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This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also sc

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

650REDHAIR 2y ago
“Missed your connection? Sounds like a you problem.”
- davedx 2y ago
  "Skill issue"
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you" New York’s Metro-North and LIRR have 95%+ on-time rates [1]. (EDIT: On time is defined as less than 6 minutes late [2].) [1] https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-experience-record-on-time-performance https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-exp... [2] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf
- hungie 2y ago
  That seems... poor? A one in twenty trains late stat will basically mean every person will have to deal with a late train roughly every week? I bet, however, it's not uniformly distributed and some lines are late more than others. Hopefully that 95% is them being honest about the current state, while they push higher.
  - ceroxylon 2y ago
    If true it would beat the 92.5% statistic for Swiss trains that was mentioned in the article.
    - PetitPrince 2y ago
      As JumpCrisscross asked the definition of on-time is important. Most Euro countries define "on time" as "within 5 minutes" with something like 90%+ of their train being on time. SBB CFF FFS has similar numbers, except it defines "on time" as "within 3 minutes"[1] which is of course harder to achieve. [1] https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/responsibility-society-environment/customers/punctuality.html https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/responsibility-society...
  - systemtest 2y ago
    That is a lot better than the 62% on-time statistic for Deutsche Bahn inter-city travel. I deal with late trains around two-thirds of my trips. Sometimes up to two hours of delay.
    - tomjakubowski 2y ago
      Isn't the LIRR more of a commuter rail than intercity?
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > I bet, however, it's not uniformly distributed and some lines are late more than others Sure. But "with a nearly perfect on-time performance of 99.3% on Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Lines," there isn't much room to hide problems. (LIRR is 96.3%.) The point is we have systems that have been well built and well maintained. They just don't get coverage because they just work. (The LIRR is far from perfect, mind you. But it's apparently outperforming the DB. You have to get to some of the worst routes during peak conditions to get in the neighbourhood of DB's systemic numbers.)
- i_am_proteus 2y ago
  My memory from a few months of commuting on LIRR is that on-time is within ten minutes of schedule. CURRENT TIME: 9:45 NEXT TRAIN: 9:42 STATUS: ON TIME
  - vel0city 2y ago
    In your example a train arriving at 9:45 scheduled to arrive at 9:42 would still be on-time in Switzerland.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  The correct comparison in this case is probably Amtrak, which has much lower on time rates.
  - burkaman 2y ago
    In practice it does feel like basically every single Amtrak is delayed after just a few stops, so I would be shocked if the situation is worse in Germany. However to put some numbers on it, here are Amtrak's own stats: https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-and-hours-delay-cause https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-a.... In the flagship northeast corridor (that's Boston - NYC - Philadelphia - DC) the "on-time" percentage is around 80%, where on-time is within 20 minutes. In the rest of the country Amtrak blames freight companies for most delays (https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance), and frankly I am inclined to agree with them. Amtrak does not own those lines and does not have priority on them, and the freight companies don't give a shit about anyone. See for example https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-kids-norfolk-southern https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-k... and the rest of ProPublica's excellent series on the industry.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      i mean the end result for customers is the same no matter whose fault it is, which just makes it not a dependable mode of transport for riders.
      - burkaman 2y ago
        Agreed, I just think it's worth mentioning because a lot of the discussion in this thread is about how much Deutsche Bahn sucks, and while Amtrak also sucks, it doesn't suck quite as much as experience would lead you to believe. Much of the blame is on America as a whole, not specifically Amtrak. Or to put it another way, it sounds like DB has a lot of problems that it could fix, but Amtrak has a lot of problems that are out of its control.
    - 3E8Jn5VjR 2y ago
- renewiltord 2y ago
  BART's on-time definition is "within 5 minutes of scheduled arrival at final station". I recall in NYC's Metro that trains would frequently "go express" and start skipping stops at arbitrary moments. Do these systems do this as well and have that definition? I think I now understand why they do this stuff: they're trying to juice metrics because skipping stations speeds up the train a lot.
happyopossum 2y ago
Not sure why you'd want to lump all of America in to one category of failure when it's demonstrably untrue. Quick example - BART in the Bay Area has a 92-93% on-time rate.
- snovv_crash 2y ago
  Swiss trains define on-time as within 3 minutes of schedule, and this includes all mechanical issues, suicides, etc. And this includes multi-hour intercity train lines, double-decker trains, trains that stop inside of airports, local trains, everything. If you have just a couple lines in a single city, under a single jurisdiction, with no interdependencies and no freight on the same lines, then of course it gets a lot easier.
- renewiltord 2y ago
  There must be some definitional trick here (like canceled trains not counting, or something) because my memory of BART (as a daily multi-commuter: home to work, work to sports, sports to home) was frequent moments of "10 CAR SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT / MILLBRAE TRAIN IN FOR-TEE MINUTES" and shit like that. Enough of that in the year 2019 led to me switching to e-bike/car and frequently this is a much faster trip than the train.
DoneWithAllThat 2y ago
This is by no means true across the country but I’m sure it plays well to the “American public transport sucks” sentiment some folks like to cling to.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago
  Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.
  - systemtest 2y ago
    Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)
    - meroes 2y ago
      extensive geographic distance wise yes, but convenient or on time, no.
      - dgfitz 2y ago
        According to whom? You?
        meroes 2y ago
        Videos I've watched of people's experiences. Things like having a driver be at their max hours, maybe due to unforceen traffic and delays, and Greyhound having no replacement driver ready, causing them to be late. Not hit pieces, just travel vlogs. Everyone has to get off the bus, sit in a sometimes crappy terminal at 2 am, often with no amenities while it's sorted out. I'm a bus advocate, you can see it from another post this week. But Greyhound is not reliable if time is sensitive.
        vel0city 2y ago
trgn 2y ago
It's absolutely crazy to me! I can see my uber driver on my phone stopping to pick up a pretzel from the convenience store, but I can't see where the bus is or get any kind of estimate of when it's going to arrive at the busstop. On vacation this summer in europe, all tram stops had estimated arrival times. Ridiculous, 5-10 minutes out at worst, they wouldn't even need the electronic signs, just a placard that says "just skim your phone for a bit, it'll come".
- systemtest 2y ago
  You are describing a well-off high density city in Western Europe. I unfortunately live in "we used to have trams, most of them were scrapped in favour of bus lines, then the bus lines were scrapped because they were not profitable enough, go buy a car" Europe.
  - trgn 2y ago
    > You are describing a well-off high density city in Western Europe. Yeah.. Grass is greener I admit.
  - muro 2y ago
    Where is that?
- JackFr 2y ago
  > but I can't see where the bus is or get any kind of estimate of when it's going to arrive at the busstop. Not true in New York City. See all the busses and all the stops. Estimated number of passengers and arrival times. https://bustime.mta.info/#m4 https://bustime.mta.info/#m4
  - embedded_hiker 2y ago
    Portland Oregon as well. There are a variety of apps that use the API to get arrival info from Tri Met, and all train stops, and many bus stops, have displays.
- vel0city 2y ago
systemtest 2y ago
That quote sounds like my experience with Deutsche Bahn.
shrimp_emoji 2y ago
That's like Italian trains, but it's more like "nobody knows what platform it's gonna be at; keep a look out and run when you see it; also, screw you".
vel0city 2y ago
The Dallas Area Raipd Transit on-time rate is about the same as this Swiss train system at 93%. The Trinity Railway Express is 97%, so higher on-time rate than the Swiss system.
- nodar86 2y ago
  And how do they define “on-time”? In Switzerland a train is considered on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - nightpool 2y ago
    The Trinity Railway defines on time performance for trains as arrival within 5 minutes of schedule[1]. It's not materially different from the Swiss standard. 1: https://ridetrinitymetro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Service-Standards_August-2022.pdf https://ridetrinitymetro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Serv...
InsideOutSanta 2y ago
The Swiss rail lines are used close to capacity. If a train is too much late, it has follow-on effects on other trains, and the whole railway system can start to run into problems. So for the whole system to work, there can't be any overly late trains. This applies to all trains, not just German trains. So this doesn't really have anything to do with that single train not being on time, or with differences in culture or something like that, it's about keeping the system running. If you have a system that isn't used at capacity, then it doesn't matter much if individual trains run late, the system itself will still keep on running.
LorenPechtel 2y ago
The issue is that trains need tracks. Tracks are very expensive and a limited resource. The stricter you are about time the more trains you can pack into a given amount of trackage. A bus uses a road and doesn't have a problem like that because there is far more road than the buses need.
porphyra 2y ago
North American trains have a huge amount of level crossings, which, predictably, cause tons of accidents when oblivious drivers get hit by trains. Although most of the world considers high speed trains to be incompatible with level crossings, the recently built Brightline in Florida has several level crossings and has already hit many cars. [0][1] Caltrain routinely has delays due to accidents involving grade crossings. Despite spending decades and hundreds of millions of dollars, they still haven't managed to fully grade separate the line. [2] Fun fact, Canada's Turbotrain was one of the earliest examples of high speed rail in the world in the 1960s and was even faster than the Shinkansen at the time. However, it hit a truck only one hour into its debut run. This is often cited as the main reason why there's no high speed rail in Canada despite the density and proximity of Toronto and Montreal being ideal for such a line. [3] [0] https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-beach/car-on-the-tracks-hit-by-brightline-train-in-delray-beach https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-... [1] https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/brightline-train-hits-car-apparently-stuck-on-tracks-at-hollywood-crossing/ https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/brightline-train-hits-ca... [2] https://www.caltrain.com/projects/ccs https://www.caltrain.com/projects/ccs [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain

This is so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you"

650REDHAIR 2y ago

“Missed your connection? Sounds like a you problem.”

davedx 2y ago
"Skill issue"

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> so foreign to my American perspective - our public transport is more like, "maybe it'll be on time, probably not, you'll have no way of knowing, also screw you" New York’s Metro-North and LIRR have 95%+ on-time rates [1]. (EDIT: On time is defined as less than 6 minutes late [2].) [1] https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-experience-record-on-time-performance https://www.metro-magazine.com/10217862/metro-north-lirr-exp... [2] https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf https://www.osc.ny.gov/files/reports/pdf/report-9-2025.pdf

hungie 2y ago
That seems... poor? A one in twenty trains late stat will basically mean every person will have to deal with a late train roughly every week? I bet, however, it's not uniformly distributed and some lines are late more than others. Hopefully that 95% is them being honest about the current state, while they push higher.
- ceroxylon 2y ago
  If true it would beat the 92.5% statistic for Swiss trains that was mentioned in the article.
  - PetitPrince 2y ago
    As JumpCrisscross asked the definition of on-time is important. Most Euro countries define "on time" as "within 5 minutes" with something like 90%+ of their train being on time. SBB CFF FFS has similar numbers, except it defines "on time" as "within 3 minutes"[1] which is of course harder to achieve. [1] https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/responsibility-society-environment/customers/punctuality.html https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/responsibility-society...
- systemtest 2y ago
  That is a lot better than the 62% on-time statistic for Deutsche Bahn inter-city travel. I deal with late trains around two-thirds of my trips. Sometimes up to two hours of delay.
  - tomjakubowski 2y ago
    Isn't the LIRR more of a commuter rail than intercity?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > I bet, however, it's not uniformly distributed and some lines are late more than others Sure. But "with a nearly perfect on-time performance of 99.3% on Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Lines," there isn't much room to hide problems. (LIRR is 96.3%.) The point is we have systems that have been well built and well maintained. They just don't get coverage because they just work. (The LIRR is far from perfect, mind you. But it's apparently outperforming the DB. You have to get to some of the worst routes during peak conditions to get in the neighbourhood of DB's systemic numbers.)
i_am_proteus 2y ago
My memory from a few months of commuting on LIRR is that on-time is within ten minutes of schedule. CURRENT TIME: 9:45 NEXT TRAIN: 9:42 STATUS: ON TIME
- vel0city 2y ago
  In your example a train arriving at 9:45 scheduled to arrive at 9:42 would still be on-time in Switzerland.
bobthepanda 2y ago
The correct comparison in this case is probably Amtrak, which has much lower on time rates.
- burkaman 2y ago
  In practice it does feel like basically every single Amtrak is delayed after just a few stops, so I would be shocked if the situation is worse in Germany. However to put some numbers on it, here are Amtrak's own stats: https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-and-hours-delay-cause https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-a.... In the flagship northeast corridor (that's Boston - NYC - Philadelphia - DC) the "on-time" percentage is around 80%, where on-time is within 20 minutes. In the rest of the country Amtrak blames freight companies for most delays (https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance), and frankly I am inclined to agree with them. Amtrak does not own those lines and does not have priority on them, and the freight companies don't give a shit about anyone. See for example https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-kids-norfolk-southern https://www.propublica.org/article/trains-crossing-blocked-k... and the rest of ProPublica's excellent series on the industry.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    i mean the end result for customers is the same no matter whose fault it is, which just makes it not a dependable mode of transport for riders.
    - burkaman 2y ago
      Agreed, I just think it's worth mentioning because a lot of the discussion in this thread is about how much Deutsche Bahn sucks, and while Amtrak also sucks, it doesn't suck quite as much as experience would lead you to believe. Much of the blame is on America as a whole, not specifically Amtrak. Or to put it another way, it sounds like DB has a lot of problems that it could fix, but Amtrak has a lot of problems that are out of its control.
  - 3E8Jn5VjR 2y ago
renewiltord 2y ago
BART's on-time definition is "within 5 minutes of scheduled arrival at final station". I recall in NYC's Metro that trains would frequently "go express" and start skipping stops at arbitrary moments. Do these systems do this as well and have that definition? I think I now understand why they do this stuff: they're trying to juice metrics because skipping stations speeds up the train a lot.

happyopossum 2y ago

Not sure why you'd want to lump all of America in to one category of failure when it's demonstrably untrue. Quick example - BART in the Bay Area has a 92-93% on-time rate.

snovv_crash 2y ago
Swiss trains define on-time as within 3 minutes of schedule, and this includes all mechanical issues, suicides, etc. And this includes multi-hour intercity train lines, double-decker trains, trains that stop inside of airports, local trains, everything. If you have just a couple lines in a single city, under a single jurisdiction, with no interdependencies and no freight on the same lines, then of course it gets a lot easier.
renewiltord 2y ago
There must be some definitional trick here (like canceled trains not counting, or something) because my memory of BART (as a daily multi-commuter: home to work, work to sports, sports to home) was frequent moments of "10 CAR SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT / MILLBRAE TRAIN IN FOR-TEE MINUTES" and shit like that. Enough of that in the year 2019 led to me switching to e-bike/car and frequently this is a much faster trip than the train.

DoneWithAllThat 2y ago

This is by no means true across the country but I’m sure it plays well to the “American public transport sucks” sentiment some folks like to cling to.

_zoltan_ 2y ago
Across the whole country it's absolutely true. There are car only distances for a lot of stuff.
- systemtest 2y ago
  Does the US not have an extensive network of Greyhound busses, similar to our FlixBus system? Or is that just something I saw in the movies? (I'm not American)
  - meroes 2y ago
    extensive geographic distance wise yes, but convenient or on time, no.
    - dgfitz 2y ago
      According to whom? You?
      - meroes 2y ago
        Videos I've watched of people's experiences. Things like having a driver be at their max hours, maybe due to unforceen traffic and delays, and Greyhound having no replacement driver ready, causing them to be late. Not hit pieces, just travel vlogs. Everyone has to get off the bus, sit in a sometimes crappy terminal at 2 am, often with no amenities while it's sorted out. I'm a bus advocate, you can see it from another post this week. But Greyhound is not reliable if time is sensitive.
        vel0city 2y ago

trgn 2y ago

It's absolutely crazy to me! I can see my uber driver on my phone stopping to pick up a pretzel from the convenience store, but I can't see where the bus is or get any kind of estimate of when it's going to arrive at the busstop. On vacation this summer in europe, all tram stops had estimated arrival times. Ridiculous, 5-10 minutes out at worst, they wouldn't even need the electronic signs, just a placard that says "just skim your phone for a bit, it'll come".

systemtest 2y ago
You are describing a well-off high density city in Western Europe. I unfortunately live in "we used to have trams, most of them were scrapped in favour of bus lines, then the bus lines were scrapped because they were not profitable enough, go buy a car" Europe.
- trgn 2y ago
  > You are describing a well-off high density city in Western Europe. Yeah.. Grass is greener I admit.
- muro 2y ago
  Where is that?
JackFr 2y ago
> but I can't see where the bus is or get any kind of estimate of when it's going to arrive at the busstop. Not true in New York City. See all the busses and all the stops. Estimated number of passengers and arrival times. https://bustime.mta.info/#m4 https://bustime.mta.info/#m4
- embedded_hiker 2y ago
  Portland Oregon as well. There are a variety of apps that use the API to get arrival info from Tri Met, and all train stops, and many bus stops, have displays.
vel0city 2y ago

systemtest 2y ago

That quote sounds like my experience with Deutsche Bahn.

shrimp_emoji 2y ago

That's like Italian trains, but it's more like "nobody knows what platform it's gonna be at; keep a look out and run when you see it; also, screw you".

vel0city 2y ago

The Dallas Area Raipd Transit on-time rate is about the same as this Swiss train system at 93%. The Trinity Railway Express is 97%, so higher on-time rate than the Swiss system.

nodar86 2y ago
And how do they define “on-time”? In Switzerland a train is considered on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nightpool 2y ago
  The Trinity Railway defines on time performance for trains as arrival within 5 minutes of schedule[1]. It's not materially different from the Swiss standard. 1: https://ridetrinitymetro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Service-Standards_August-2022.pdf https://ridetrinitymetro.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Serv...

InsideOutSanta 2y ago

The Swiss rail lines are used close to capacity. If a train is too much late, it has follow-on effects on other trains, and the whole railway system can start to run into problems. So for the whole system to work, there can't be any overly late trains. This applies to all trains, not just German trains. So this doesn't really have anything to do with that single train not being on time, or with differences in culture or something like that, it's about keeping the system running. If you have a system that isn't used at capacity, then it doesn't matter much if individual trains run late, the system itself will still keep on running.

LorenPechtel 2y ago

The issue is that trains need tracks. Tracks are very expensive and a limited resource. The stricter you are about time the more trains you can pack into a given amount of trackage. A bus uses a road and doesn't have a problem like that because there is far more road than the buses need.

porphyra 2y ago

North American trains have a huge amount of level crossings, which, predictably, cause tons of accidents when oblivious drivers get hit by trains. Although most of the world considers high speed trains to be incompatible with level crossings, the recently built Brightline in Florida has several level crossings and has already hit many cars. [0][1] Caltrain routinely has delays due to accidents involving grade crossings. Despite spending decades and hundreds of millions of dollars, they still haven't managed to fully grade separate the line. [2] Fun fact, Canada's Turbotrain was one of the earliest examples of high speed rail in the world in the 1960s and was even faster than the Shinkansen at the time. However, it hit a truck only one hour into its debut run. This is often cited as the main reason why there's no high speed rail in Canada despite the density and proximity of Toronto and Montreal being ideal for such a line. [3] [0] https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-beach/car-on-the-tracks-hit-by-brightline-train-in-delray-beach https://www.wptv.com/news/region-s-palm-beach-county/delray-... [1] https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/brightline-train-hits-car-apparently-stuck-on-tracks-at-hollywood-crossing/ https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/brightline-train-hits-ca... [2] https://www.caltrain.com/projects/ccs https://www.caltrain.com/projects/ccs [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain