year, I'd say my average daily delay is about 15 minutes with >30 minutes delay happening at least once a week. That's a level of regular delay that makes early morning meetings impractical because I'll be late more likely than not.

musha68k 3y ago
Are there any investigations into what changed? I remember DB had always been looked up to by Austrians but now OEBB seems to run a better service?
- marsa 3y ago
  anecdotal, but my experience a year ago when i travelled international was: 2/2 delays by OEBB that made me miss connections (and absolutely rude and inconsiderate customer service reps in Vienna HBF on top of that), 1/1 on time trains by DB ICE
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

aleph_minus_one 3y ago

> Anyway i would complain when it was 5minutes late. "This is ridiculous!! How can the trains be so bad here!!!". > Now having lived in the USA for almost a decade i will never again complain like this. The German way is rather to compare the punctuality of the German trains to Swiss or Japanese ones: these are a lot more punctual, so this problem is mostly solvable. Thus German citizens legitimately ask why are the Swiss and Japanese able to solve this problem, and we can't? In particular in consideration that this is considered to be an engineering problem where many German citizens consider Germany to be better in than Switzerland or Japan (legitimately or not shall remain undecided).

lispm 3y ago
Japan has dedicated lines for high-speed trains and a mostly north-south corridor. Germany has mixed-use lines in a meshed network directly connected to neighbour countries. > where many German citizens consider Germany to be better in than Switzerland or Japan (legitimately or not shall remain undecided). I think you made that up. Germans complain a lot about their infrastructure and you can read&see a lot of reports&comparisons with other countries train infrastructure.

solarkraft 3y ago

I don't really mind a few minutes here and there. I mind random cancellations, platform changes (announced at the last second of course), mind-bogglingly unreliable (late, overcrowded, unable to carry bikes) replacement buses and incorrect (and sometimes conflicting - this has gotten worse!) information about all of it on the apps. Never take the last long-distance route of the day.