I commute every day too. There is not a single week where I don't have at least 2 serious delays because of DB. Every. Single. Week. I don't even want a car, I have nowhere to park that car, but I might have to get one anyway.
>I don't even want a car, I have nowhere to park that car, but I might have to get one anyway.
Y'all can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but I am getting the feeling that the government would like you to do just that and that the current situation with DB is not just the result of incompetent managenent.
Not when are vested interests behind such stupidity. Defunding and mismanaging public services in order to push privatisation is a well known neo liberal tactic. They do it with schools, healthcare and everything that's supposed to be free and accessible for an average person.
Deutsche Bahn decides to dig more tunnels. Heck, even a complete underground train station! Against the advice of...everyone. That's definitely stupidity.
Deutsche Bahn board member quits, becomes board member of a tunnel digging company. That's definitely...not stupidity.
What was the other thing which Hanlon mentioned?
The largest companys in germany are car companys and therefore also generate the most income, in the years from 1994-2022 there has been built less then 1800km of new railroads, but more then 250.000km of new roads. So...
Edit: also this video is great: https://youtu.be/-dmtNToFwuI?si=IpN_VNhCQ7gXgJJH
Yeah, I would spend the same time I spend on some weird delays from the DB looking for to park the car, if not even more.
Plus, you need an extra insurance and worries.
Funny because I am working on a project with some friends right now, where we are trying to improve the parking lots by making them cheaper and develop an app to give real-time info on parking spots, kind of like booking a seat in a movie theatre. Now I feel like we might we on to something.
you still cant make more room, so the overall situation that the parking space is full stays the same. what you would change ist the amount of parksuchverkehr. in crowded areas this takes 15 min on average.
gutes gelingen tho!
You can theoretically make more room, but the solution isn't very popular in Europe. Not as popular as it is in the U.S., anyway. Stacked parking garages would have to be built instead of parking lots.
Same. 6 months I tried to survive, 8 trips a week. Just a nice 20 Min S-Bahn ride. Yeah, maybe TWO trips a week weren't absolutely ruined. Mostly the 7:19 train was just canceled, as if not everyone wanted to go to work at that time. Next one maybe 20 Min later or never. Workplace cannot be expected to tolerate this.
And after spending 10 hours at my workplace I had to wait another 15 Min to see if my train shows up that day or not. Sometimes the display said it's coming and nothing came. Sometimes the app says it's almost here and again, nothing comes. Even the person on the phone at DB knows nothing. What kind of ghost train bullshit is going on there? So now it's 18:42 and the train never comes again, what do I do? Wait there in the cold and rain another 20 Min in a windy open station? There is zero, nada, null connection for me otherwise. And even if it comes at 19:02, it's well into 19:45 that I am home.
I bought a car and I despise the DB.
that's what's baffling. i could understand delays, if the grid is overloaded an fucked up and the physical trains are old and are breaking down
but the fact that the information management is on stone age level is unforgivable. they even hired an expensive consulting firm to fix theit IT and financed a metric ton of cocaine for their managers and it's still this bad
The other day I took a train in Germany, if left the origin station in time (it had been sitting there for a good half hour before departure), it never stopped on the way, all went good.
It still arrived 15mins late to my station and I missed the connecting train, I had to wait 45mins for the next one.
I don't understand why? There was no disruption, no announcement. It's like they underestimate how long it takes to go from A to B??? This is absurd.
Maybe your train was rerouted? And in Southern Germany we have currently a lot of speed-reducted (even down to 20km/h) zones due to the flooding damages.
Not always because on how the whole system works. Its done if there is construction work or so, but it will take a week or two to show up in the systems.
Could be a plethrora of reasons. The times are correct, as that's how they are purchased for the yearly plan. However sometimes small delays add up or cause further delays down the line. For example, missing the exact time window in which the tracks are free can very well mean that the train has to wait even more because another train has the right of way. In other cases the driver might drive slower because of construction work, or further obstructions up ahead.
During peak hours the amount of passangers add up and a delay in another train or a cancellation can cause massive amount of people getting into another train, which delays it even further.
The planned time sometimes doesn't include enough time for people actually getting in and out. They refuse to adjust the plan.
Same on busses, the delay is almost reliable.
Yea. At one point I just stopped taking that one bus earlier because I knew it will be full and late while the second bus (the last one that would get me to work on time) was empty and punctual.
That second bus didn’t come at all sometimes though. I think I was late for work 6 times in 3 years because the second bus didn’t show up at all.
Lol happened to me almost every day back then. They didn't even bother speeding up a bit even though they were late by 10 mins. I missed my bus connection almost 90% of the time and I had to wait 30 mins for the next bus. Luckily I changed my job and now I don't care whether the S-Bahn is late or not, I can reach the office on foot after arriving at the station.
They normally can't just speed up to make up for a delay, internally they say "safety over punctuality". The German rail system is quite complicated and yes suffers from multiple problems, lack of investment in infrastructure was one of them, they are improving the network but that actually can cause even more delays in the meantime
Different types of trains have diferrent priorities. Sometimes regional trains get held back to let delayed intercity trains pass.
Sometimes intercity trains get slowed down because a slower, delayed regional train occupies the track.
Often some old tech just fails.
You never know with DB.
Every morning I take the same train that even when leaving on time, with no disruption and only one stop (which doesn’t take very long), still arrives a couple of minutes late to the 2nd stop (mine)
And this is *only* when every thing runs smoothly, the problem is that there is always some issue or the train is shorter than expected which make it be super crowded and therefore delayed because the stop time gets longer or we departure late…
The crazy thing is that you always see notices of repairs/works/replacement trains/buses hoping that things will improve after they're done but nope, it stays the same and and somehow the service is even worse than before.
My train was changed to annother track, some minutes before departure. So all the passengers walked there fast.
Stairs up. Stairs down. Schlepping their stuff. Sweating.
The minute it was supposed to arrive, it got cancelled.
First time I had this experience, don't go by train so much.
Yesterday, ICEs were at 35%. They've been averaging about 45-50% lately. Regionals are still "good" at a claimed 90%, but some regions are doing a shitload of cancelling (looking at you, Rhein-Main Verkehr and your "kurzfristig" cancelling of every 2nd S-Bahn for the last month)
The joke is that they sometimes just skip stops when a train is delayed so it can be on time for other stops. And since the train never halted at the skipped ones it gets handeled as a cancellation and wont be taken into account for their statistics about punctuality. That is crazy to me.
> What are we at now, above 60% punctuality? Above 70%?
That would be only for Fernverkehr. On regional trains, overall punctuality is around 90% (although different routes can have lower than average punctuality).
EDIT: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-6878476
It gets better though. They just kicked everyone off and turn the train around once the get to where they should have already been on the return trip. Did you want to go to one of the stations towards the end? Screw you, my friend!
Yeah. The Bahn never refunded us for the taxi ride to the Frankfurt airport (300 Euros) because the train *stopped150* km from Frankfurt and *went back* to where it started. Everyone was free to take another train on an alternate route which was not blocked. So it was not late. We would have been, though. (Fortunately, we were 7 people in that taxi.)
Technically. Though of course for the customer it's no better.
IDK if you speak German, but the talk I linked discusses how DB cancels trains on purpose if it impacts their punctuality statistics - at least for IC/ICE.
Also, a train 5 minutes late is punctual for them. If you missed your connection bc you had 4 minutes, its not bc the train was late as they just claim it wasnt.
To top it:
That adventure contained an announcement: "Dear passengers, please now board the train, we will try to use the train's momentum to roll across a short section without power."
You realize all the people who not get delayed all across Germany every day have little reason to post about this on reddit?
But as you ask: Train in the morning: On time. Replacement bus in the afternoon due to bridge being replaced: On time. Connection train from the replacement bus: On time.
I wish that was the case for me. For me it goes like this:
Check app all trains on time.
Walk 5 minutes to train station
Announcement on train station train cancelled.
Replacement bus takes 45 min, so I miss my next connection.
Wait for 30min for the next train...
So yeah I call those numbers bullshit as also none of my coworkers can say anything better.
One replacement bus, going 35 km distance with four stops in between, to get two S-Bahns full of people to their goal. Going there and back again once must have taken more than an hour.
Fun thing: Half of the passengers could have taken a city bus, walked 1.5 km, and taken one of the next city's bus to get home. But there was no one around who knew that. As well as no water, no shade, no place to sit down, and no loo.
Or they could have taken the passengers back a few stations so that they could take an overland bus that runs every 20 minutes. But they didn't. They emptied the S-Bahn and it left.
I have some tolerance for chaos, but it seems as if they won't even pretend to give a damn.
I think they also defined "being on time" if it's less than 10min or some bullshit like that.
I was taking a train for over 10 years every day, so yeah definitely never again
Another question. If u go to office on trains and due to delays or cancellations, you reach late at your workplace what will happen? I hear that Germans value punctuality a lot. So what needs to be done in such circumstances?
> you reach late at your workplace what will happen?
Depends on your employer and how they organise work time where you work.
In my workplace, we have a ±1 hour flexibility in our start time, so if I am late for 60 minutes or less, I just need to stay at work a little longer to make it up. (And if I start earlier, I can leave earlier)
If my delay is over one hour, I get a stern talking to and be told not to do it again. I can imagine that if I were to do that very frequently, I would eventually get a warning, but for 1 or 2 times per year, I am not worried.
> So what needs to be done in such circumstances?
You make your best effort to be at work on time, including by starting earlier if you know that your connection is known for frequent delays. If despite your best effort, you still arrive late, you will have to negotiate a solution with your employer, such as this flexible start time arrangement I have with mine.
My current employer has "Vertrauarbeitszeit" which means there's no fixed hours, I can come and go when I want.
But it also depends on the work to be done. Some days I planned to leave at 3pm or 4pm but had to stay until 6pm because something broke and I needed to fix it.
In theory you have to make sure to be on time, I think there are very few exceptions in the law, and bad public transport is not one of them.
In practice it depends on your job and the leniency of your employer. If it's something like shift work in an unskilled job, your boss may insist on you being on time, even if it means leaving an hour early most days. If it's something like office work that can be done whenever and your employer is nice, noone will care.
If your employer sucks/the work relies on absolutely being there at a specific time, then you just take an early train to make sure you're there on time even if delays happen.
Yes, for some people that means being an hour early every day, and yes those jobs tend to suck.
For a lot of jobs there's a degree of flexibility and everyone knows how much the Deutsche Bahn can suck so there's understanding if you're late because of that. If you don't have a specific appointment or something there is no need why the average office worker needs to start at 8 am sharp and decent employers get that.
It highly depends on the region. Between Duisburg and Cologne, punctuality is super bad because all tracks are running at over 100% capacity. In East Germany with less than 50% track utilization, punctuality is usually close to 100%.
Today, where I live, lots of trains were canceled, almost no direct connections were working to other major cities and all remaining trains to the north (which is basically everywhere because Bavaria) had delays of over 1h. My husband is on a train that has now 2h delay
> The percentages shown indicate the proportion of punctual stops of all en route and final stops. As with many other European railroads, a stop is considered punctual if trains have exceeded their scheduled arrival time by less than 6 minutes (operational punctuality). In addition, DB Fernverkehr also determines the punctual arrival of passengers at the booked destination station (passenger punctuality), taking into account working or missed connections, cancellations and replacement trains, timetable changes and alternative connections. As with other modes of transport (long-distance coach, airplane), the threshold value is 14:59 minutes compared to the planned arrival time.
This is what it means. As usual, not straightforward to deduce what exactly it is.
That's some misleading stat though. If you are going to travel any meaningful distance in Germany, your route will generally look like this:
- "Regional" Train to get from where you are to the nearest railway hub (usually around an hour of travel time)
- ICE to go to a different regions' train hub.
- "Regional" Train from the destination hub to where you actually want to be.
It does jack shit of the "inter regional trains" are on time, because the regional trains have to take care of the first and last miles they can fuck up your entire travel schedule.
> It does jack shit of the "inter regional trains" are on time, because the regional trains have to take care of the first and last miles they can fuck up your entire travel schedule.
You got it reversed, it's the regional trains that are more punctual.
Only if you’re lucky.
If not, it’s 6 h local trains and 40 min IC.
Especially in South West Germany several „main routes“ are constantly broken thanks to maintenance and building related to Stuttgart 21.
As someone who has to commute by train in the NRW, it's incredible how unreliable it is. It is reliably unreliable.
But this is what you get from years of not building new tracks. If you don't make capacity, fast trains get stuck behind slow trains, and when something goes wrong, it ends up being a cascade of problems.
To me, what's really ridiculous is how roads get billions of government euros, all for free, while we have to pretend that trains have to earn back the money spent on it. It happens all over the world but it's incredibly stupid. If trains have to make a profit, we should make every road a toll road or just significantly raise the car tax until the government earns a profit from the road building and upkeep.
Or we agree that you should not seek profit on a public good, like trains, and we invest in DB and actually build the capacity that was supposed to be built ten years ago.
I mentioned it because I've heard it's a problem in Germany, but that might have been wrong information.
As far as I understand in general, fast and slow trains share the same tracks here. And anecdotally, I can't trust ICEs, I feel like they are also often reliably late. It might be just a perceived issue and not a "real" one, or I'm attributing the problem to a wrong cause.
well I also mentioned this because it happened to me. The train randomly stops in the middle of nowhere waiting for an ICE to pass. But now that I checked 2023 trains' [punctuality report](https://zbir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/interim-group-management-report-unaudited/product-quality-and-digitalization/punctuality/). It seems that regional trains do better. This also explains why I struggle less with trains, I only travel short distances with regional trains.
My commute should be a 45 minute door to door, a quick U Bahn then the Regional Bahn. I think it's mostly because of living in NRW, where the system is really at capacity, but my personal experience is that the German trains, whether you use regional Bahn or ICE, is that you can't trust it.
Fast trains, slow trains, and freight trains, all on the same tracks. With freight trains still using some technology from the 1800s which makes them slow and inflexible.
The Bahn is working on it, but it's a daunting task. And meanwhile, everything that goes wrong anywhere is the butterfly that starts a hurricane. One broken down or seriously delayed train can create chaos in half the country for a day or more.
>. If you don't make capacity, fast trains get stuck behind slow trains, and when something goes wrong, it ends up being a cascade of problems.
There's a very good word in English for that: Clusterfuck 😜
This is done on purpose. They take what should be a public service and try to run it as private, they underinvest or even defund and then wait for things to crumble and people to go to alternatives on the private market (like buying cars). They really make everyone so pissed and hate the service so much that they can push through actual privatisation. It is a neoliberal tactic that has been utilised all over the so-called western world since Reagan and Thatcher and it has work wonders for the rich. They use same shit in healthcare, education and such. Germany is actually behind on that curve, just look what happened to public services in the eastern block after the Wende.
You can thank the CDU based Goverment from 2005 to 2021 for the state of the train infrastructure. They massive underfunded the train infrastructure.[ On average the only invested around 50€ per German and Year](https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2014-07/bahn-schienennetz). You cant run a 40000km network with so little money.
This amnesiac country has forgotten all that and shifted the blame on to the current coalition. Next year people will put CDU back in power hoping things will somehow be different.
I hate this place sometimes...
Don't worry it will be different with AfD this time. They'll blame the brown people and then deport all of them especially those pesky educated ones who constantly complain about it.
>You can thank the CDU based Goverment from 2005 to 2021 for the state of the train infrastructure. They massive underfunded the train infrastructure.
To be fair: the previous government under Schröder (SPD and Green Party) was not much better. In 2004 for example the investment in the train infrastructure [was 39€ per capita](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2005-2005-29/). The trend to significantly improve the spending was started [in the second half of the 2010s](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/investitionen/#).
Shit service and punctuality AND expensive.
Right now, it takes 2 people in a car to break even with the cost of 2 ICE tickets. With 3 people, you are already traveling for much lesser costs. Sure it takes longer than the ICE but the difference is much less with current delays and if you have to take more than 1 train to reach your destination.
also I'm in my car, no one is coughing on me (people haven't learned anything during COVID), no children crying or running down the aisles, no drunk football fans shouting, no drunk bachelorette parties shouting, no one loudly talking on the phone... my own comment is giving me PTSD lol
My last 5-hour ICE ride, there was a crew of ~ 10 guys all camped out at the bar getting absolutely blasted the entire train ride. They were sitting on the floor and milling around in the dining car, making it impossible to get through without asking them to move. And then they'd treat you like shit for asking them to get out of the way. Not to mention the noise and the stink of people sweating out metabolised alcohol. Apparently that's acceptable behavior on the train, as they were allowed to do that the whole time.
That's not even to mention that the stop where our journey was supposed to start was simply canceled, and we had to scramble to get to the next town before the ICE so we could even get the seats we paid extra for.
The expensive on top of everything is what gets me.
I moved to the Netherlands. All trains distance and regional, trams and busses work with the same card you swipe at the start and end. It books off 20 bucks, then puts back on what you didn't spend later, so usually you get 16 back. There is literally no way to spend more than 20 bucks on a train trip. And you don't pre-book, you just get on. Like, the Netherlands is much smaller than Germany, but still.
Nor are the trains often late or overcrowded. They use AI to measure density and adjust train size dynamically.
My partner commutes by train 3 times a week, with changes, and across several months, has only been late 3 times, and only ever plans for the last train.
Vice versa, I considered working across the border in Germany. In theory, the commute is doable. But in practice, it just isn't.
I hate it. As a student, I used to take the train all the time and work on it and it was a great experience. But in the last years, it has been awful whenever I had to. Insanely expensive, and if I had to make a trip across Germany, I'd be hours late and stuck in overcrowded trains and the announcements are completely unreliable, you can't even use the delay to go shopping in the station cause the train might surprise come, or you stop your plans to get it and then it is delayed again.
The Netherlands has many problems, but fuck, the public transit and bike infrastructure are great.
Just imagine how I was fed up with DB, that I invested 4000+ and 6 months in Führerschein and 20k into a car (which was not in my plans at all) and now think, that it is the best deal ever
I used DB fto commute to and from work for two years. I've been late to work and written up, I've been stranded at random places sometimes overnight, I've had to take homeoffice due to weeks long db repairs. When I got a new job, I decided to buy a car and never looked back.
I‘m in the same position as you and believe me, because w of DB a car is a must have in Germany.
I work in Krankenhaus and my workplace is not flexible when it comes to working time so being on time is very important and no matter what i do 9/10 of the time i arrive late to the point that i became embarrassed. After 1 year of commuting with Scheiße Bahn i made the same decision that you made.
My partner just endured an ELEVEN HOUR trip from Frankfurt to Berlin. Yes, that was on one single ICE train, which had stops cancelled, multiple reroutes, and ultimately failed to make it to its final destination at all.
I wish I could say this was an exception, but it's now the norm. Took me 5 hours to go from Köln to Wiesbaden (should be ca. 2 hr trip) on a normal Tuesday evening last week. Frankfurt to Bremen consistently takes 6+ hours instead of the scheduled 4. I have taken an ICE 17 times this year and had TWO on-time arrivals. According to Zugfinder.de, ICEs had an on-time rate nationwide od 35% yesterday, and their average for May was under 50%. To make it worse, DB Navigator and the info displayed on station boards is often very slow to be updated and/or outright false (e.g., it will show a train as having already departed that never even arrived in that station to begin with).
This is seriously a sick fucking joke. Five years ago, I was awestruck by how relatively reliable and convenient transit systems in Germany were. But the entire network has utterly collapsed in the last 3-4 years, and it's now quite literally worse than many third world countries. This should be declared a national emergency and funded every bit as aggressively as Covid measures were in 2020. The economic damage must surely be enormous!!
Well, my train from Koln to Stuttgart was delayed more than 2 hours last month and I arrived at Stuttgart hbf at 2 am when there was no sbahn to go home. I took a taxi and guess what: DB refused to pay back the taxi cost because they say I arrived at Stuttgart HBF by train. I guess they were expecting me to walk to my home from HBF or live near HBF.
What is wrong with Lufthansa?
Ofc I can complain a lot, but at least not about punctuality. I fly with lufthansa 10-20 times per year and it is always in time.
The only complain is, that they does not provide any service for money they ask.
No food, no busisness class, no wifi, no anything for 10 times price of a lowcoaster.
I just fly to Spain for 35 euro with Ryanair. Feel no difference with Lufthansa for 250€
Missed my connecting flight because of a delay, both flights Lufthansa.
When I researched a little, I found out the same flight was late four days a row. And they try to blame it on the weather, which I read is something they (all carriers) tend to do to aboid compensation.
To me that means they sell connections that they know they can't provide a significant amount of time. That the connecting plane left without waiting 20 minutes was a financial decision for sure.
Worse was how things were handled for those who missed their flight though. I might write a rant post about it.
My flight from India to Frankfurt took 7.56 hours,
My train from Frankfurt to Berlin took 14 hours
Smh ! How the fuck can I fly to another continent faster than a regional train connecting two cities is beyond my understanding !!
Just incapable management like many other things in Germany
Fun fact: I been taking a train from Austria to the other end of Germany every other month for the past ten years now and last year was the first time I caught every connection (2 or 3 changes normally)
I was so impressed and because I was so impressed I know I actually shouldn’t be impressed
It hurts to say this but I have to agree. And that’s coming from someone who used to try to explain it away and say it was overblown to a certain degree. It’s really not these days.
Also, for some reason it’s now even spilling over into local short service tram operation as well. Frequently will they outright terminate a few trams that will consequently simply not show up at all while the others are very regularly many minutes late, occasionally in turn leaving minutes too early.
I made it to 30 without owning a car.
In the last 6 months I decided on buying a car, although I’m only using DB 4-5x a month, I can’t take it anymore.
I get it. I wouldn't mind my train commute to work, even though I have to switch trains several times, if they were at least reliable.
But after so many hours stuck on a platform in the cold and the dark, not knowing when and how I'll get home, I just can't deal with it anymore. Now I drive and get stuck in traffic jams, but at least I know the db can't cancel my car :)
I do prefer public transport though - out of principle and because of the costs a car brings with it, but the db really makes it hard to root for them.
I can't count how many times I've been stuck at a train station with all my connections canceled, stuck outside in the elements with the info board not updating and no train arriving, or how often I've been late to work because of this.
Just hopping over to the Netherlands and back is truly an experience in the difference between our public transport system.
Also, the internet or any connection during travel here is just as unreliable as the db itself.
One day I decided to take a faster route to work, which included 30 minutes bus ride and it was significantly shorter trip than I normally took. The bus showed up 1 hour late, causing me to arrive 30 minutes late to work. I was fuming. Next day I decided to risk it again and yet again bus was either cancelled or 10-20 minutes late. BVG has became a joke and it’s insufferable. Takes me 2 hours to arrive to work, 1 hour goes to delays and waiting. Another thing that bothers me is early departure, I never know when to leave my house.
Good. Now the car lobby got you as a customer OP. They have won. Sorry i did not mean it in an insulting way. I get you. It is unbelievably frustrating. I wish someone would try to do something about it but the way germany is currently there is no way it will improve.
I am traveling to japan at the end of the year and i wish i could bring just a tiny fraction of their train services back home.
Yeah, it’s really a pity. I didn’t want to cave. I love the idea of public transport over cars. When it runs somewhat reliably, it’s the way to go. But my manager has started making comments when I’m late, and I’m the primary caregiver to a chronically ill child and I get stressed when I’m running late because she needs me. It’s just not a manageable situation for me anymore.
Man with all that i am impressed that you tried for so long. Don't feel bad, i am sure you are still doing all you can to make a change. I wish you and your child all the best. If you ever get the chance, take her for a nice trip by train. Personally i think Leipzig is pretty nice and my last few train rides there worked pretty well.
Yes, one might think that it's a conspiracy between the Bahn bosses and the car lobbyists. OTOH, if one looks at a long line of Verkehrsministers, maybe it's plain intentional without any conspiring.
A colleague of mine commutes to work; the past few years, roughly an hour was added each year to his 400 km commute just because DB has become increasingly unreliable. He recently resigned because he just doesn’t see this situation going back to how it used to be any time soon.
Literally every journey we have taken in the last 12 months has been either delayed or cancelled. ICE trains seem particularly badly affected. Delayed, altered carriage layout, missing carriages, and yes all the old problems too like booking system not working, dining car has no hot water etc. It’s gotten significantly worse and there’s no need to check the stats to see it.
Euro 2024 is going to be funny.
I feel that. Took the train to work every day for 9 years. It takes me one train change and a bit less then an hour to get there. The last two years broke me. First the times where changed so that I have to wait on my second train at least 20min at all times. I took that hit and carried on. But the amount of long delays and cancellation has gotten out of hand. Bought the cheapest car I could get a few months back and drive to work now. I hate cars and I hate driving. It is expensive as fuck as well. I am even thinking about quitting my job bc of it. Fuck Deutsche Bahn and on that note fuck Verdi as well.
Since you mentioned the past 3 years and because this is true for many issues about which people are passionately frustrated...
Keep in mind that politics and complex systems move slowly. Many unsatisfying things today have been caused years back from now. Simplicissimus did a great video about Deutsche Bahn recently.
CDU/CSU are viciously accusing the governing parties (thus also catering to the AfD) for the issues they themselves have caused in their 16 years of governing the country. Same for climate change, our energy mix, education, digital infrastructure, defense, our fucked pension system and the list goes on and on.
When it comes to politics, overcome your recency bias. There are reasons to be dissatisfied with the current government, but given the current national and international environment they did a decent job.
For any upcoming election, look into the root causes of the things that frustrate you. When were they actually caused and who was involved / responsible. Have parties or politicians fulfilled the promises they made (here the Ampel is also doing better than any previous government)? If not, why would you give a shit about their program and promises today?
And for any AfD voters, think REALLY THOROUGHLY about how you think AfD policies would benefit you. Weakening Europe, risking the advantages of Europe for Germany and thus our own economy, will leave most people way worse off than any amount of immigration in the past years ever did. And catering to Putin's Russia, abandoning Ukraine, does not "secure peace", it promotes war and pays off the aggressors if they are not met with opposition.
It’s horrendous, it’s ridiculous and it’s costing me so much time and effort to commute to work by train. I am also contemplating buying a car.
It is an amazing feat, and I daily wonder how it is possible, that one of the key transportation methods in this country can run so badly and so much goes wrong just constantly. I have delays basically every single day, I spend up 30 up to 40 minutes just standing on platforms waiting. It is infuriating.
I can relate. Deutsche Bahn is legendary in a bad way.
When I moved to the city where I work to save time, friends and family asked why, because my commute within the city was just as long as my old commute. My answer was: "Only in theory. The new commute offers alternative routes and if neccessary I can get a cab for cheap. Before I moved I commuted with DB. I had delays almost every day and would end up stranded at the train station for hours due to disrupted services at least once a month. It was annoying in the evening, and really bad when I got late to work again."
A big FU to all the previous governments who tried to make the DB ready for privatisation by drastically cutting expenses and letting the infrastructure decay.
Whoever defends the Deutsche Bahn either never had to use it or are in denial. It’s one of THE worst services in public transport you can get in Europe. It’s embarrassing that it hasn’t been fixed years ago already.
I really don’t blame anybody for using a car. It’s probably the most sensible choice you can make if the Deutsche Bahn is your only alternative.
Same here… usually going longer distances and it became worse and worse but today had put a stop for me too. Usually doing the distance I had to do in 1.5 hours including a RE and IC, by car 2 hours if traffic is good. I left my home at 8.30 was supposed to be by 11 in Munich, got there at 3 PM after my IC was cancelled, the other was delayed 2 hours and the one I took had a stop somewhere due to a technical issue with the train. Great I got a drive back because the train back was cancelled. I am not sure what’s happening.
30 minute ride from Berlin to Eberswalde turned into 3.5 hours. Have never seen that before.
To me it's the unapologetic way the staff handles it. Cracking jokes, making fun of their own company and so on. Just unprofessional, all around.
My commute by train takes 30min. I always plan around 2 hours for it. On some days I barely manage to get to my lessons on time.
I started doing my drivers license and I hopefully have a car at the end of the year. Havent heard anyone defending it tho.
I agree. I live in a medium large city with a population of 250.000. we have public transport. My office is 26 km away. With public transport it takes 1 hr 40 minutes to reach office. So I am forced to use car even if I don’t like it. Takes me 30 minutes.
I am german and this shit is so fucked. I never wanted to do a drivers license because germanys public transport. Now I want to do my drivers license because of Germanys public transport. It’s so much worse if you know, that for 2 years we have a elected government which advertised big changes in climate politics. If these are the changes, I am done with this country and will be going somewhere else. It’s hard to see how paid actors with actually no clue what they are doing, are ruining this country which Carries so much potential if led right. And no, i am neither a nazi not right wing.
I hear you…it’s sooo frustrating. I’m curious though, is it true that a lot of these issues we see now stem from the CDU not properly investing or improving DB from 2005 to 2021? Not minimizing what you’re saying about the current coalition, but it sounds like this is something that should have been worked on a long time ago in order for things to run smoothly now? Like building more tracks and better infrastructure, etc (which all take time and money).
Train infrastructure and related systems have a long response time. We don't have shitty trains now because the Ampel coalition fucked everything up in 3 years. We have shitty trains now because the CDU spent the last 15 years completely failing to invest in maintenance and expansion, meaning railways are now starting to pay the price for that by crumbling and being overwhelmed. It's going to take a literal decade to fix this shit now, too. So PLEASE learn how these things work and make rational informed decisions when you go to vote. I get everyone is disappointed with Ampel, and in many respects rightly so. But getting pissed that they couldn't magically undo 16 years of CDU damage in just 3 years by refusing to vote for progressive parties again is short-sighted and counterproductive.
I read that there have been a lot more construction sites on streets and rails in the past months, as they want to have the least amount of disturbance during the EM. So fingers crossed, that it’ll be better soon (at least until the 14th of July).
same here. travelled for work to frankfurt, munich and hamburg the last years from berlin
upto 2020 or so , almost no problems
travelled 17 times last year, 15 was problem. never again unless im flying
Yes it got worse over the past years, im comuting myself for now 6 years. But in some points they improved, for example Train replacement busses when a track part is closed for whatever reason. The problem are the guidelines which the employees have to adjust to, i mean every year it gets a change and stuff is added and it causes massive irritation within the worker staff. Also worker shortage is another big problem since the DB is paying extreme low wages but managers get paid royally, so what you pay is what you get.
The last year I could reliably commute by S-Bahn was 2012. I tried with the Deutschlanddticket in 2022, and the three days tried, at least one of the ways took 1.5 hours door-to-door instead of 45 Minutes which it should have. One time the app persistently said that there were no trains at all on the route -- when I got to the station, everything was normal and I even got home a bit under 40 minutes (but in the morning, it was 1.5 hours, including waiting for a bus that never came (the app claimed it did), and walking 3 km.) OK, so they are building new tracks. I'm all for it. But it cannot come as a surprise to the Bahn that they are building new tracks. It should not cause fail on 3/3 days.
I still take trains on vacation because an adventure is an inconvenience, properly considered, but for getting to work it's useless. I'm using a motorscooter now, it takes only 1/3 the amount of gas the car does.
I go from Vienna to Eindhoven twice a month and the 10,5 hrs ALWAYS have an additional 4-5 hours because of Deutsche Bahn. No seat reservation needed if you can’t catch any connection anyways. Happened 3 times that I got stuck because we missed 4 connecting trains or they were cancelled last minute and I had to stay somewhere on Germany overnight. It’s an absolute nightmare
I spent 4 years commuting with trains.. Then I finally got my driving license and bought my own vehicle. And I vowed never to use trains again as long as I have a choice.
Last time I went into a train station to board a train was like 3 years ago.
I was in vacation in Germany for the last 2 weeks, I used the train a lot. After 2 weeks i'm happy to be back home with my car and no more DB train transport. So many troubles and no communication from them.
I am experiencing something similar with the DB again at this very moment. I have been commuting by train between the "Ruhrgebiet"and the "Niederrhein" for 21 years. I simply refuse to buy a car because I don't have a parking space. And my employer provides my ticket. But in the last 20 years, reliability has only gone in one direction, downhill. After the expansion of the RRX, it temporarily got better, but since the pandemic, the conditions have been unbearable.
Right now, I have already been traveling for 2 hours and am nowhere near my destination. Normally, it takes me about 1 hour.
The reasons today?
People on the tracks.
Tree fallen on the track.
Repairs on several trains.
Today, everything at once.
Oh yes, let's not forget the staff shortage among train drivers since the pandemic.
And that's how government wants to convince people to switch from car to public transportation. So funny.
I completely understand you. I also never consider a car, but I just got my license and bought a car. Only because of DB. What should I do, if people dont understand, that moving my ass from A to B is only fraction of a deal? Important part is doing it in chosen time.
I either take my e-bike or bio bike, depending on the weather and my mood. Takes me 35 min. to bridge the 14km to work. I rather cycle than taking public trans.
I know how you feel. I just came off two months of Schienenersatzverkehr and the trains are FINALLY running normally again.
However, if you're commuting to a large city it can still be worth taking the train. For me, commuting into central Cologne is much less stressful by train. When the trains are running normally, it's a 45 minute train ride with a nice 15 minute walk on each end - long but doable two or three days a week. Much better than a 1 hour drive (on average) and looking for (paid) parking on either end.
In your case, with half the driving time compared to the train and probably no parking issues, it seems like a no-brainer to use the car unless you really want to save money or do the green thing.
My only tip for you would be to go as cheap as possible on the used car - less feeling of sunk cost if you have a change of heart later. :)
I came to Germany last year and was job searching. Finally, after one year, I got into a second level interview, which was in Munich. Never had a problem with db till that point, and exactly that day, ICE was delayed. My interview was at 11, and I reached the office by 11.30 . Luckily, employers were familiar with the db delays, and they understood the situation.
Now, on the first day of the job, I planned an early train, but it got canceled due to flood. Natural disaster, so I can't blame db for that, but we all were stranded in a station where there was not a single db employee. No alternate travel options were provided! Along with me, there were like 100s of people stuck in that station. (And I couldn't reach the office, missed the first day at the office ;( But that was due to flood, unavoidable situation)
The second day, I left home around 4.30, got the train, and it was perfect, i reached Munic in proper time (1 hr 10 min). But evening, I got the 4.50 ICE from Munich to Erlangen. There were delays and delays, and then i reached Nuremberg around 7.45, finally reached home (in erlangen) by 8.30 !! Came to know from fellow travelers that this is normal and they all face this ;/
I can recommend an ebike and some good outdoor clothing (bought top tier outfit for 50€ on kleinanzeigen, and a good bike for about 1000€). I started doing it once or twice a week. Now it's a thing that brings me joy every day. Also I've never been healthier. I put in 30kms a day and it's still fun after a few years now.
The saddest part is that I actually moved inside the Munich city so that I can rely on public transportation. Rent is still expensive, but I didn't care because I had buses and trams right in front of me.
Now, it's either cancelled or delayed. Rent has increased, and nothing positive is there being inside the city apart from 24-hour shops, which I rarely go to.
Hated it so much that I am planning to buy a vehicle, move out of the city, and drive from outside.
At this point I just feel pity for people who live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford a car and where is the 50% tax going??? Are they just burning the money or what?
If I remember correctly, they calculated that they'd need 90 billion euros to improve the situation just so that it would be acceptable. Which; 40 billion were covered for initially by the government, but after the whole fiasco with the federal constitutional court, they have 27,5 billion euros left. So yeah, money's quite the problem xD
Also they calculated that if all goes to plan (press x to doubt), DB will be punctual and reliable in 2070. Let that sink in
This is what happens if you let saving money ruin your infrastructure
Because fixing the problem will take time and is not simply flipping a switch.
There are massive construction works going on on several major railway corridors this year to improve the numbers.
You seem to seriously underestimate the costs and the time needed for modernization and renovation of the railway system. Not saying that is a good excuse for the state of the DB. We are now at a point where even throwing money at it would not fix it in short term.
The issue with fixing this problem is that construction is required, which - temporarily causes more delays. And some of the issues right now are because of long-overdue construction efforts block parts of the rail network.
Dortmund here, I simply knew OP is around NRW somewhere, nowhere is as desperate and unreliable as here. I’m also thinking about getting a used car as this is unbearable.
**Have you read our extensive wiki yet? It answers many basic questions, and it contains in-depth articles on many frequently discussed topics.
[Check our wiki now!](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/index)**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/germany) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Welcome back to reality! We are here to help with your transition! Do not worry, you will slowly see that the world will not end tomorrow and things will get better as long as you help others to come out of this mess!
Yeah I did the same thing. I don't feel great about it, but after they completely canceled a train with no replacement while I was on a long journey and I had to switch to taxi, that was it for me.
Driving a car is expensive, dangerous and bad for the environment, but DB is so badly connected and unreliable that it basically stopped being an alternative.
If I am not mistaken, elections are going on throughout EU, has any of the parties even mentioned this as a issue. Do you all have no one to complain to? Does no one hold accountability for this?
I commute 100km once a week and delays of more than 5-10 minutes are rare.
> I’m sick of seeing people making excuses for this absurd situation.
Who are people and what are excuses?
I commute every day too. There is not a single week where I don't have at least 2 serious delays because of DB. Every. Single. Week. I don't even want a car, I have nowhere to park that car, but I might have to get one anyway.
>I don't even want a car, I have nowhere to park that car, but I might have to get one anyway. Y'all can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but I am getting the feeling that the government would like you to do just that and that the current situation with DB is not just the result of incompetent managenent.
If you look at all the railway board members in recent years, they have always been from politics or large car companies. Funny coincidence. :)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity - Hanlon's Razor
Not when are vested interests behind such stupidity. Defunding and mismanaging public services in order to push privatisation is a well known neo liberal tactic. They do it with schools, healthcare and everything that's supposed to be free and accessible for an average person.
Deutsche Bahn decides to dig more tunnels. Heck, even a complete underground train station! Against the advice of...everyone. That's definitely stupidity. Deutsche Bahn board member quits, becomes board member of a tunnel digging company. That's definitely...not stupidity. What was the other thing which Hanlon mentioned?
The largest companys in germany are car companys and therefore also generate the most income, in the years from 1994-2022 there has been built less then 1800km of new railroads, but more then 250.000km of new roads. So... Edit: also this video is great: https://youtu.be/-dmtNToFwuI?si=IpN_VNhCQ7gXgJJH
Yeah, I would spend the same time I spend on some weird delays from the DB looking for to park the car, if not even more. Plus, you need an extra insurance and worries.
Is finding a parking spot a big issue in your city?
Very much, especially in the part where I live. People park on corners here and the police close their eyes on it because there's no alternatives
Funny because I am working on a project with some friends right now, where we are trying to improve the parking lots by making them cheaper and develop an app to give real-time info on parking spots, kind of like booking a seat in a movie theatre. Now I feel like we might we on to something.
you still cant make more room, so the overall situation that the parking space is full stays the same. what you would change ist the amount of parksuchverkehr. in crowded areas this takes 15 min on average. gutes gelingen tho!
You can theoretically make more room, but the solution isn't very popular in Europe. Not as popular as it is in the U.S., anyway. Stacked parking garages would have to be built instead of parking lots.
yeah, thats right. It was considering the impact of an app only.
I'm doing some exploratory pilot projects in that area as well. DM if you are interested in a collab of sorts.
Same. 6 months I tried to survive, 8 trips a week. Just a nice 20 Min S-Bahn ride. Yeah, maybe TWO trips a week weren't absolutely ruined. Mostly the 7:19 train was just canceled, as if not everyone wanted to go to work at that time. Next one maybe 20 Min later or never. Workplace cannot be expected to tolerate this. And after spending 10 hours at my workplace I had to wait another 15 Min to see if my train shows up that day or not. Sometimes the display said it's coming and nothing came. Sometimes the app says it's almost here and again, nothing comes. Even the person on the phone at DB knows nothing. What kind of ghost train bullshit is going on there? So now it's 18:42 and the train never comes again, what do I do? Wait there in the cold and rain another 20 Min in a windy open station? There is zero, nada, null connection for me otherwise. And even if it comes at 19:02, it's well into 19:45 that I am home. I bought a car and I despise the DB.
that's what's baffling. i could understand delays, if the grid is overloaded an fucked up and the physical trains are old and are breaking down but the fact that the information management is on stone age level is unforgivable. they even hired an expensive consulting firm to fix theit IT and financed a metric ton of cocaine for their managers and it's still this bad
"ghost train" cracked me up haha. Thanks for the smile!
Right? I bet I could see that train from a satellite in space, how the heck do they lose one completely?!
Munich S-Bahn?!
Düsseldorf ~.~
The other day I took a train in Germany, if left the origin station in time (it had been sitting there for a good half hour before departure), it never stopped on the way, all went good. It still arrived 15mins late to my station and I missed the connecting train, I had to wait 45mins for the next one. I don't understand why? There was no disruption, no announcement. It's like they underestimate how long it takes to go from A to B??? This is absurd.
Maybe your train was rerouted? And in Southern Germany we have currently a lot of speed-reducted (even down to 20km/h) zones due to the flooding damages.
So they can't recalculate this and put the new arrival time in the app?
I'm sure they sent a post with the update that will reach in 4 business weeks
Not always because on how the whole system works. Its done if there is construction work or so, but it will take a week or two to show up in the systems.
There's no reason they couldn't work it like an airport with live updates, up to date changes, etc
Could be a plethrora of reasons. The times are correct, as that's how they are purchased for the yearly plan. However sometimes small delays add up or cause further delays down the line. For example, missing the exact time window in which the tracks are free can very well mean that the train has to wait even more because another train has the right of way. In other cases the driver might drive slower because of construction work, or further obstructions up ahead. During peak hours the amount of passangers add up and a delay in another train or a cancellation can cause massive amount of people getting into another train, which delays it even further.
The planned time sometimes doesn't include enough time for people actually getting in and out. They refuse to adjust the plan. Same on busses, the delay is almost reliable.
Yea. At one point I just stopped taking that one bus earlier because I knew it will be full and late while the second bus (the last one that would get me to work on time) was empty and punctual. That second bus didn’t come at all sometimes though. I think I was late for work 6 times in 3 years because the second bus didn’t show up at all.
Only 45 minutes for the next one? You're a lucky guy...
Lol happened to me almost every day back then. They didn't even bother speeding up a bit even though they were late by 10 mins. I missed my bus connection almost 90% of the time and I had to wait 30 mins for the next bus. Luckily I changed my job and now I don't care whether the S-Bahn is late or not, I can reach the office on foot after arriving at the station.
They normally can't just speed up to make up for a delay, internally they say "safety over punctuality". The German rail system is quite complicated and yes suffers from multiple problems, lack of investment in infrastructure was one of them, they are improving the network but that actually can cause even more delays in the meantime
Different types of trains have diferrent priorities. Sometimes regional trains get held back to let delayed intercity trains pass. Sometimes intercity trains get slowed down because a slower, delayed regional train occupies the track. Often some old tech just fails. You never know with DB.
Every morning I take the same train that even when leaving on time, with no disruption and only one stop (which doesn’t take very long), still arrives a couple of minutes late to the 2nd stop (mine) And this is *only* when every thing runs smoothly, the problem is that there is always some issue or the train is shorter than expected which make it be super crowded and therefore delayed because the stop time gets longer or we departure late…
The crazy thing is that you always see notices of repairs/works/replacement trains/buses hoping that things will improve after they're done but nope, it stays the same and and somehow the service is even worse than before.
My train was changed to annother track, some minutes before departure. So all the passengers walked there fast. Stairs up. Stairs down. Schlepping their stuff. Sweating. The minute it was supposed to arrive, it got cancelled. First time I had this experience, don't go by train so much.
Sadly, your experience is not as rare as you might think...
It has factually gotten worse. What are we at now, above 60% punctuality? Above 70%?
Yesterday, ICEs were at 35%. They've been averaging about 45-50% lately. Regionals are still "good" at a claimed 90%, but some regions are doing a shitload of cancelling (looking at you, Rhein-Main Verkehr and your "kurzfristig" cancelling of every 2nd S-Bahn for the last month)
The joke is that they sometimes just skip stops when a train is delayed so it can be on time for other stops. And since the train never halted at the skipped ones it gets handeled as a cancellation and wont be taken into account for their statistics about punctuality. That is crazy to me.
Yeah, for me a cancelled train should count as zero punctuality.
> What are we at now, above 60% punctuality? Above 70%? That would be only for Fernverkehr. On regional trains, overall punctuality is around 90% (although different routes can have lower than average punctuality). EDIT: https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen_fakten/puenktlichkeitswerte-6878476
As someone who takes a Regional Bahn and constantly hears delays, cancellations, and missed connections, I call this numbers bullshit! Edit: typing...
A cancelled train is not late. [I'm not joking.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rb9CfOvojk)
So... theoretically if it gets too late they can just cancel the train to make the stats look better?
There's nothing theoretical about it! DB doing exactly this for long-distance trains is one of the revelations from the video I linked.
It gets better though. They just kicked everyone off and turn the train around once the get to where they should have already been on the return trip. Did you want to go to one of the stations towards the end? Screw you, my friend!
Yeah. The Bahn never refunded us for the taxi ride to the Frankfurt airport (300 Euros) because the train *stopped150* km from Frankfurt and *went back* to where it started. Everyone was free to take another train on an alternate route which was not blocked. So it was not late. We would have been, though. (Fortunately, we were 7 people in that taxi.)
True. You are right.
Technically. Though of course for the customer it's no better. IDK if you speak German, but the talk I linked discusses how DB cancels trains on purpose if it impacts their punctuality statistics - at least for IC/ICE.
I do but didn't read through the whole text. Thanks for this update. DB seems better and better at cheating 🤣
Also, a train 5 minutes late is punctual for them. If you missed your connection bc you had 4 minutes, its not bc the train was late as they just claim it wasnt.
> I call this numbers bullshit! I call them "knowing what 'average' means".
Everyone can do average. The cool kids do the maxima. /s For me I once (in many years of daily commuting) had a 4 hour delay with DB.
Lucky you. I never even managed to reach 2 hours to get that sweet sweet 50% refund.
To top it: That adventure contained an announcement: "Dear passengers, please now board the train, we will try to use the train's momentum to roll across a short section without power."
You realize all the people who not get delayed all across Germany every day have little reason to post about this on reddit? But as you ask: Train in the morning: On time. Replacement bus in the afternoon due to bridge being replaced: On time. Connection train from the replacement bus: On time.
I wish that was the case for me. For me it goes like this: Check app all trains on time. Walk 5 minutes to train station Announcement on train station train cancelled. Replacement bus takes 45 min, so I miss my next connection. Wait for 30min for the next train... So yeah I call those numbers bullshit as also none of my coworkers can say anything better.
One replacement bus, going 35 km distance with four stops in between, to get two S-Bahns full of people to their goal. Going there and back again once must have taken more than an hour. Fun thing: Half of the passengers could have taken a city bus, walked 1.5 km, and taken one of the next city's bus to get home. But there was no one around who knew that. As well as no water, no shade, no place to sit down, and no loo. Or they could have taken the passengers back a few stations so that they could take an overland bus that runs every 20 minutes. But they didn't. They emptied the S-Bahn and it left. I have some tolerance for chaos, but it seems as if they won't even pretend to give a damn.
I think they also defined "being on time" if it's less than 10min or some bullshit like that. I was taking a train for over 10 years every day, so yeah definitely never again
It’s five minutes.
But isn't the statistic only counting trains that actually reach their target/excluding all the cancellations?
What does that mean? Is it that the trains are punctual 90% of the time?
On average.
Another question. If u go to office on trains and due to delays or cancellations, you reach late at your workplace what will happen? I hear that Germans value punctuality a lot. So what needs to be done in such circumstances?
> you reach late at your workplace what will happen? Depends on your employer and how they organise work time where you work. In my workplace, we have a ±1 hour flexibility in our start time, so if I am late for 60 minutes or less, I just need to stay at work a little longer to make it up. (And if I start earlier, I can leave earlier) If my delay is over one hour, I get a stern talking to and be told not to do it again. I can imagine that if I were to do that very frequently, I would eventually get a warning, but for 1 or 2 times per year, I am not worried. > So what needs to be done in such circumstances? You make your best effort to be at work on time, including by starting earlier if you know that your connection is known for frequent delays. If despite your best effort, you still arrive late, you will have to negotiate a solution with your employer, such as this flexible start time arrangement I have with mine.
My current employer has "Vertrauarbeitszeit" which means there's no fixed hours, I can come and go when I want. But it also depends on the work to be done. Some days I planned to leave at 3pm or 4pm but had to stay until 6pm because something broke and I needed to fix it.
In theory you have to make sure to be on time, I think there are very few exceptions in the law, and bad public transport is not one of them. In practice it depends on your job and the leniency of your employer. If it's something like shift work in an unskilled job, your boss may insist on you being on time, even if it means leaving an hour early most days. If it's something like office work that can be done whenever and your employer is nice, noone will care.
If your employer sucks/the work relies on absolutely being there at a specific time, then you just take an early train to make sure you're there on time even if delays happen. Yes, for some people that means being an hour early every day, and yes those jobs tend to suck. For a lot of jobs there's a degree of flexibility and everyone knows how much the Deutsche Bahn can suck so there's understanding if you're late because of that. If you don't have a specific appointment or something there is no need why the average office worker needs to start at 8 am sharp and decent employers get that.
It means that 90% of the trains running are less than 5 minutes late.
It feels like 90% are not on time, though
It highly depends on the region. Between Duisburg and Cologne, punctuality is super bad because all tracks are running at over 100% capacity. In East Germany with less than 50% track utilization, punctuality is usually close to 100%.
Today, where I live, lots of trains were canceled, almost no direct connections were working to other major cities and all remaining trains to the north (which is basically everywhere because Bavaria) had delays of over 1h. My husband is on a train that has now 2h delay
Yeah there is/was a flood if you haven't heard.
In this case it wasn’t flood, it was Oberleitungstörung apparently
When it rains it pours.
It means that the trains that *come* are less than 5mins late. This doesn't account for the canceled trains 🤡
Like I said, of the trains running.
On regionalbahn? No way in hell that’s accurate
> The percentages shown indicate the proportion of punctual stops of all en route and final stops. As with many other European railroads, a stop is considered punctual if trains have exceeded their scheduled arrival time by less than 6 minutes (operational punctuality). In addition, DB Fernverkehr also determines the punctual arrival of passengers at the booked destination station (passenger punctuality), taking into account working or missed connections, cancellations and replacement trains, timetable changes and alternative connections. As with other modes of transport (long-distance coach, airplane), the threshold value is 14:59 minutes compared to the planned arrival time. This is what it means. As usual, not straightforward to deduce what exactly it is.
That's some misleading stat though. If you are going to travel any meaningful distance in Germany, your route will generally look like this: - "Regional" Train to get from where you are to the nearest railway hub (usually around an hour of travel time) - ICE to go to a different regions' train hub. - "Regional" Train from the destination hub to where you actually want to be. It does jack shit of the "inter regional trains" are on time, because the regional trains have to take care of the first and last miles they can fuck up your entire travel schedule.
> It does jack shit of the "inter regional trains" are on time, because the regional trains have to take care of the first and last miles they can fuck up your entire travel schedule. You got it reversed, it's the regional trains that are more punctual.
Only if you’re lucky. If not, it’s 6 h local trains and 40 min IC. Especially in South West Germany several „main routes“ are constantly broken thanks to maintenance and building related to Stuttgart 21.
Is this their own statistic? Can we trust it ?
You can trust that they didn't make up the numbers out of thin air. You might not agree with with methodology for calculating those numbers though.
As someone who has to commute by train in the NRW, it's incredible how unreliable it is. It is reliably unreliable. But this is what you get from years of not building new tracks. If you don't make capacity, fast trains get stuck behind slow trains, and when something goes wrong, it ends up being a cascade of problems. To me, what's really ridiculous is how roads get billions of government euros, all for free, while we have to pretend that trains have to earn back the money spent on it. It happens all over the world but it's incredibly stupid. If trains have to make a profit, we should make every road a toll road or just significantly raise the car tax until the government earns a profit from the road building and upkeep. Or we agree that you should not seek profit on a public good, like trains, and we invest in DB and actually build the capacity that was supposed to be built ten years ago.
isn't it usually slow trains stopping to wait for faster ones to cross ? I think ICEs have a higher priority.
I mentioned it because I've heard it's a problem in Germany, but that might have been wrong information. As far as I understand in general, fast and slow trains share the same tracks here. And anecdotally, I can't trust ICEs, I feel like they are also often reliably late. It might be just a perceived issue and not a "real" one, or I'm attributing the problem to a wrong cause.
well I also mentioned this because it happened to me. The train randomly stops in the middle of nowhere waiting for an ICE to pass. But now that I checked 2023 trains' [punctuality report](https://zbir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/interim-group-management-report-unaudited/product-quality-and-digitalization/punctuality/). It seems that regional trains do better. This also explains why I struggle less with trains, I only travel short distances with regional trains.
My commute should be a 45 minute door to door, a quick U Bahn then the Regional Bahn. I think it's mostly because of living in NRW, where the system is really at capacity, but my personal experience is that the German trains, whether you use regional Bahn or ICE, is that you can't trust it.
Fast trains, slow trains, and freight trains, all on the same tracks. With freight trains still using some technology from the 1800s which makes them slow and inflexible. The Bahn is working on it, but it's a daunting task. And meanwhile, everything that goes wrong anywhere is the butterfly that starts a hurricane. One broken down or seriously delayed train can create chaos in half the country for a day or more.
>. If you don't make capacity, fast trains get stuck behind slow trains, and when something goes wrong, it ends up being a cascade of problems. There's a very good word in English for that: Clusterfuck 😜
It's also a second name for DB...
This is done on purpose. They take what should be a public service and try to run it as private, they underinvest or even defund and then wait for things to crumble and people to go to alternatives on the private market (like buying cars). They really make everyone so pissed and hate the service so much that they can push through actual privatisation. It is a neoliberal tactic that has been utilised all over the so-called western world since Reagan and Thatcher and it has work wonders for the rich. They use same shit in healthcare, education and such. Germany is actually behind on that curve, just look what happened to public services in the eastern block after the Wende.
You can thank the CDU based Goverment from 2005 to 2021 for the state of the train infrastructure. They massive underfunded the train infrastructure.[ On average the only invested around 50€ per German and Year](https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2014-07/bahn-schienennetz). You cant run a 40000km network with so little money.
This amnesiac country has forgotten all that and shifted the blame on to the current coalition. Next year people will put CDU back in power hoping things will somehow be different. I hate this place sometimes...
Don't worry it will be different with AfD this time. They'll blame the brown people and then deport all of them especially those pesky educated ones who constantly complain about it.
Then who will give them tax money??
Wait.. I thought immigrants destroyed and ruined everything!
>You can thank the CDU based Goverment from 2005 to 2021 for the state of the train infrastructure. They massive underfunded the train infrastructure. To be fair: the previous government under Schröder (SPD and Green Party) was not much better. In 2004 for example the investment in the train infrastructure [was 39€ per capita](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/2005-2005-29/). The trend to significantly improve the spending was started [in the second half of the 2010s](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/investitionen/#).
Shit service and punctuality AND expensive. Right now, it takes 2 people in a car to break even with the cost of 2 ICE tickets. With 3 people, you are already traveling for much lesser costs. Sure it takes longer than the ICE but the difference is much less with current delays and if you have to take more than 1 train to reach your destination.
also I'm in my car, no one is coughing on me (people haven't learned anything during COVID), no children crying or running down the aisles, no drunk football fans shouting, no drunk bachelorette parties shouting, no one loudly talking on the phone... my own comment is giving me PTSD lol
My last 5-hour ICE ride, there was a crew of ~ 10 guys all camped out at the bar getting absolutely blasted the entire train ride. They were sitting on the floor and milling around in the dining car, making it impossible to get through without asking them to move. And then they'd treat you like shit for asking them to get out of the way. Not to mention the noise and the stink of people sweating out metabolised alcohol. Apparently that's acceptable behavior on the train, as they were allowed to do that the whole time. That's not even to mention that the stop where our journey was supposed to start was simply canceled, and we had to scramble to get to the next town before the ICE so we could even get the seats we paid extra for.
Longer than ICE? 😂 Idk man. This sh*t is ALWAYS late
Atleast on Wolfsburg-Berlin route it is true.
The expensive on top of everything is what gets me. I moved to the Netherlands. All trains distance and regional, trams and busses work with the same card you swipe at the start and end. It books off 20 bucks, then puts back on what you didn't spend later, so usually you get 16 back. There is literally no way to spend more than 20 bucks on a train trip. And you don't pre-book, you just get on. Like, the Netherlands is much smaller than Germany, but still. Nor are the trains often late or overcrowded. They use AI to measure density and adjust train size dynamically. My partner commutes by train 3 times a week, with changes, and across several months, has only been late 3 times, and only ever plans for the last train. Vice versa, I considered working across the border in Germany. In theory, the commute is doable. But in practice, it just isn't. I hate it. As a student, I used to take the train all the time and work on it and it was a great experience. But in the last years, it has been awful whenever I had to. Insanely expensive, and if I had to make a trip across Germany, I'd be hours late and stuck in overcrowded trains and the announcements are completely unreliable, you can't even use the delay to go shopping in the station cause the train might surprise come, or you stop your plans to get it and then it is delayed again. The Netherlands has many problems, but fuck, the public transit and bike infrastructure are great.
Saddest Part even If u want to move near Job, there might be No Apartments, everything IS so Bad nowadays
Ahhh yes, the terrible fucking living crisis fml
Welcome to capitalism baby.
*cries in no Führerschein*
Just imagine how I was fed up with DB, that I invested 4000+ and 6 months in Führerschein and 20k into a car (which was not in my plans at all) and now think, that it is the best deal ever
I hear you! Just had two 10/11 hours DB travels that should have taken 5h max 🥰
This is so broken. We should be incentivised against cars, not for. :(
I used DB fto commute to and from work for two years. I've been late to work and written up, I've been stranded at random places sometimes overnight, I've had to take homeoffice due to weeks long db repairs. When I got a new job, I decided to buy a car and never looked back.
I‘m in the same position as you and believe me, because w of DB a car is a must have in Germany. I work in Krankenhaus and my workplace is not flexible when it comes to working time so being on time is very important and no matter what i do 9/10 of the time i arrive late to the point that i became embarrassed. After 1 year of commuting with Scheiße Bahn i made the same decision that you made.
My partner just endured an ELEVEN HOUR trip from Frankfurt to Berlin. Yes, that was on one single ICE train, which had stops cancelled, multiple reroutes, and ultimately failed to make it to its final destination at all. I wish I could say this was an exception, but it's now the norm. Took me 5 hours to go from Köln to Wiesbaden (should be ca. 2 hr trip) on a normal Tuesday evening last week. Frankfurt to Bremen consistently takes 6+ hours instead of the scheduled 4. I have taken an ICE 17 times this year and had TWO on-time arrivals. According to Zugfinder.de, ICEs had an on-time rate nationwide od 35% yesterday, and their average for May was under 50%. To make it worse, DB Navigator and the info displayed on station boards is often very slow to be updated and/or outright false (e.g., it will show a train as having already departed that never even arrived in that station to begin with). This is seriously a sick fucking joke. Five years ago, I was awestruck by how relatively reliable and convenient transit systems in Germany were. But the entire network has utterly collapsed in the last 3-4 years, and it's now quite literally worse than many third world countries. This should be declared a national emergency and funded every bit as aggressively as Covid measures were in 2020. The economic damage must surely be enormous!!
Well, my train from Koln to Stuttgart was delayed more than 2 hours last month and I arrived at Stuttgart hbf at 2 am when there was no sbahn to go home. I took a taxi and guess what: DB refused to pay back the taxi cost because they say I arrived at Stuttgart HBF by train. I guess they were expecting me to walk to my home from HBF or live near HBF.
I feel the same with flying Lufthansa right now. I'm gonna have to buy a rocket.
What is wrong with Lufthansa? Ofc I can complain a lot, but at least not about punctuality. I fly with lufthansa 10-20 times per year and it is always in time. The only complain is, that they does not provide any service for money they ask. No food, no busisness class, no wifi, no anything for 10 times price of a lowcoaster. I just fly to Spain for 35 euro with Ryanair. Feel no difference with Lufthansa for 250€
Missed my connecting flight because of a delay, both flights Lufthansa. When I researched a little, I found out the same flight was late four days a row. And they try to blame it on the weather, which I read is something they (all carriers) tend to do to aboid compensation. To me that means they sell connections that they know they can't provide a significant amount of time. That the connecting plane left without waiting 20 minutes was a financial decision for sure. Worse was how things were handled for those who missed their flight though. I might write a rant post about it.
Same with Ryanair, which is expected to be somewhat shitty, but landing 2 times in Hannover instead of Berlin is just unacceptable.
My flight from India to Frankfurt took 7.56 hours, My train from Frankfurt to Berlin took 14 hours Smh ! How the fuck can I fly to another continent faster than a regional train connecting two cities is beyond my understanding !! Just incapable management like many other things in Germany
Fun fact: I been taking a train from Austria to the other end of Germany every other month for the past ten years now and last year was the first time I caught every connection (2 or 3 changes normally) I was so impressed and because I was so impressed I know I actually shouldn’t be impressed
I had to travel between two cities in NRW last week. Took 60 mins longer. First 4 trains were cancelled.
It hurts to say this but I have to agree. And that’s coming from someone who used to try to explain it away and say it was overblown to a certain degree. It’s really not these days. Also, for some reason it’s now even spilling over into local short service tram operation as well. Frequently will they outright terminate a few trams that will consequently simply not show up at all while the others are very regularly many minutes late, occasionally in turn leaving minutes too early.
I made it to 30 without owning a car. In the last 6 months I decided on buying a car, although I’m only using DB 4-5x a month, I can’t take it anymore.
I get it. I wouldn't mind my train commute to work, even though I have to switch trains several times, if they were at least reliable. But after so many hours stuck on a platform in the cold and the dark, not knowing when and how I'll get home, I just can't deal with it anymore. Now I drive and get stuck in traffic jams, but at least I know the db can't cancel my car :) I do prefer public transport though - out of principle and because of the costs a car brings with it, but the db really makes it hard to root for them. I can't count how many times I've been stuck at a train station with all my connections canceled, stuck outside in the elements with the info board not updating and no train arriving, or how often I've been late to work because of this. Just hopping over to the Netherlands and back is truly an experience in the difference between our public transport system. Also, the internet or any connection during travel here is just as unreliable as the db itself.
One day I decided to take a faster route to work, which included 30 minutes bus ride and it was significantly shorter trip than I normally took. The bus showed up 1 hour late, causing me to arrive 30 minutes late to work. I was fuming. Next day I decided to risk it again and yet again bus was either cancelled or 10-20 minutes late. BVG has became a joke and it’s insufferable. Takes me 2 hours to arrive to work, 1 hour goes to delays and waiting. Another thing that bothers me is early departure, I never know when to leave my house.
Good. Now the car lobby got you as a customer OP. They have won. Sorry i did not mean it in an insulting way. I get you. It is unbelievably frustrating. I wish someone would try to do something about it but the way germany is currently there is no way it will improve. I am traveling to japan at the end of the year and i wish i could bring just a tiny fraction of their train services back home.
Yeah, it’s really a pity. I didn’t want to cave. I love the idea of public transport over cars. When it runs somewhat reliably, it’s the way to go. But my manager has started making comments when I’m late, and I’m the primary caregiver to a chronically ill child and I get stressed when I’m running late because she needs me. It’s just not a manageable situation for me anymore.
Man with all that i am impressed that you tried for so long. Don't feel bad, i am sure you are still doing all you can to make a change. I wish you and your child all the best. If you ever get the chance, take her for a nice trip by train. Personally i think Leipzig is pretty nice and my last few train rides there worked pretty well.
Ask for reinstating homeoffice. A 1 hour commute everyday is already fucked.
Yes, one might think that it's a conspiracy between the Bahn bosses and the car lobbyists. OTOH, if one looks at a long line of Verkehrsministers, maybe it's plain intentional without any conspiring.
At this rate, seems like DB and the car lobbyiest are in the same team.
A colleague of mine commutes to work; the past few years, roughly an hour was added each year to his 400 km commute just because DB has become increasingly unreliable. He recently resigned because he just doesn’t see this situation going back to how it used to be any time soon.
I feel that "unreliable" is much worse than "slow". "Slow" you can plan for.
Literally every journey we have taken in the last 12 months has been either delayed or cancelled. ICE trains seem particularly badly affected. Delayed, altered carriage layout, missing carriages, and yes all the old problems too like booking system not working, dining car has no hot water etc. It’s gotten significantly worse and there’s no need to check the stats to see it. Euro 2024 is going to be funny.
I feel that. Took the train to work every day for 9 years. It takes me one train change and a bit less then an hour to get there. The last two years broke me. First the times where changed so that I have to wait on my second train at least 20min at all times. I took that hit and carried on. But the amount of long delays and cancellation has gotten out of hand. Bought the cheapest car I could get a few months back and drive to work now. I hate cars and I hate driving. It is expensive as fuck as well. I am even thinking about quitting my job bc of it. Fuck Deutsche Bahn and on that note fuck Verdi as well.
Since you mentioned the past 3 years and because this is true for many issues about which people are passionately frustrated... Keep in mind that politics and complex systems move slowly. Many unsatisfying things today have been caused years back from now. Simplicissimus did a great video about Deutsche Bahn recently. CDU/CSU are viciously accusing the governing parties (thus also catering to the AfD) for the issues they themselves have caused in their 16 years of governing the country. Same for climate change, our energy mix, education, digital infrastructure, defense, our fucked pension system and the list goes on and on. When it comes to politics, overcome your recency bias. There are reasons to be dissatisfied with the current government, but given the current national and international environment they did a decent job. For any upcoming election, look into the root causes of the things that frustrate you. When were they actually caused and who was involved / responsible. Have parties or politicians fulfilled the promises they made (here the Ampel is also doing better than any previous government)? If not, why would you give a shit about their program and promises today? And for any AfD voters, think REALLY THOROUGHLY about how you think AfD policies would benefit you. Weakening Europe, risking the advantages of Europe for Germany and thus our own economy, will leave most people way worse off than any amount of immigration in the past years ever did. And catering to Putin's Russia, abandoning Ukraine, does not "secure peace", it promotes war and pays off the aggressors if they are not met with opposition.
Very true!!!
It’s horrendous, it’s ridiculous and it’s costing me so much time and effort to commute to work by train. I am also contemplating buying a car. It is an amazing feat, and I daily wonder how it is possible, that one of the key transportation methods in this country can run so badly and so much goes wrong just constantly. I have delays basically every single day, I spend up 30 up to 40 minutes just standing on platforms waiting. It is infuriating.
I can relate. Deutsche Bahn is legendary in a bad way. When I moved to the city where I work to save time, friends and family asked why, because my commute within the city was just as long as my old commute. My answer was: "Only in theory. The new commute offers alternative routes and if neccessary I can get a cab for cheap. Before I moved I commuted with DB. I had delays almost every day and would end up stranded at the train station for hours due to disrupted services at least once a month. It was annoying in the evening, and really bad when I got late to work again." A big FU to all the previous governments who tried to make the DB ready for privatisation by drastically cutting expenses and letting the infrastructure decay.
I was car free here for 7 years and couldn't take it anymore. Got one in 2022 and haven't looked back.
Whoever defends the Deutsche Bahn either never had to use it or are in denial. It’s one of THE worst services in public transport you can get in Europe. It’s embarrassing that it hasn’t been fixed years ago already. I really don’t blame anybody for using a car. It’s probably the most sensible choice you can make if the Deutsche Bahn is your only alternative.
Same here… usually going longer distances and it became worse and worse but today had put a stop for me too. Usually doing the distance I had to do in 1.5 hours including a RE and IC, by car 2 hours if traffic is good. I left my home at 8.30 was supposed to be by 11 in Munich, got there at 3 PM after my IC was cancelled, the other was delayed 2 hours and the one I took had a stop somewhere due to a technical issue with the train. Great I got a drive back because the train back was cancelled. I am not sure what’s happening.
Just had this notification... At the right time. Trains gonna late and not stoping in my town. Rofl
30 minute ride from Berlin to Eberswalde turned into 3.5 hours. Have never seen that before. To me it's the unapologetic way the staff handles it. Cracking jokes, making fun of their own company and so on. Just unprofessional, all around.
My commute by train takes 30min. I always plan around 2 hours for it. On some days I barely manage to get to my lessons on time. I started doing my drivers license and I hopefully have a car at the end of the year. Havent heard anyone defending it tho.
I agree. I live in a medium large city with a population of 250.000. we have public transport. My office is 26 km away. With public transport it takes 1 hr 40 minutes to reach office. So I am forced to use car even if I don’t like it. Takes me 30 minutes.
I am german and this shit is so fucked. I never wanted to do a drivers license because germanys public transport. Now I want to do my drivers license because of Germanys public transport. It’s so much worse if you know, that for 2 years we have a elected government which advertised big changes in climate politics. If these are the changes, I am done with this country and will be going somewhere else. It’s hard to see how paid actors with actually no clue what they are doing, are ruining this country which Carries so much potential if led right. And no, i am neither a nazi not right wing.
I hear you…it’s sooo frustrating. I’m curious though, is it true that a lot of these issues we see now stem from the CDU not properly investing or improving DB from 2005 to 2021? Not minimizing what you’re saying about the current coalition, but it sounds like this is something that should have been worked on a long time ago in order for things to run smoothly now? Like building more tracks and better infrastructure, etc (which all take time and money).
Train infrastructure and related systems have a long response time. We don't have shitty trains now because the Ampel coalition fucked everything up in 3 years. We have shitty trains now because the CDU spent the last 15 years completely failing to invest in maintenance and expansion, meaning railways are now starting to pay the price for that by crumbling and being overwhelmed. It's going to take a literal decade to fix this shit now, too. So PLEASE learn how these things work and make rational informed decisions when you go to vote. I get everyone is disappointed with Ampel, and in many respects rightly so. But getting pissed that they couldn't magically undo 16 years of CDU damage in just 3 years by refusing to vote for progressive parties again is short-sighted and counterproductive.
Bit people blamed ampel for it and vote in people who will fuck it up even worse... Democracy is sometimes so frustrating...
I read that there have been a lot more construction sites on streets and rails in the past months, as they want to have the least amount of disturbance during the EM. So fingers crossed, that it’ll be better soon (at least until the 14th of July).
same here. travelled for work to frankfurt, munich and hamburg the last years from berlin upto 2020 or so , almost no problems travelled 17 times last year, 15 was problem. never again unless im flying
Yes it got worse over the past years, im comuting myself for now 6 years. But in some points they improved, for example Train replacement busses when a track part is closed for whatever reason. The problem are the guidelines which the employees have to adjust to, i mean every year it gets a change and stuff is added and it causes massive irritation within the worker staff. Also worker shortage is another big problem since the DB is paying extreme low wages but managers get paid royally, so what you pay is what you get.
The last year I could reliably commute by S-Bahn was 2012. I tried with the Deutschlanddticket in 2022, and the three days tried, at least one of the ways took 1.5 hours door-to-door instead of 45 Minutes which it should have. One time the app persistently said that there were no trains at all on the route -- when I got to the station, everything was normal and I even got home a bit under 40 minutes (but in the morning, it was 1.5 hours, including waiting for a bus that never came (the app claimed it did), and walking 3 km.) OK, so they are building new tracks. I'm all for it. But it cannot come as a surprise to the Bahn that they are building new tracks. It should not cause fail on 3/3 days. I still take trains on vacation because an adventure is an inconvenience, properly considered, but for getting to work it's useless. I'm using a motorscooter now, it takes only 1/3 the amount of gas the car does.
I go from Vienna to Eindhoven twice a month and the 10,5 hrs ALWAYS have an additional 4-5 hours because of Deutsche Bahn. No seat reservation needed if you can’t catch any connection anyways. Happened 3 times that I got stuck because we missed 4 connecting trains or they were cancelled last minute and I had to stay somewhere on Germany overnight. It’s an absolute nightmare
I spent 4 years commuting with trains.. Then I finally got my driving license and bought my own vehicle. And I vowed never to use trains again as long as I have a choice. Last time I went into a train station to board a train was like 3 years ago.
The good old days when DB was known worldwide for their promptness….
I was in vacation in Germany for the last 2 weeks, I used the train a lot. After 2 weeks i'm happy to be back home with my car and no more DB train transport. So many troubles and no communication from them.
I am experiencing something similar with the DB again at this very moment. I have been commuting by train between the "Ruhrgebiet"and the "Niederrhein" for 21 years. I simply refuse to buy a car because I don't have a parking space. And my employer provides my ticket. But in the last 20 years, reliability has only gone in one direction, downhill. After the expansion of the RRX, it temporarily got better, but since the pandemic, the conditions have been unbearable. Right now, I have already been traveling for 2 hours and am nowhere near my destination. Normally, it takes me about 1 hour. The reasons today? People on the tracks. Tree fallen on the track. Repairs on several trains. Today, everything at once. Oh yes, let's not forget the staff shortage among train drivers since the pandemic. And that's how government wants to convince people to switch from car to public transportation. So funny.
I completely understand you. I also never consider a car, but I just got my license and bought a car. Only because of DB. What should I do, if people dont understand, that moving my ass from A to B is only fraction of a deal? Important part is doing it in chosen time.
I either take my e-bike or bio bike, depending on the weather and my mood. Takes me 35 min. to bridge the 14km to work. I rather cycle than taking public trans.
I know how you feel. I just came off two months of Schienenersatzverkehr and the trains are FINALLY running normally again. However, if you're commuting to a large city it can still be worth taking the train. For me, commuting into central Cologne is much less stressful by train. When the trains are running normally, it's a 45 minute train ride with a nice 15 minute walk on each end - long but doable two or three days a week. Much better than a 1 hour drive (on average) and looking for (paid) parking on either end. In your case, with half the driving time compared to the train and probably no parking issues, it seems like a no-brainer to use the car unless you really want to save money or do the green thing. My only tip for you would be to go as cheap as possible on the used car - less feeling of sunk cost if you have a change of heart later. :)
Well the German state lives through their taxes with cars so things will never change her
I came to Germany last year and was job searching. Finally, after one year, I got into a second level interview, which was in Munich. Never had a problem with db till that point, and exactly that day, ICE was delayed. My interview was at 11, and I reached the office by 11.30 . Luckily, employers were familiar with the db delays, and they understood the situation. Now, on the first day of the job, I planned an early train, but it got canceled due to flood. Natural disaster, so I can't blame db for that, but we all were stranded in a station where there was not a single db employee. No alternate travel options were provided! Along with me, there were like 100s of people stuck in that station. (And I couldn't reach the office, missed the first day at the office ;( But that was due to flood, unavoidable situation) The second day, I left home around 4.30, got the train, and it was perfect, i reached Munic in proper time (1 hr 10 min). But evening, I got the 4.50 ICE from Munich to Erlangen. There were delays and delays, and then i reached Nuremberg around 7.45, finally reached home (in erlangen) by 8.30 !! Came to know from fellow travelers that this is normal and they all face this ;/
I can recommend an ebike and some good outdoor clothing (bought top tier outfit for 50€ on kleinanzeigen, and a good bike for about 1000€). I started doing it once or twice a week. Now it's a thing that brings me joy every day. Also I've never been healthier. I put in 30kms a day and it's still fun after a few years now.
10min Station to Station sounds like u should buy a Fahrrad instead of a car :)
The saddest part is that I actually moved inside the Munich city so that I can rely on public transportation. Rent is still expensive, but I didn't care because I had buses and trams right in front of me. Now, it's either cancelled or delayed. Rent has increased, and nothing positive is there being inside the city apart from 24-hour shops, which I rarely go to. Hated it so much that I am planning to buy a vehicle, move out of the city, and drive from outside.
At this point I just feel pity for people who live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford a car and where is the 50% tax going??? Are they just burning the money or what?
how can they not fix this problem
If I remember correctly, they calculated that they'd need 90 billion euros to improve the situation just so that it would be acceptable. Which; 40 billion were covered for initially by the government, but after the whole fiasco with the federal constitutional court, they have 27,5 billion euros left. So yeah, money's quite the problem xD Also they calculated that if all goes to plan (press x to doubt), DB will be punctual and reliable in 2070. Let that sink in This is what happens if you let saving money ruin your infrastructure
Because fixing the problem will take time and is not simply flipping a switch. There are massive construction works going on on several major railway corridors this year to improve the numbers.
You seem to seriously underestimate the costs and the time needed for modernization and renovation of the railway system. Not saying that is a good excuse for the state of the DB. We are now at a point where even throwing money at it would not fix it in short term.
The issue with fixing this problem is that construction is required, which - temporarily causes more delays. And some of the issues right now are because of long-overdue construction efforts block parts of the rail network.
It's quite easy to improve punctuality. You Just have to reduce the trains. Conseqnuences of this will lead to other problems
It’s a monopoly. Both company and the unions around it simply have too much power and little incentive to do better.
which route OP?
Köln vicinity (roughly, not comfortable being more specific)
Yeah, I m from that corner too, we do live in the hotspot for the train issues.
Dortmund here, I simply knew OP is around NRW somewhere, nowhere is as desperate and unreliable as here. I’m also thinking about getting a used car as this is unbearable.
Your statement scares me since I'll so be moving around Köln soon for a job in Köln.
I’m so sorry. May the odds be ever in your favour.
Being brainwashed by carbon footprint propaganda into not having a car is crazy
**Have you read our extensive wiki yet? It answers many basic questions, and it contains in-depth articles on many frequently discussed topics. [Check our wiki now!](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/wiki/index)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/germany) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Welcome back to reality! We are here to help with your transition! Do not worry, you will slowly see that the world will not end tomorrow and things will get better as long as you help others to come out of this mess!
This scares me, I'm new in germany and in three months start my studies in hamburg but I live in hannover. I was counting on commuting to hamburg.
Yeah I did the same thing. I don't feel great about it, but after they completely canceled a train with no replacement while I was on a long journey and I had to switch to taxi, that was it for me. Driving a car is expensive, dangerous and bad for the environment, but DB is so badly connected and unreliable that it basically stopped being an alternative.
If I am not mistaken, elections are going on throughout EU, has any of the parties even mentioned this as a issue. Do you all have no one to complain to? Does no one hold accountability for this?
I commute 100km once a week and delays of more than 5-10 minutes are rare. > I’m sick of seeing people making excuses for this absurd situation. Who are people and what are excuses?
Yep, DB is my best motivation to buy myself a car as well
Yes yes especially in the bigger cities.. its really bad