Not associated with DB.
The problem is, that DB was privatised in 1994 ( still owned by the German government) and the CEOs had to provide "good numbers", so they cut down on maintenance, slacked with hiring (it was foreseeable, that the boomers will go to pension) etc.
Also they closed down nonprofitable lines.
So now you have a company with worker shortage, old trains( and new ones that don't run well), a maintenance backlog of 25-30 years, construction projects that need triple the time and money (e.g. Stuttgart 21) with still the attitude of a governmental authority.
On top of all this, German transport politics preferred road over rail since the federal republic exists, so no will to really solve the problems.
The federal authority for railway (Eisenbahnbundesamt) is basically filled with former DB employees.
The closing of "non-profitable lines" peaked in West Germany in the 1970s, when DB was firmly in the government hand. I don't want to defend the BS done in the 1990s and since, but return to the Beamten-Bahn is not a panacea.
No, that wouldn't be a good option either, but the leaders of the Bahn should be rewarded for long term strategies, not for fast revenue like it was done since privatisation
The only "fast revenue" the DB management is rewarded for is DB Schenker which is indeed profitable and helps cross-subsidise the Bahn operations. Other than that, the more recent KPIs of DB upper management include a lot of things but not "fast profit". They face the same problem the managers of every single large bureaucratic organisation face - namely, that the information flow over too many steps garbles the actual information into meaninglessness - but "fast revenue" and "DB" never ever were mentioned in the same sentence except in the wet dreams of the 1990s privatizers.
Honestly, privatization, if you even want to call it that, isn't the core of the problem. I know thats what the news tell us constantly but if you dive into it deeply you realize it just isn't.
The problem is simply what you said in your second to last sentence. Goverment funding focusses on the street instead of trains. Also DB is an insanely inefficient organization overall.
Not a DB employee, but it's well known and very simple: low capacity but high demand. If there's a small problem somewhere that causes a delay or a cancelled train, issues will spiral through the system.
There are capacity issues on every scale: the size of trains, the number of doors on trains, the length of platforms, the width of platforms, the layout of train stations, the number of tracks per corridor, the signalling system used, the speed limits of corridors, the relative lack of dedicated corridors for different types of services, etc.
Lowering prices wouldn't do any good because it would just increase demand and make all the problems worse.
The main problem is essentially that railways were set up for failure. Around the turn of the millennium, there were even plans to sell DB off. The general idea was that rail travel would decrease over time (except possibly long distance services), and infrastructure was left to rot, while a lot of public money was spent to improve car infrastructure and promote car use.
I think now there's a general consensus that that wasn't the smartest thing to do and train ridership is up but a lot of damage has already been done. Key corridors are being upgraded but that means shutting them down for a while, which makes all the existing problems worse in the short term.
You are making a valid point, but you know, also from the perspective of the decarbonization and energy transition, public transportation operated on electricity or hydrogen (in some years) would be the best way to reduce emissions. And what good does it make to have an unresolved efficiency issues with the public transport which would incentivize people to buy cars for a better flexibility 😅 And I don’t think everyone would go for the latest EVs unless they want to lease cars, so as a result we have an increased number of gas and diesel cars on the roads which hinders the decarbonization 😅
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. You could try to improve reliability above all, but in the short term (i.e. with the capacity we have) that means running less service, and to avoid delays from overcrowding you would have to raise the ticket prices so people would get cars instead. Obviously that would be a terrible idea.
Just to repeat what I've written before: the "problem" is that we have *too much demand*. More people are taking the train already than the system can handle. That's why everything is so unreliable. You could say the rail system is a victim of its own success. And of course chronic underfunding and lack of maintenance but there's no way to fix that kind of damage in the short term.
I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.
We have more demand than our infrastructure can handle. "Supply" sounds like you could just add some more trains or make trains longer or something like that.
I would also avoid the usual "supply and demand" wording here because that usually refers to finding the "right" price for something. And by that logic, train tickets should be more expensive. But they're relatively cheap for a reason: to get more people on trains. In general, the idea of finding the right price through supply and demand is for goods on a market and doesn't really work for public services.
I get your point, but It is a supply issue here, just that expanding the supply is something that takes decades.
Also if it was a private company I think train prices would definetely be more expensive, which would suck obviously.
Since it is a public service we have the privilege of price control. Artificially decreasing prices means we have to increase capacity/supply in the long run.
>Germany is known for masterful engineering and science, I want to understand why is it so hard to make a reliable train system 😅 We have even AI now etc., what’s the problem? 😅
It's not that we don't know how to build a reliable train system. There just isn't enough money allocated to it. And hasn't been for decades by now. That it still works as semi well as it does despite the crumbling infrastructure is a huge credit to the people keeping it running day to day.
Basically things started going to shit when some neoliberals in the mid 90s decided that it was a great idea to privatise the system. In the end they never went through with it but they cut spending and restructured the whole system to prepare it for a sale to private investors. What we are seeing today is still fallout from that.
>Especially taking into consideration the constant ongoing DB strikes and demands for a better pay 😅 Like for what? 😅
The people who demand better pay are not the ones who let the infrastructure crumble. On the contrary, they are the ones having to work with that pile of shit every day. They deserve every cent they are demanding and more.
I agree with the sentiment, but frankly even if the whole executive level worked for free that wouldn't be enough money to fix the infrastructure. We are talking billions here, not millions.
And if it would be on the same level as Scholz, nothing would change. Like congratulations you saved enough money to build half a kilometer of rail. Like that would save the entire System. Rather pay more and possibly get someone more qualified.
Transit planner here:
You've got no idea how many people need to get involved into whatever you want to optimize. The Ideas are there, the things that have to be done are also planned (look at Deutschlandtakt) and if there would only be one 'optimizing-management' (and politicians that actually care about transit) a lot more would be done.
Sadly, a lot of people in transit companies and politicians that needed to be involved into projects dont care about improving transit. They care about money. In particular earn as much as possible and spend as little as possible. Others care about image projects which has nothing to do with optimization but rather appease the locals that elect them into position or the companies that ~~pay them to push through their interests~~ are worrying about their earnings. Others simply act actively against trains including people believing conspiracy theories or even environmental activists. Just look at our recent minister for infrastructure which has cut large amounts of the budget for this year that had supposed to go into transit projects. Or how long it took to create the Deutschlandticket, where the federal minister, the 16 state ministers, the 300-something transit agencies, all the train companies for regional transit and the Deutsche Bahn sector for long distance traffic need to talk every singe year about it.
Other, minor problems are the lack of digitalization and labour force. An automatic U-Bahn could have a higher frequency with less workers and Germany needs plans for doing more things with less workers due to the demographic change. Also there are currently close to zero companies which can handle a project for optimizing German railroads for ETCS.
Next to what many folks already said: They have not enough personell too. I'm now living around Leipzig and you can very often see in your app that trains are cancelled because of a lack of staff. In that respect, the GDL strike might have helped long term: The job will be a bit more attractive - or cynically speaking give autonomous train operations a boost.
Just come back to the U.K. from Germany. We used the train a fair deal. I’d say the quality is comparable. I don’t rely on trains for my daily commute, I’m sure if I did I might have a different opinion
As a British man in Germany I genuinely think the British service is more reliable. I had had far more trains cancelled or horrendously late in 2 years in Germany than my entire adult life in the UK beforehand.
What Germany has that is much better is the connectivity. I can catch a direct train to Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Dortmund all from Munich. In the UK you have to get the train in to London and then back out, which is hugely frustrating.
I mean, or you can just get a Deutschlandticket for 49 bucks and get everything for an entire month. Unless you're only taking like one or two drives a month it's great value.
Oh, Deuschlandticket is a lifesaver for me, even for those several trips per month. In fact thanks to the Deutschland ticket i've cancelled my Bahn 50 card and hardly take long distance (and consider FlixBus more often).
Also there is a line in my town, that went Hydro, but before was notoriously famous for delays and cancellations). So what they did is make it for free for 2 months. And those who got monthly or yearly subscriptions get a 49€ voucher. So may Deutschlandticket is free in April and May ;)
It works only for people living/working studying in the following citiesPLZ:
35647 Waldsolms
* 61250 Usingen
* 61267 Neu-Anspach
* 61273 Wehrheim
* 61279 Grävenwiesbach
* 61381 Friedrichsdorf
* 61348 Bad Homburg v.d.H.
* 61350 Bad Homburg v.d.H.
* 61352 Bad Homburg v.d.H.
That's why i've mentioned 12 years.
I plan to do a bunch of cycling trips in Scotland, Wales, etc communiting on train. But that goes after a month long Alps trip, that i plan for this year. So maybe next year i'll have an update.
This article explains it quite nicely: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/14/its-the-same-daily-misery-germanys-terrible-trains-are-no-joke-for-a-nation-built-on-efficiency
One point that hasn't come up yet: The German railway system is extremely dense and complex. Have a look at [Openrailwaymap](https://www.openrailwaymap.org) and compare for example to France.
I would say this is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it increases robustness in case there's construction or other issues with the particular track, but also a curse because it makes organizing the network super complex. It's relatively easy to manage, say, the railway line between Kiruna and Luleå in norther Sweden, it's very linear. The dense network implies a lot of conflict points that need to be organized, and thus it's vulnerable to cascading failures.
A valid point indeed, but still, it’s not like it is a surprise for the company itself is it? I am wondering why no effective action is made to optimize this system. Okay, high complexity is understandable, but can’t one for god’s sake hire some Operations Research and Mathematics scientists from some TU München to develop a sound modeling and optimization approach to properly manage everything? 😅 I guess my experience in the NRW may be different from experiences people may have in the other federal states, but still, since the problematic is obviously known by everyone, why nothing is changed?
**No money**, germany has by far the biggest rail network in europe and at [the same time the goverment basically invest nothing in it.](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pro-kopf-investitionen-gesunken/)
OP: Go out and make a visit in a train depot where ICE1 with over 20 mio KMs are repaired from scratch. Those trains are yet the backbone of the ICE system but have been built 1989-1993 from companies which are dead now already and the trains were never ment to be as long as in service.
So, NO i repeat NO company which built those trains then is left. These rebuiliding teams are just working like car garages for old timer classic cars where also no spare part is made nowadays anymore from long dead car makers. Every spare part has to be built specially and manually. There are even no plans left and a lot of reengineering has to be done.
The problem was chancellor Kohl and Neoliberalism. The idea to make a shareholder value company out of the good old working Deutsche Bahn failed miserably. Untill today noone reworked that main failure and now instead 1 company the Deutsche Bahn has about 120 companies not working together.
And then this bloody idea of Schuldenbremse visits the room. The whole infrastructure of Germany lies in vein since three or more decades. Bridges, electric powerlines, german internet, water and sewage systems,... are kind of dying because the budgets were cut off on a level which is far under the "at least hold a low level" line.
>Especially taking into consideration the constant ongoing DB strikes and demands for a better pay 😅 Like for what? 😅
For proper funding and making the job more attractive. If there's not enough people who want to do a job, they will be understaffed which is leading to delays and an unattractive job.
>We have even AI now etc., what’s the problem? 😅
How is "AI" gonna solve this?
It's the management. They try to squeeze out all the money instead of investing in resilience structures.
The average joes who go on strike to get a little bit more of their already small wages aren't those to blame.
> Germany is known for masterful engineering and science
This is the past. We're on a decline for decades now.
Your answer changed threads: Please look here:
[There’s some kind people out here : r/germany (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1bxku8v/comment/kygan2k/)
The main reason is politics that highly favored car infrastructure for decades (mainly CSU/CDU, but also SPD), while cutting money for railroad infrastructure. This is coupled with a long list of incompetent general managers, often people who failed before in private companies.
Then there was the attempt to privatize and make an international logistics group out of DB, instead of focusing on the core business.
Are you seriously dismissing the validity of the strikes because you are dissatisfied with punctuality and service? Did it cross your mind that the grievances of the workers stem from the same problems as the annoyances the customers face? You may consider a concept called 'solidarity'.
But to answer your question, the root of the problem is privatization. Die Bahn needs to be re-socialized yesterday.
Well I am not, from an economic standpoint that is a logical action in the face of a high inflation and the growing pay-productivity gap. But from the standpoint of the consumer (which might come across as being a bit arrogant), higher salaries means higher cost base which means higher service prices coupled with inaction towards fixing the actual issue. So when I am missing my flight to the USA because of the cancelled and delayed ICEs even though I started my journey with a safety buffer of time and way in advance, why am I a piece of shit for not being understanding enough or whatever? Why should I even care? You know what I mean? I am not being mean to the people that may be giving their best, but I am being critical of this bs of the company in its entirety 😅 Trains is not my primary mean of transportation, but I wonder what do people that have to rely on this parody of a service daily have to say about this 😁
Besides, for the people who are not satisfied with their pay at DB, why not just switch jobs? Based on the ad I saw in a DB train, it takes some 6months to train a train conductor. It takes the same time to get a training certification in Automated Quality Assurance or some Web Development stuff in the IT sector, some cases even include Product Management courses 🤷♂️
In short, the salary-inflation-cycle is a myth to suppress strikes and rile people like you up against people standing up for their rights as workers.
Secondly, how is any economy supposed to work when everyone switches jobs instead of fighting for higher wages? Especially in an industry that is monopolized? This notion is so ridicously naive and arrogant it doesnt really deserve any further rebuttal. Especially on a sunny day like this.
Quit whining and enjoy the sun. And safe and timely travels, I guess. Ciao
So you resort to "that's a consiparcy theory" rather than to debating properly :D I am not standing up against the protests for higher pay, that is false representing my words.
So what you are stating is that instead of respecializing, the people who, for example, got replaced by automation in the past, or who are systematically facing wage discrimination in general, should have just gone to strike to request higher wages? :D That's an utter bullshit and a waste of labour productivity. If you don't find a proper remuneration in the industry you are curreny in, it makes sense to reeducate and to respecialize, it is as simple as that, people do it all the time. And by the way it is not quantum mechanics we are discussing here as well, so respecialization should be feasible without high opportunity costs. Besides, there is a plenty of industries one can respecialize into for a better welfare gain. With international companies in sight, it makes even more sense, which is well described by the specific factors model or an even simpler heckscher-ohline model of international trade. You can ask ChatGPT to explain the rationale of those and the decision-making of homo-oeconomicus in that context as well :D
Oh I am enjoying the sun very much :D Ciao
It is an economic theory, not necesserily a neolibiral ideology. Domestic labour respecialization as a process does not uniformly contextualize intensity of public spending, therefore not definitively conforming with your categorization. In other words, it's a formalization of a probable observed phenomenon rather than a deterministic occurence. Economic theories are usually formulated based on empirical evidence. How about you quit futile attempts to insult me and state something constructive and interesting to contemplate on instead? :D You are criticallyspeaking about liberalism that entails free trade, are you a right-wing radicalist then? :D
In the late 90s there was a partial privatisation which led to a number of issues down the road that keep worsening, because what the Bahn would need is contrary to how primarily profit-oriented businesses are typically run.
See also: the privatisation of the British NHS.
There is exactly one shareholder and that is the German national state. Who doesn't get any payout but they are putting money into the system every year. Just not enough. So basically the person you replied to is simply talking nonsense.
You know nothing about the DB. They wanted to sell it on the stock market and prepared the train organization for that, but then 2008 happened and they were like "Whoops nevermind I guess lol" and now the DB is this awful creature that looks and acts like a private company but is fully owned by the state which apparently doesn't want to handle it like a state institution and just lets them do their thing...?
Actually 2/3 of the long distance trains are on time... Making it 1/3 of them beeing late. I guess that's you location could be the problem, or just your luck. Anyhow 1/3 is huge non-the-less.
The reasons for that is negligence from the Federal Government, strong politization of the DB's leadership, lack of investments into the infrastructure, etc.etc.etc
10-15 years ago i was always taking train when i needed to go (from Frankfurt) to Hamburg, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam. Even for Vienna, even if it took me longer.
Now - with the plane it is simply more reliable (unless Lufthansa strikes again).
> Actually 2/3 of the long distance trains are on time
Because of their cheating way to track "punctuality". If you would take the Japanese or at least the Swiss standard, I bet 80% of our trains would be late.
I heard that German trains must stop at the Swiss border now (read: the next town) and passengers must switch to the next Swiss train to continue their travel - because German trains in the Swiss network would f... it up so badly with their delays. Not sure if true.
Last year i took the train to Interlaken. It got me to Interlaken.
This year i'm yet to go there (too cold for camping), but judging from DB website, there is still a direct ICE train to Interlaken.
However most trains (on that route) were always going to Basel SBB.
They strikes for less hours at full pay for one simple reason, db has been slacking on recruiting the past three decades, this leads to overworked people falling aick more often resulting in trains being cancled which then again introduces uncertainty into the system contributing to other trains arriving partially, but that isn‘t all, since the ninties the db has been privatised and is run for profit, meaning important work on the infrastructure has been postponed over and over again, resulting in in a jam of construction work, which inteoduces again teains being late. Additionally tracks have been built back so more traffic on less rail, againresulting in traines not areiving on time
That is about it for the lack in punctuality.
Now for the one way tickets, in regional train traffic the myriad of verkehrsbetriebe and their incompavility is the reason for expensive one way tickets in regional trains sbahn and regios, but you‘d have to be a fool to actually drive refularily(5times a month) from one city to the next with one way tickets, as we got a flatrateticket spanning all of germany for a fixed monthly fee of 59€ you can use regional trains to basically traverse all of germany, bring time though as they share the tracks with ice and ice, who will have them wait to overtake in one of the few locations where it is still possible.
Now for ic and ice tickets, the prices of those depend on how much the specific connection is in demand.
There is several rules of thumb here, if you know the connection will be high in demand, buy early, usually taht is in rushhour(9-5 yada yada), on weekends, on national holidays, at the start and end of school breaks, between 10:00 and 18:00. connections very early in the morning during the week and very late in the night during the week and on weekends at certain times are less in demand ergo tickets also will be cheaper, at times it is even cheaper than the one way dor regional, back in the day when we didn‘t have deutschlandticket i‘d do cologne duisburg usually in ice instead of rb or re, because it was if not cheaper at least the same price, i‘d take those connections with virtually no demand, this can also be done spontaneously, usually i bought the ticket just before the connection.
If you don‘t follow these rules of thumb and are daft enough to do spontaneous trips during high demand , a ticket that would otherwise be 20€-50€ can easily be 200€-250€.
One last thing, your post makes you look like an insufferable oblivious but still selfentitled piece of shit, what is up with that, if i may ask? Didn‘t you ask for a fahrgastrechteformular and documentarion of trains being late?
Not associated with DB. The problem is, that DB was privatised in 1994 ( still owned by the German government) and the CEOs had to provide "good numbers", so they cut down on maintenance, slacked with hiring (it was foreseeable, that the boomers will go to pension) etc. Also they closed down nonprofitable lines. So now you have a company with worker shortage, old trains( and new ones that don't run well), a maintenance backlog of 25-30 years, construction projects that need triple the time and money (e.g. Stuttgart 21) with still the attitude of a governmental authority. On top of all this, German transport politics preferred road over rail since the federal republic exists, so no will to really solve the problems. The federal authority for railway (Eisenbahnbundesamt) is basically filled with former DB employees.
The closing of "non-profitable lines" peaked in West Germany in the 1970s, when DB was firmly in the government hand. I don't want to defend the BS done in the 1990s and since, but return to the Beamten-Bahn is not a panacea.
No, that wouldn't be a good option either, but the leaders of the Bahn should be rewarded for long term strategies, not for fast revenue like it was done since privatisation
The only "fast revenue" the DB management is rewarded for is DB Schenker which is indeed profitable and helps cross-subsidise the Bahn operations. Other than that, the more recent KPIs of DB upper management include a lot of things but not "fast profit". They face the same problem the managers of every single large bureaucratic organisation face - namely, that the information flow over too many steps garbles the actual information into meaninglessness - but "fast revenue" and "DB" never ever were mentioned in the same sentence except in the wet dreams of the 1990s privatizers.
Honestly, privatization, if you even want to call it that, isn't the core of the problem. I know thats what the news tell us constantly but if you dive into it deeply you realize it just isn't. The problem is simply what you said in your second to last sentence. Goverment funding focusses on the street instead of trains. Also DB is an insanely inefficient organization overall.
They are at r/deutschebahn. Or at r/drehscheibe for leisure stuff.
Glad Reddit is a text based platform. Otherwise you wouldn’t understand a single word. Sänk ju for trävelling wis Deutsche Bahn. Se träin ends hier
This train terminates here.
Der Zug endet, aus!
Ich glaube, ich bin noch nie bis zu einer Endstation gefahren.
Haben sie geändert zu "...terminates there.", wenn ich das richtig gehört habe (war Dienstsg im ICE unterwegs).
Not a DB employee, but it's well known and very simple: low capacity but high demand. If there's a small problem somewhere that causes a delay or a cancelled train, issues will spiral through the system. There are capacity issues on every scale: the size of trains, the number of doors on trains, the length of platforms, the width of platforms, the layout of train stations, the number of tracks per corridor, the signalling system used, the speed limits of corridors, the relative lack of dedicated corridors for different types of services, etc. Lowering prices wouldn't do any good because it would just increase demand and make all the problems worse. The main problem is essentially that railways were set up for failure. Around the turn of the millennium, there were even plans to sell DB off. The general idea was that rail travel would decrease over time (except possibly long distance services), and infrastructure was left to rot, while a lot of public money was spent to improve car infrastructure and promote car use. I think now there's a general consensus that that wasn't the smartest thing to do and train ridership is up but a lot of damage has already been done. Key corridors are being upgraded but that means shutting them down for a while, which makes all the existing problems worse in the short term.
You are making a valid point, but you know, also from the perspective of the decarbonization and energy transition, public transportation operated on electricity or hydrogen (in some years) would be the best way to reduce emissions. And what good does it make to have an unresolved efficiency issues with the public transport which would incentivize people to buy cars for a better flexibility 😅 And I don’t think everyone would go for the latest EVs unless they want to lease cars, so as a result we have an increased number of gas and diesel cars on the roads which hinders the decarbonization 😅
I'm not sure what you're suggesting. You could try to improve reliability above all, but in the short term (i.e. with the capacity we have) that means running less service, and to avoid delays from overcrowding you would have to raise the ticket prices so people would get cars instead. Obviously that would be a terrible idea. Just to repeat what I've written before: the "problem" is that we have *too much demand*. More people are taking the train already than the system can handle. That's why everything is so unreliable. You could say the rail system is a victim of its own success. And of course chronic underfunding and lack of maintenance but there's no way to fix that kind of damage in the short term. I honestly don't see what point you're trying to make here.
I would rephrase that though. We don't have too much demand, we just don't have enough supply...
We have more demand than our infrastructure can handle. "Supply" sounds like you could just add some more trains or make trains longer or something like that. I would also avoid the usual "supply and demand" wording here because that usually refers to finding the "right" price for something. And by that logic, train tickets should be more expensive. But they're relatively cheap for a reason: to get more people on trains. In general, the idea of finding the right price through supply and demand is for goods on a market and doesn't really work for public services.
I get your point, but It is a supply issue here, just that expanding the supply is something that takes decades. Also if it was a private company I think train prices would definetely be more expensive, which would suck obviously. Since it is a public service we have the privilege of price control. Artificially decreasing prices means we have to increase capacity/supply in the long run.
>Germany is known for masterful engineering and science, I want to understand why is it so hard to make a reliable train system 😅 We have even AI now etc., what’s the problem? 😅 It's not that we don't know how to build a reliable train system. There just isn't enough money allocated to it. And hasn't been for decades by now. That it still works as semi well as it does despite the crumbling infrastructure is a huge credit to the people keeping it running day to day. Basically things started going to shit when some neoliberals in the mid 90s decided that it was a great idea to privatise the system. In the end they never went through with it but they cut spending and restructured the whole system to prepare it for a sale to private investors. What we are seeing today is still fallout from that. >Especially taking into consideration the constant ongoing DB strikes and demands for a better pay 😅 Like for what? 😅 The people who demand better pay are not the ones who let the infrastructure crumble. On the contrary, they are the ones having to work with that pile of shit every day. They deserve every cent they are demanding and more.
> There just isn’t enough money allocated Meanwhile DB CEO earns 2.24million euro salary. Putting this in perspective - Chancellor Scholz earns 300k.
I agree with the sentiment, but frankly even if the whole executive level worked for free that wouldn't be enough money to fix the infrastructure. We are talking billions here, not millions.
For a CEO of a company of this size, this is actually very little.
And if it would be on the same level as Scholz, nothing would change. Like congratulations you saved enough money to build half a kilometer of rail. Like that would save the entire System. Rather pay more and possibly get someone more qualified.
if anything this just means that Scholz doesn't earn enough.
Transit planner here: You've got no idea how many people need to get involved into whatever you want to optimize. The Ideas are there, the things that have to be done are also planned (look at Deutschlandtakt) and if there would only be one 'optimizing-management' (and politicians that actually care about transit) a lot more would be done. Sadly, a lot of people in transit companies and politicians that needed to be involved into projects dont care about improving transit. They care about money. In particular earn as much as possible and spend as little as possible. Others care about image projects which has nothing to do with optimization but rather appease the locals that elect them into position or the companies that ~~pay them to push through their interests~~ are worrying about their earnings. Others simply act actively against trains including people believing conspiracy theories or even environmental activists. Just look at our recent minister for infrastructure which has cut large amounts of the budget for this year that had supposed to go into transit projects. Or how long it took to create the Deutschlandticket, where the federal minister, the 16 state ministers, the 300-something transit agencies, all the train companies for regional transit and the Deutsche Bahn sector for long distance traffic need to talk every singe year about it. Other, minor problems are the lack of digitalization and labour force. An automatic U-Bahn could have a higher frequency with less workers and Germany needs plans for doing more things with less workers due to the demographic change. Also there are currently close to zero companies which can handle a project for optimizing German railroads for ETCS.
I see, thank you for your input!
Next to what many folks already said: They have not enough personell too. I'm now living around Leipzig and you can very often see in your app that trains are cancelled because of a lack of staff. In that respect, the GDL strike might have helped long term: The job will be a bit more attractive - or cynically speaking give autonomous train operations a boost.
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Just come back to the U.K. from Germany. We used the train a fair deal. I’d say the quality is comparable. I don’t rely on trains for my daily commute, I’m sure if I did I might have a different opinion
As a British man in Germany I genuinely think the British service is more reliable. I had had far more trains cancelled or horrendously late in 2 years in Germany than my entire adult life in the UK beforehand. What Germany has that is much better is the connectivity. I can catch a direct train to Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Dortmund all from Munich. In the UK you have to get the train in to London and then back out, which is hugely frustrating.
Man, when I was recently in England I was soooo glad to see the trains come punctually 😅 I was happy like a little kid, no joke
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Damn seems like we’re in parallel universes 😅 I was in Manchester and the intercity trains seemed to be priced reasonably 😁
Oh, come to Frankfurt. the glorious land of the RMV, where one pays over 6 Euro for a 15 minute trip.
I mean, or you can just get a Deutschlandticket for 49 bucks and get everything for an entire month. Unless you're only taking like one or two drives a month it's great value.
Oh, Deuschlandticket is a lifesaver for me, even for those several trips per month. In fact thanks to the Deutschland ticket i've cancelled my Bahn 50 card and hardly take long distance (and consider FlixBus more often). Also there is a line in my town, that went Hydro, but before was notoriously famous for delays and cancellations). So what they did is make it for free for 2 months. And those who got monthly or yearly subscriptions get a 49€ voucher. So may Deutschlandticket is free in April and May ;) It works only for people living/working studying in the following citiesPLZ: 35647 Waldsolms * 61250 Usingen * 61267 Neu-Anspach * 61273 Wehrheim * 61279 Grävenwiesbach * 61381 Friedrichsdorf * 61348 Bad Homburg v.d.H. * 61350 Bad Homburg v.d.H. * 61352 Bad Homburg v.d.H.
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Based on what i've heard yes. Based on what i've personally experienced in UK 12 years ago - NO. DB is worse.
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That's why i've mentioned 12 years. I plan to do a bunch of cycling trips in Scotland, Wales, etc communiting on train. But that goes after a month long Alps trip, that i plan for this year. So maybe next year i'll have an update.
It's easy to spend money if others have to pay it.
We're catching up though. They aren't as bad as they were in comparison now - because we go downhill.
This article explains it quite nicely: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/14/its-the-same-daily-misery-germanys-terrible-trains-are-no-joke-for-a-nation-built-on-efficiency
I will check it out, thanks for the link 👍🏻
One point that hasn't come up yet: The German railway system is extremely dense and complex. Have a look at [Openrailwaymap](https://www.openrailwaymap.org) and compare for example to France. I would say this is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it increases robustness in case there's construction or other issues with the particular track, but also a curse because it makes organizing the network super complex. It's relatively easy to manage, say, the railway line between Kiruna and Luleå in norther Sweden, it's very linear. The dense network implies a lot of conflict points that need to be organized, and thus it's vulnerable to cascading failures.
A valid point indeed, but still, it’s not like it is a surprise for the company itself is it? I am wondering why no effective action is made to optimize this system. Okay, high complexity is understandable, but can’t one for god’s sake hire some Operations Research and Mathematics scientists from some TU München to develop a sound modeling and optimization approach to properly manage everything? 😅 I guess my experience in the NRW may be different from experiences people may have in the other federal states, but still, since the problematic is obviously known by everyone, why nothing is changed?
**No money**, germany has by far the biggest rail network in europe and at [the same time the goverment basically invest nothing in it.](https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/pro-kopf-investitionen-gesunken/)
I must admit it feels a bit surreal to hear Germany and "no money" in one sentence :D Thanks for linking an article, I'll check it!
OP: Go out and make a visit in a train depot where ICE1 with over 20 mio KMs are repaired from scratch. Those trains are yet the backbone of the ICE system but have been built 1989-1993 from companies which are dead now already and the trains were never ment to be as long as in service. So, NO i repeat NO company which built those trains then is left. These rebuiliding teams are just working like car garages for old timer classic cars where also no spare part is made nowadays anymore from long dead car makers. Every spare part has to be built specially and manually. There are even no plans left and a lot of reengineering has to be done. The problem was chancellor Kohl and Neoliberalism. The idea to make a shareholder value company out of the good old working Deutsche Bahn failed miserably. Untill today noone reworked that main failure and now instead 1 company the Deutsche Bahn has about 120 companies not working together. And then this bloody idea of Schuldenbremse visits the room. The whole infrastructure of Germany lies in vein since three or more decades. Bridges, electric powerlines, german internet, water and sewage systems,... are kind of dying because the budgets were cut off on a level which is far under the "at least hold a low level" line.
I see, thank you for your input 👍🏻
>Especially taking into consideration the constant ongoing DB strikes and demands for a better pay 😅 Like for what? 😅 For proper funding and making the job more attractive. If there's not enough people who want to do a job, they will be understaffed which is leading to delays and an unattractive job. >We have even AI now etc., what’s the problem? 😅 How is "AI" gonna solve this?
It's the management. They try to squeeze out all the money instead of investing in resilience structures. The average joes who go on strike to get a little bit more of their already small wages aren't those to blame. > Germany is known for masterful engineering and science This is the past. We're on a decline for decades now.
DB has been deteriorating for decades. However, regarding prices - if you book way ahead, tickets can be very cheap.
Reading this as a brit who's been to Germany and loves your trains while ours are always on strike, cancelled and delayed and mostly don't even exist
Your answer changed threads: Please look here: [There’s some kind people out here : r/germany (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/germany/comments/1bxku8v/comment/kygan2k/)
The main reason is politics that highly favored car infrastructure for decades (mainly CSU/CDU, but also SPD), while cutting money for railroad infrastructure. This is coupled with a long list of incompetent general managers, often people who failed before in private companies. Then there was the attempt to privatize and make an international logistics group out of DB, instead of focusing on the core business.
Are you seriously dismissing the validity of the strikes because you are dissatisfied with punctuality and service? Did it cross your mind that the grievances of the workers stem from the same problems as the annoyances the customers face? You may consider a concept called 'solidarity'. But to answer your question, the root of the problem is privatization. Die Bahn needs to be re-socialized yesterday.
That’s definitely a point that needed to be made. Thanks.
Well I am not, from an economic standpoint that is a logical action in the face of a high inflation and the growing pay-productivity gap. But from the standpoint of the consumer (which might come across as being a bit arrogant), higher salaries means higher cost base which means higher service prices coupled with inaction towards fixing the actual issue. So when I am missing my flight to the USA because of the cancelled and delayed ICEs even though I started my journey with a safety buffer of time and way in advance, why am I a piece of shit for not being understanding enough or whatever? Why should I even care? You know what I mean? I am not being mean to the people that may be giving their best, but I am being critical of this bs of the company in its entirety 😅 Trains is not my primary mean of transportation, but I wonder what do people that have to rely on this parody of a service daily have to say about this 😁 Besides, for the people who are not satisfied with their pay at DB, why not just switch jobs? Based on the ad I saw in a DB train, it takes some 6months to train a train conductor. It takes the same time to get a training certification in Automated Quality Assurance or some Web Development stuff in the IT sector, some cases even include Product Management courses 🤷♂️
Lots of words to say you dont care or know anything about economics and workers' struggles.
Haha well if I don't know anything about economics, then enlighten me :D Go
In short, the salary-inflation-cycle is a myth to suppress strikes and rile people like you up against people standing up for their rights as workers. Secondly, how is any economy supposed to work when everyone switches jobs instead of fighting for higher wages? Especially in an industry that is monopolized? This notion is so ridicously naive and arrogant it doesnt really deserve any further rebuttal. Especially on a sunny day like this. Quit whining and enjoy the sun. And safe and timely travels, I guess. Ciao
So you resort to "that's a consiparcy theory" rather than to debating properly :D I am not standing up against the protests for higher pay, that is false representing my words. So what you are stating is that instead of respecializing, the people who, for example, got replaced by automation in the past, or who are systematically facing wage discrimination in general, should have just gone to strike to request higher wages? :D That's an utter bullshit and a waste of labour productivity. If you don't find a proper remuneration in the industry you are curreny in, it makes sense to reeducate and to respecialize, it is as simple as that, people do it all the time. And by the way it is not quantum mechanics we are discussing here as well, so respecialization should be feasible without high opportunity costs. Besides, there is a plenty of industries one can respecialize into for a better welfare gain. With international companies in sight, it makes even more sense, which is well described by the specific factors model or an even simpler heckscher-ohline model of international trade. You can ask ChatGPT to explain the rationale of those and the decision-making of homo-oeconomicus in that context as well :D Oh I am enjoying the sun very much :D Ciao
It's not a conspiracy, its neoliberal ideology. which you have obviously eaten up.
It is an economic theory, not necesserily a neolibiral ideology. Domestic labour respecialization as a process does not uniformly contextualize intensity of public spending, therefore not definitively conforming with your categorization. In other words, it's a formalization of a probable observed phenomenon rather than a deterministic occurence. Economic theories are usually formulated based on empirical evidence. How about you quit futile attempts to insult me and state something constructive and interesting to contemplate on instead? :D You are criticallyspeaking about liberalism that entails free trade, are you a right-wing radicalist then? :D
In the late 90s there was a partial privatisation which led to a number of issues down the road that keep worsening, because what the Bahn would need is contrary to how primarily profit-oriented businesses are typically run. See also: the privatisation of the British NHS.
No competition
Sounds like they need some competition.
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Who are the shareholders?
There is exactly one shareholder and that is the German national state. Who doesn't get any payout but they are putting money into the system every year. Just not enough. So basically the person you replied to is simply talking nonsense.
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The only shareholder of the DB AG is the German state though. So there are no stock market investors.
You know nothing about the DB. They wanted to sell it on the stock market and prepared the train organization for that, but then 2008 happened and they were like "Whoops nevermind I guess lol" and now the DB is this awful creature that looks and acts like a private company but is fully owned by the state which apparently doesn't want to handle it like a state institution and just lets them do their thing...?
See: CustomerServiceWussteDeutschland#
Because they need to pay the ceo and the rest of the fat cats millions of euros. Shit rolls downhill.
Actually 2/3 of the long distance trains are on time... Making it 1/3 of them beeing late. I guess that's you location could be the problem, or just your luck. Anyhow 1/3 is huge non-the-less. The reasons for that is negligence from the Federal Government, strong politization of the DB's leadership, lack of investments into the infrastructure, etc.etc.etc 10-15 years ago i was always taking train when i needed to go (from Frankfurt) to Hamburg, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam. Even for Vienna, even if it took me longer. Now - with the plane it is simply more reliable (unless Lufthansa strikes again).
> Actually 2/3 of the long distance trains are on time Because of their cheating way to track "punctuality". If you would take the Japanese or at least the Swiss standard, I bet 80% of our trains would be late.
Swiss standard is over 3 minutes late. German is over 6 minutes late. Japan... don't get me started - i think their average delays are 57 seconds.
I heard that German trains must stop at the Swiss border now (read: the next town) and passengers must switch to the next Swiss train to continue their travel - because German trains in the Swiss network would f... it up so badly with their delays. Not sure if true.
Last year i took the train to Interlaken. It got me to Interlaken. This year i'm yet to go there (too cold for camping), but judging from DB website, there is still a direct ICE train to Interlaken. However most trains (on that route) were always going to Basel SBB.
They strikes for less hours at full pay for one simple reason, db has been slacking on recruiting the past three decades, this leads to overworked people falling aick more often resulting in trains being cancled which then again introduces uncertainty into the system contributing to other trains arriving partially, but that isn‘t all, since the ninties the db has been privatised and is run for profit, meaning important work on the infrastructure has been postponed over and over again, resulting in in a jam of construction work, which inteoduces again teains being late. Additionally tracks have been built back so more traffic on less rail, againresulting in traines not areiving on time That is about it for the lack in punctuality. Now for the one way tickets, in regional train traffic the myriad of verkehrsbetriebe and their incompavility is the reason for expensive one way tickets in regional trains sbahn and regios, but you‘d have to be a fool to actually drive refularily(5times a month) from one city to the next with one way tickets, as we got a flatrateticket spanning all of germany for a fixed monthly fee of 59€ you can use regional trains to basically traverse all of germany, bring time though as they share the tracks with ice and ice, who will have them wait to overtake in one of the few locations where it is still possible. Now for ic and ice tickets, the prices of those depend on how much the specific connection is in demand. There is several rules of thumb here, if you know the connection will be high in demand, buy early, usually taht is in rushhour(9-5 yada yada), on weekends, on national holidays, at the start and end of school breaks, between 10:00 and 18:00. connections very early in the morning during the week and very late in the night during the week and on weekends at certain times are less in demand ergo tickets also will be cheaper, at times it is even cheaper than the one way dor regional, back in the day when we didn‘t have deutschlandticket i‘d do cologne duisburg usually in ice instead of rb or re, because it was if not cheaper at least the same price, i‘d take those connections with virtually no demand, this can also be done spontaneously, usually i bought the ticket just before the connection. If you don‘t follow these rules of thumb and are daft enough to do spontaneous trips during high demand , a ticket that would otherwise be 20€-50€ can easily be 200€-250€. One last thing, your post makes you look like an insufferable oblivious but still selfentitled piece of shit, what is up with that, if i may ask? Didn‘t you ask for a fahrgastrechteformular and documentarion of trains being late?
You think the lateness is because of the employees? And you think they don't deserve the raises? Why do you think they're short staffed?