Fun fact: the dB doesn’t necessarily optimise for punctuality but rather for passengers catching their connection.
That means a punctual train may wait for a train, which is late. Now you’ve got two delayed trains but the passengers caught their connection.
That’s interesting. Never thought about that.
Ya know, I think that’s better than striving for perfect punctuality. Wouldn’t want my 11:23 arriving train to be late by 3 minutes and my 11:25 leaving connection train to be punctual. Shit happens and there’s always going to be one or two trains that are late.
Local transport that isn’t operated by DB is usually punctual to the minute.
I have an idea how to fix this. First, we’re going to give 5 billion to the auto industry.
Hm… It’s suspicious you haven’t mentioned any money going to Bavaria. Are you one of them dirty Greens?
Well part of that 5 billion is going to the Bavarian Motor Works
Don’t forget to complain about China while you’re at it, though. They subsidize their electric car industry. So unfair!!
Never said that’s better.
I didn’t mean to imply that you did. I just can’t stand the hypocrisy of German politicians that use this rhetoric.
All I know about German trains are from Jetlag The Game.
Okay but does this statistic include the trains that never arrived? Because DB loves doing that in all their other statistics.
edit: I read the article. It does not. Classic DB haha
I took two trains in November and both were late.
At this point I’m literally surprised when my train arrives in time. Recently I took one and even the train personnel went like “We will arrive 1 minute early, no idea how that happened”. At least it means you can almost always calculate with some partial refund😂
Classic DB experience
As an American, it’s really weird hearing the German trains are not on time. I always looked to Germany to be perfectly punctual. (And no, that’s not a WWII jibe.)
You’re thinking of Japan.
More likely thinking of Switzerland, since we’re neighbors and speak the same language (kind of). So it’s easier to conflate us.
There are also stereotypes of Germans being really punctual and law-abiding.
I know. But given that German long distance trains were on time only slightly above 50% of the time 1, which even gives up to 6 minutes leeway, I think we can agree that those stereotypes are not necessarily rooted in reality. If we were to hold German trains to Japanese standards the rating would likely be quite abysmal.
Trains are not the only thing that can be on time
If they are really late they always arrive within 59 minutes at their destination so I can’t get a 25% refund. They are really good at not surpassing that one hour.
To work around that, just need to book a connection where the last train only goes once an hour (or every 30 minutes or something) with a connecting time of like 10 minutes. Then you can claim a refund even if the original train is delayed for less than one hour. Remember: The relevant part is the total delay at the destination, not delays of individual trains.
I spotted a GB rail company doing something similar, doing a really unhelpful cancellation to one busy train mid-journey and replacement with an unplanned extra service ten minutes later, all so that a delayed earlier train could get ahead of it and try to avoid falling an hour behind schedule and triggering a higher rate of refunds for its passengers! Meanwhile, the cancelled train passengers all end up ten minutes late which causes no refunds unless they miss a transfer.
Above 50% is better than below 50%. Therefore, pure success. Congratulations DB AG executive board! You really earned the bonus and some extras this year. What would we do without your endless commitment and efforts. /s
Yeah, it’s really getting to the point where this isn’t tolerable any more. I make 4-6 long distance trip per year and you basically can’t make plans without adding in hours of buffer time to account for potential delays.
One of my connections earlier this year was so fucked up, a scheduled 4h journey took me almost 9h. That’s when I finally snapped and just took the plane.
They are more punctual, takes me half the total travel time … and isn’t even that much more expensive. The biggest problem is that you have to rely in the trains to get to the airport …
and isn’t even that much more expensive.
Not for you, but for all of us. Flying is absolutely terrible for the environment.
Yeah, but the trains are absolutely terrible for my mental health … and that could get expensive, too!
I wish the German populace could actually hold their government more accountable than guilt-smearing those who took flights instead of the shabby train
servicetorment available in their country simply because they wanted mobility guarantee. That shouldn’t have been at the expense of some general people who just want to move from A to B with certain reliability on how their time should be used.Flights are indeed environmentally terrible. But what better, affordable, time-wise reliable alternatives does this country have to offer? It’s not viable that money keeps being poured into the car or plane industry while travellers are blamed for not choosing overpriced yet late or even cancelled trains. Travelling less can work for optional trips but some journeys are just not optional.
The fun thing is that most delays not caused by unplannable events like accidents or broken down trains.
If I have to change trains at all I’m either not going or try to get a car somewhere.
That’s odd. What’s your problem with moving between trains?
German rail punctuality stuck at little above 50% in November
What do you think?
Should have said you’re in Germany!
The article is about the DB though?
Sure but that doesn’t mean every comment is only about DB.
It just adds more points of failure to the trip. One train being late (which as you see is quite common) ruins the rest.
So add some connection time. And not everywhere is as bad as DB.
But this topic is about DB…
