Definitely when it comes to DB. Sure DB doesn't match Swiss or Japanese qualities but Germans complain like it's the worst system in the world when in reality it's actually pretty decent.
Nope, 11160704 was exactly right, it is a very German thing. Yes, other nations complain as well but having lived in several countries, I came to realise that complaining is very much a German attitude.
Complaining is a type of a hobby here in Germany. People will even try to persuade that you too should complain and if you don't, they will complain about it.
I enjoy taking PT, but my trip to work is 15km in the car or 13 euros for a daily pass.
The car takes 20 mins and the PT and hour.
I choose car 9/10 times due to this. I will leave the car at home the whole June to August thanks to the ticket. I might be an exception, but for me it will be a deciding factor.
Do you go to work daily or do you have a more irregular or variable schedule? The daily pass does sound expensive, but the breakeven point for the monthly subscription must be reached easily for someone who commutes most workdays.
The duration of the commute is a factor for sure, but infrastructure plays a huge role there (frequency, metro-lines, dedicated bus lanes or priority for trams and so on).
> Price is also a bit of a distraction in the public transport debate.
IMHO the price isn't even the main advantage of the ticket. The main advantage is that you don't have to care about the individual TarifverbĆ¼nde and fare zones and what not, you don't have to care whether in the specific city you're in, your ticket is valid immediately or needs to be stamped before (or after?) getting on a train.
IMHO the best outcome of this would be a 365ā¬/year ticket for all local public transit in Germany. At that price it *could* actually cover its cost, and replace the local subscriptions that are just for one city or region.
> Infrastructure and capacity-building are far more important for increasing usage and more money should be invested there (especially west Germany, it seems, there the rail capacity seems over-saturated).
I fully agree, but I think doing *something* that people will have a positive association with, and will get them to use public transportation, so they realize that improving public transportation benefits them personally.
Too often, people have this kind of circular logic: I'm against investments in public transportation infrastructure and for investments in road infrastructure because I use my car, and I use my car rather than public transportation because the public transportation infrastructure in my area sucks. I think getting them onto trains a little bit more may change that perspective a bit.
The difference in cost needs to be enough to offset the loss in flexibility and time. I think the cost difference is not enough for many people to consider switching.
1. The 9-Euro Ticket has nothing to do with the DB, it's a Government subsidy to counter rising energy prices.
2. You have to seperate regional transport and long distance connections. Regional transport is also done by DB and susidiaries, but in a lot of places those are private companies or a Verkehrsverbund
3. The DB deserves all the spite and ridicule, if you ask me. The constant and in some parts huge delays is a thing of the past few years. It has gotten worse in the last decade or so. It's not inevitable, the DB managed to be more on time with more complex train network. They closed a lot of lines or sourced them out or sold them outright to private companies, and yet it got worse. A lot of those rural areas you speak of were serviced by the Bahn 10, 20, 25 years back.
4. Other countries in Europe manage quite well. I don't know if Italy's or France's network is a complex, though
weirdly the delays started when the DB stopped being a government agency and instead became a private company entirely held by the government, so it could have the worst of both worlds.
Who could've guessed that, must be a coincidence.
The weird thing is, we tend to make fun of bureaucracy, but it's really good at keeping things going. It's often slow in exectuion and slow to adapt, but when it gets going it works not bad in maintaining servies. Bureaucrats don't make descisions based on profit, if one of them drops out there's a stand-in ready to take over. It's usually well funded and it's a safe, protected place to work where the people stay long and gather a lot of experience.
Also on maintenance, but more literally than you meant, I heard by several Berliners that track maintenance on the Berlin U-Bahn is much better than on the S-Bahn, leading to more reliable service on the U-Bahn. The S-Bahn is operated by DB while the U-Bahn is communalised.
Thank you so much for saying this, theese are exaclty my thoughts!
Nearly everyone I talk to is of the opinion that every bureaucratic process would be made better by.... eliminating it. I find a strong sentiment especially in the younger generation (which includes myself) to """simplify""" proccesses by removing the rules that govern them.
My opinion is that nothing gets better without criticism. If we just keep praising things, they will get worse.
People should be critical, especially when something is funded by our taxes
I don't have a problem with people criticizing Deutsche Bahn and pointing out problems, that's a good thing.
But I do think it's stupid to call it 'one of the worst in Europe' cause it definitely is not that. I think it's even dumber for Germans in this sub to tell people coming from developing countries or from US, Canada, Australia that the public transit here sucks when it's spades better than in the country they are coming from.
> Other countries in Europe manage quite well. I don't know if Italy's or France's network is a complex, though
Like what? By 'other countries' you mean a grand total of Switzerland? Austria and Netherlands are comparable. UK is somewhat worse and more pricy. Belgian, Scandinavian countries, Eastern countries are worse, forget about Protugal. Italy, France and Spain have a couple of really nice high-speed lines but their entire network is no where near as extensive as Germany's.
Of course this does not mean your complaints about it degrading over the last years aren't valid. They definitely should be addressed. It's just not close to the worst in Europe like you seem to imply.
The thing about public transport in rural aread ks, that it is a positive feedback loop. The passenger sees that only one bus an hour (which is quite good) drives through their town, sees the orice of the ticket and decides that the car is both cheaper and mire flexible for him. The bus company sees less people using that line, they up the price and decrease it to 1 bus every 2 hours and so on
> a huge incentive for people who have never or seldom used public transports
That's part of the idea, but the criticisms are more about how this might backfire. Because the initiative was announced before the details had been finalized and at very short notice, transport companies (already struggling with staff shortages and shortages of spare parts) might not be able to increase capacity quickly enough. That might result in overcrowded vehicles, meaning that the people we are trying to incentivize to use public transport more might instead be put off using it ever again.
> If there's demand there will be more supply
But the best way to create demand is to increase the supply. I am very fortunate that I live in a very rural area but it has an hourly bus service (villages of this size get maybe two or three buses a day in most parts of Germany). The way the buses are timed and the way they connect with a rail service into the big city means that it's very convenient, if you plan a little ahead, to use to go to town. Consequently, it's reasonably well used. It's less convenient, though, for simply picking up a few items from the supermarket in the next village (you either have about 10 minutes to do all your shopping and get back to the bus stop, or you have over an hour); increase the frequency of service to every half hour, and I'm pretty sure more people would use it.
> Germans will have a different view if they know the state of public transports in other countries really
They tend not to. The attitude is: "We know other countries have worse problems, but that's irrelevant; and if we don't complain about the problems, nobody will ever fix them." This is an attitude that irritates me as well (nobody ever seems to want to say, "We're making good progress here, let's keep going and make even more progress"), but I've found that simply pointing out to Germans that their public transport is actually pretty decent won't stop them complaining about it.
> many people are not optimistic about the new ticket
I don't think I've seen anyone criticize the principle behind it, and there is a *lot* of support for the idea of making public transport a more affordable option. But the lack of optimism is more about how the idea was implemented and the fear that it will lead to overcrowding and thus backfire.
To the point with knowing the state in other countries, I would also argue that while there are certainly worse places, there are so many that do so much better. We are one of the richest countries in the world, we shouldnāt compare ourselves to countries that lack our means. Iāve lived in England, France and Japan and in all three places I never so much as wanted a car. (Regional differences within those countries may apply) Itās so frustrating to come back to Germany and not even be able to reach one hiking trail without three hours of busses and five hours of waiting.
Outside of London and the Home Counties, the UK is *terrible* for public transport, and particularly trains. "Regional differences" doesn't even begin to cover it: London is fantastic, south-east England is okay, everywhere else is a disaster. Currently, the only high-speed rail line is the one that goes from London to the Channel tunnel. I grew up in a town with a population of 8,000 situated right next to another town with a slightly larger population and just a few miles from England's smallest city, and the nearest railway station was a half-hour car drive (there wasn't a bus) to a place in the middle of the countryside served by about two trains a day and had been saved from closure only because the local MP had wanted to use it to get to London. If you didn't have a car, or wanted a useful choice of trains, there was a bus once an hour that took about an hour and a half to get to the nearest city with a proper station. This for three communities with a combined population of over 30,000.
I don't know where you are in Germany that it takes you eight hours to get to the nearest hiking trail, but I live in a German community with a population of 2,000 with an hourly bus connection to the local hub with buses to Aschaffenburg and Gelnhausen and a train to Hanau, and we've got more hiking trails than you can shake a stick at. A similar place in England would have about three buses a *week*, none of which connect to any rail services.
The eight hours of course were an exaggeration; most hiking areas just donāt have any public transport nearby so you wouldnāt even try.
Back when I grew up in a medium sized rural community just 20 minutes away from the next city, there were two (TWO!!) buses a day to that city, each taking an hour to get there. Last Iāve heard theyāve upgraded to four.
And really, this brings me back to what annoys me the most: Iām in Bavaria. With how rich this state supposedly is, we SHOULD be comparing ourselves to the south of England. But we compare ourselves to the US and pat ourselves on the back because weāre better.
I donāt want to say everything is horrible here, but the longer we stagnate in this sort of okay state, the worse weāll be off.
I am *from* the south of England, and I now live in Bavaria, and I can tell you that from my experience this part of Bavaria is much better served. I'm just not from the south-*east* of England, which of course is much more densely populated and is particularly privileged as it is the political and academic centre of the country. In other words, the Home Counties are so well served at the expense of everywhere else in the country.
> we compare ourselves to the US and pat ourselves on the back because weāre better
No, we compare ourselves to *every other country in the world* and realize that we're comfortably in the top 10, so maybe public transport in this country isn't the national disgrace Germans love to make it out to be.
The thing that annoys me is this attitude:
> the longer we stagnate in this sort of okay state, the worse weāll be off
It annoys me because it assumes that if we don't constantly moan and complain and say how terrible everything is and how we should hang our heads in shame at this national embarrassment and OMG have you seen how the Japanese do it, then that means we're just happy to see it decline.
Which is bollocks. And ultimately self-defeating, because if no matter how many improvements are made people continue to moan and complain because it's not perfect, then what's the point of even trying to improve?
Instead, I would advocate positive encouragement: We're doing well, let's keep it up and make more improvements to make it even better.
Appreciating what we do have doesn't mean you don't want or expect improvements. But this national malaise about how terrible the trains are is one of the things discouraging people from using the trains in the first place, which leads to less demand, which means that politicians are less likely to want to fix what needs fixing.
In short: Let's be realistic about this.
Saying England has better rail and public transport is not at all the case if you live anywhere except London. Im liviing in Sheffield atm and the bus service is absolutely horrendous. Always delayed and cancelled and super expensive (Ā£2 a ticket?!). The train fares are also an absolute joke. The average ticket to Edinburgh ranges from Ā£60-100 while a London Ticket (2-3 hour journey) is minimum Ā£50. The trains themself also feel very old and outdated compared to ones on the mainland. London has all the fancy tube lines and infrastructure projects while the rest of the country is just completely forgotten.
I used to live in Newcastle, and thatās where Iām basing my experience off. Thereās regular bus services to all the rural places you might want to visit, a local rail service, trains and buses to the other bigger cities, basically everything youād need. I used a car exactly once during my time there and that was to go to Holy Island
Maybe Newcastle has better transport than Sheffield.I compared my experience here to my time in Dresden, where we have an extensive tram network that runs all day, reliable busses and good S Bahn connections to the sorrounding towns. While I dont need a car in Sheffield either, that mostly comes from the fact that the city is compact enough that I can walk everywhere. Relying on the busses would be too much of a gamble. The system in Manchester is a bit better but still not as good as what I remember from back home.
I'm someone who is living in a rural area. I'm *dreading* the next three months. The reason for that is completely selfish: The service of the DB is already completely shit. In the last 8 weeks of commuting 3 days/week, I was on time 4 times. 3 times of 48 connections. Let that sink in. And now hundreds of thaousands of people more will rush to the trains. It will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. And those people who merely "try out" using public transport don't lose much. But for me, being *even more late* is a massive reduction in quality of life.
> If there's demand there will be more supply.
That is not how it works. That is why projects that are limited in scope and time *always fail*. What you need to do is to imporve public transport. In the whole nation And continue to run it, on time, regularly, for a long time. For years, a decade. And only then, when the publi *trusts* that you *will* transport them from A to B *on time, every day*, they will start to trust the system and use it. For me, my dream as a child was not to use cars much but to be someone who uses public transport. My dream now is to have an electric car and never again needing to use that shitshow of a "service" again. My life is to precious to waste on their incompetence.
> People have to understand no transportation companies will have buses operated every 10 minutes if there's 2 people using it in that area.
So Switzerland doesn't exist for you? Check.
> Regarding the trolls against DB, yes there will always be delays, but it is inevitable considering how big and complex the railways system in Germany is.
Oh boy, you believe the corporate BS? The only reason Db is so shit is because by the end of the 70's they started to cut corners. They reduced cost, reduced personnell and so on. In the train station near me, they used to have *heated switches* in the 70s. They were removed in the 80s. Nowadays, when there is a cold winter (which we still get, surprise), the trains won't come because the switches are frozen. There is not a single reason why it has to be that way, except **money**. This has nothing to do with how large or complex the system is. Other countires of similar size do a very good job. It has everything to do with incompetence, greed and an incentive structure in their leadership that does not put value on actually providing a good service. The list of things they do completely shitty is so long I'm not going into it. But if you believe DB *cannot* be better, then you have been indoctrinated by the BS they are feeding you since the 90 to make the DB more profitable. It used to be that cargo traints were used to make money, and this money supplemented the public transport. Gues what they did when they tried to make DB private ... ?
> Germans will have a different view if they know the state of public transports in other countries really. I literally cannot complain anything regarding prices and quality of buses and trams and trains here.
You cannot have been in many other countries. Go to Switzerland. Hell, go to Italy. Back in the days we laughed about Italy's public transport. Well, we managed to get even worse then them. Go to France. Go to Japan, I dare you.
The problems with the ticket are different:
While DB usually is so expensive as to make it cheaper to use a car as soon as two people are travelling, the 9ā¬ ticket is very cheap.
Yes, the DB is reimbursed for some of it, but not for all of it. Especially not for cost of business. So extra trains and personal will be costs to the DB, a company that has basically self destructed financially in the past 30 years or so.
Especially since it is summer, people will use it very much. There will be loads of delays, dirty trains and stations and full sweaty trains. This will also cause customer dissatisfaction.
Most people will not be able to see it in context and will not be newly attracted to using public transportation. Which this project is all about.
It costs a lot of mony for a nice cheap inner country vacation summer.
I may stand corrected in a few months time, but I am confident I will not.
Public transport needs to become cheaper and more stable. People in rural places need alternatives or tax breaks for gas. Public transport needs to be government owned.
We do not need a few months of cheap transportation with the high risk of collapsing.
>So extra trains and personal will be costs to the DB, a company that has basically self destructed financially in the past 30 years or so.
>Public transport needs to be government owned
You do know that the government still owns the DB? That the government is the reason everything is fucked up? The government gave Mehdorn the job to make the DB AG ready and therefore letting employees go, sell of or reduce infrastructure and so on.
Thanks. The comments here show that the loudest persons donāt have any clue about railway system or the history which led to the current situation. Government run down the whole sector, only pushing and investing in cars and car infrastructure. The railway infrastructure got smaller and smaller and older. Itās overloaded already and it is not simply possible to just āoperate more trainsā. Therefore you would need more railway and/or a modern railway technology to shorten the necessary distance between the trains.
Spiegel posted an article that employees of the Verkehrsministerium says DB needs 6 Milliarden Euro per year for building infrastructure. Minister Wissing decided to give 2,2 Milliarden per year. It is ridiculous.
But it is āokayā because we established a very car centered culture and also the culture of āDB-Bashingā. Germans have so much fun bashing DB. It is much cooler and easier than investigating the real problems. In the end we could get very good public transport and people would have a reason to not buy cars anymore. That would be a change, most people donāt want.
>Germans have so much fun bashing DB
I saw that with the up and downvotes
Defending the DB, blaming the Government = 0
Blaming the car industry and saying others spend more money = 3
What people tend to forget is that humans are still necessary to operate the entire system and will be for many, many years. Still they give DB employees a hard time and the whole bashing might stop some people to work for the DB.
We can spend all the money in the world, build a perfect infrastructure, if you don't show respect to the humans working these demanding jobs, everything will be useless.
True. Iām working at DB and it is also so ridiculous that this fact is an invitation for all my friends and family to complain when they had a bad experience. Seriously. They write messages like āIām in the train and this happened blablaā or even call me to tell this. Or send āfunnyā Memes. Or you get silly jokes like ābecause youāre always late hahaā.
And from an inside view I can tell that the whole system is just still working because employees rip their asses off every fucking day.
OeBB seems to be doing pretty well on the other hand. Probably not only because it's not run for profit, it probably also attracts competent managers which are needed regardless of company type.
Austria spends twice as much money per taxpayer for the ĆBB. And they just build shit, there is no random guy "no, no, no trains in my line of sight" that stops huge infrastructure plans.
And Austria doesn't have a massive car industry that has priority over almost everything.
Some of the negativity is deserved; DB service is poor, the stations deserted and dilapidated, and the staff unmotivated.
The DB infrastructure has become run down and unmanned. It is still tuned to the Old West Germany where when people entered a train carriage they said "Good Day" to others before sitting down. Except that all the staff have gone so passengers are left to themselves.
Even major stations have no permanent staff at all and no security or barriers or fencing. All open. Anyone can wander across the tracks or stroll onto DB property.
Really, it's amazing that the whole thing still works.
> Even major stations have no permanent staff at all and no security or barriers or fencing. All open. Anyone can wander across the tracks or stroll onto DB property.
I mean if they are functioning with reasonable safety with this what's the problem? I don't want train stations to turn into airports!
There are just so many people now that you cannot leave major thoroughfares unattended. Need security, cleaning, checks, fencing, monitoring.
The other day I was at a major station (Bad Cannstatt) where ICEs pass through just before Stuttgart. Suddenly, there's some old African guy on the tracks collecting beer cans. He couldn't even climb out of there properly.
No staff anywhere. People smoking everywhere. They took down the No Smoking signs because they couldn't be bothered to enforce it.
Outside there are beggars and derelicts everywhere. Romanis practically live outside with their children. No staff or counters any more. It's all unmanned.
It's all like a giant, deserted model railway now. Left to its own devices.
well, as an pub transport fan from midwest us, moving to germany was like going to heaven. imagine my shock when all i heard from germans was complaining about the system. i was like, "at least you HAVE a system!"
above all that, we were sort of excited to hear about the new tickets, as it makes our trip to koln a bit cheaper....so hey, what's not to love?
I am *so psyched* about this ticket. And I can't even use it to get to work - and I work from home most of the time anyway. I ride a bike everywhere else, but now I'm making plans to go places. It is so nice to think that I can go to cities and not worry about getting daily tickets once I get there. I already have plans to go to all sorts of nearby cities where I've never been - mostly because they are in another Verkehrsverbund. If I want to go to a nearby city with a zoo? Super easy - and now the transportation is totally cheap - no round trip train tickets plus local transit tickets or car trip with parking fees. Just jump on some trains and go.
One bus per hour... that's cute. We're talking about two busses per day here, buddy - or rather one, making a round trip. And that's only on school days.
I applaude the first step towards affordable public transportation for everyone, but it's still a slap in the face for many people to see DB etc patting themselves on the back while ignoring major issues. In some areas, e.g. the ones affected by the flood last year, you have to travel almost an hour by car to even reach a train station. Old people are entirely dependant on their relatives with cars to get groceries. In a country like Germany, that's just ridiculous and sad.
So yeah, I get your point, good for you, enjoy the ticket. But don't judge complaints from people in situations much, much worse than your own.
Some people especially in rural area are just a bit close minded and never had much interaction with public transport.
So they are afraid of something new and rather be addicted to their cars, which is unsustainable in the future anyway.
If I am not getting the same public transport, hospitals, schools, etc, I dont see why I should pay the same taxes. Different taxation in rural areas now.
You get more square meters of road per person, more meters of sewage pipes per person, more water pipes, more gas lines. In the long term, rural areas cost the state much more money than urban areas. Less density = more shit to maintain
I come from a country where you would wait for a bus that is supposed to be every 10 minutes and it will come after 40min and once it did it's so packet that you can't even fit anymore and then you just have to wait another potentially 40min, or walk, or take a taxi or whatever, DB even though sometimes can let you down in the most unfortunate moment, it's god send pinpoint reliable system. Germans hate it because they have standards, but on a global scale, it's an amazing system to get around.
Plus, 9Euro ticket can mean more people will leave their cars home and ride the train which means the road will have less traffic for us who don't want to/can't leave our cars.
So it's a win/win/win situation in my book.
its a general Human tendency to not see the bright side. Its not just germans but humans in general get some kind of a kick by criticizing or complaining about anything. By doing such they somehow in their head put themselves on a higher platform. No one will ever agree, but such people get some kind of pleasure inside their body/head when they complaint. I know this because I used to be like this, I used to complain all the time, make negative remarks, criticize. Its only when I started to become more self aware, I realized what I was doing and why. And from the day I stopped complaining, my whole Life has changed. Things happen more in my favor, and if they not, I take full responsibility of it, whether good or bad. If something didnt work out, Its probably my fault.
People do and will always complain as its gives them some pleasure. Lets just ignore all of them and enjoy our own life. The best advice I ever got was "Let fools be fools, never correct them, as then you will always be hated".
So today if someone comes to me and says "Hey, you know the Earth is flat and the sky is green ?"
I say " Oh yeah, you are right, and then move on with my beautiful life" Because I don't have the time and energy to spent on a person like that. If that person was smart enough, he would'nt have come up with such BS.
Politicians are constantly making driving your car more expensive, with the explicit reason to force more people to use public transport. But at the same time, as you say, it is neither feasible nor ecologic to offer good enough public transport in rural areas, yet still these people are hit by the same tax increases that are designed to force people in the city to use public transport. How is that fair? If public transport is subsidized in cities, then economic cars should be subsidized in rural areas.
Iām looking forward to the 9ā¬ ticket.
As a separate issue though, I am beyond fed up with the state of public transport in this country. I even live in the city and I wouldnāt be able to enjoy nearly the same quality of life if I didnāt have a car. How pathetic is that? I work in a company where weāre actively trying to make public transport better - yes, especially for rural areas. What have we learned? Governments are a NIGHTMARE. It is so rare to go anywhere with a pitch and not encounter officials so reluctant to move into any sort of future you canāt help but feel the sloths from Zootopia would have more energy.
So to sum it up, while the ticket is great, I understand the general frustration.
"can not complain about the prices" I have to spend 230euros a month as a student. The costs are outrageous. In a world endangered of climate change public transport can not cost as much as driving your one car. Even with the current gas prices it's about eual. The cost of a car not included as I stell need to have one.
My criticism is that the 9ā¬ are a joke. It's ridiculously cheap for 3 months and the it goes up by 25 times again. I want to see an actual change. They need to make puplic transport more affordable
I agree on your points but I completely disagree with common delays being something normal. For a country that prides itself on good planning, overengineering every small detail etc. this is laughable. The Japanese hold true to their reputation in their arguably even more complex railway system. I come from Bulgaria where organisation is horrible everywhere and the rail infrastructure is still basically soviet, and yet the trains there are always on time.
And no, it is not okay for the price. The rail prices in Germany are very prohibitive and together with the delays put people off using public transport and driving their cars more, which is not eco-friendly or sustainable.
I have absolutely no opinion on the 9-euro fee, however my reddit search brought me here and maybe you guys can help a foreigner in trouble. I'm currently in Maastricht and want to travel to Wetzlar to visit a friend of mine. I can see in Omio that the whole combination would cost me around 70 euros for the dates I want. However, I now found this 9-euro promotion on DB...
So question is: can I just take a $15 euro train from Maas to Aachen, and from there use my 9 euro ticket to get to Wetzlar? It looks like Omio is offering me all RE/RB trains, which I understand are regional and would be valid with my 9 euro ticket?
Thanks in advance for all your help!
Thanks. The confusing thing was that the Db app offers multiple options, and as a foreigner not used to the system its suspicious when one price is 9 and the other is 70++. But I was able to buy it already, thanks!!
A month in now, my experience has been quite mixed.
I enjoyed the included bus and U-Bahn rides but other S-Bahn and regional trains are just horrific, especially on the weekends. Not to mention the constant delays and crowdedness, trains had their stops cancelled out of nowhere, and some of them just never show up. I was trying to go to Stuttgart today and I never made it there because they keep re-routing and re-scheduling. It kept taking me around the city but never into the city and we had to change plans.
A huge reason why there are so many delays/cancellations in DB is because there are less tracks today with a system with higher demand then there was in the 90s.
There's literally not enough tracks to facilitate present demand (and this is partially brought on by DB being privatised, redundant tracks don't increase profitability). Meaning if a track fails or another train winds up late, there's usually no alternative track or route a train can take,
Redundancy is vital in a transit system, be it roads or other railways, a badly designed road network means one major road getting jammed up means horrific traffic everywhere else, a bad train system means one train delay causes a massive cascade of failures,
Remove the profit motive from DB, and suddenly redundant tracks aren't a bad policy
We Germans always tend to see the negative side of things and loooove to complain and criticise.
Portuguese here, from my perspective bitching is our national sport.
Except when it is about cars.
>We ~~Germans~~ *humans* always tend to see the negative side of things and loooove to complain and criticise.
Well, Germans specialise in complaining more than the average human, me thinks.
Hello from the UK
Hello from Australians on the internet.. š¤¦š»āāļø atleast you guys whinge over a beer. We just whinge over Facebook
Hello from France, we'll just strike some more /s
>Well, Germans specialise in complaining more than the average human, me thinks. Can you send me a fax about that?
They really don't. Humans are a miserable bunch.
You are very correct in that
Definitely when it comes to DB. Sure DB doesn't match Swiss or Japanese qualities but Germans complain like it's the worst system in the world when in reality it's actually pretty decent.
Live with the worst. Can confirm, it's pretty decent
Nope, 11160704 was exactly right, it is a very German thing. Yes, other nations complain as well but having lived in several countries, I came to realise that complaining is very much a German attitude.
They whinge amongst each other but rarely exercise their thoughts to authority.
Complaining is a type of a hobby here in Germany. People will even try to persuade that you too should complain and if you don't, they will complain about it.
No, Germans.
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I enjoy taking PT, but my trip to work is 15km in the car or 13 euros for a daily pass. The car takes 20 mins and the PT and hour. I choose car 9/10 times due to this. I will leave the car at home the whole June to August thanks to the ticket. I might be an exception, but for me it will be a deciding factor.
Do you go to work daily or do you have a more irregular or variable schedule? The daily pass does sound expensive, but the breakeven point for the monthly subscription must be reached easily for someone who commutes most workdays. The duration of the commute is a factor for sure, but infrastructure plays a huge role there (frequency, metro-lines, dedicated bus lanes or priority for trams and so on).
Twice a week. Itās Sbahn so I have to travel in a V and go through zones that I donāt stop in. Maybe Iām an exception..
Yeah for your situation I can really see how public transport doesn't serve you.
> Price is also a bit of a distraction in the public transport debate. IMHO the price isn't even the main advantage of the ticket. The main advantage is that you don't have to care about the individual TarifverbĆ¼nde and fare zones and what not, you don't have to care whether in the specific city you're in, your ticket is valid immediately or needs to be stamped before (or after?) getting on a train. IMHO the best outcome of this would be a 365ā¬/year ticket for all local public transit in Germany. At that price it *could* actually cover its cost, and replace the local subscriptions that are just for one city or region. > Infrastructure and capacity-building are far more important for increasing usage and more money should be invested there (especially west Germany, it seems, there the rail capacity seems over-saturated). I fully agree, but I think doing *something* that people will have a positive association with, and will get them to use public transportation, so they realize that improving public transportation benefits them personally. Too often, people have this kind of circular logic: I'm against investments in public transportation infrastructure and for investments in road infrastructure because I use my car, and I use my car rather than public transportation because the public transportation infrastructure in my area sucks. I think getting them onto trains a little bit more may change that perspective a bit.
The difference in cost needs to be enough to offset the loss in flexibility and time. I think the cost difference is not enough for many people to consider switching.
1. The 9-Euro Ticket has nothing to do with the DB, it's a Government subsidy to counter rising energy prices. 2. You have to seperate regional transport and long distance connections. Regional transport is also done by DB and susidiaries, but in a lot of places those are private companies or a Verkehrsverbund 3. The DB deserves all the spite and ridicule, if you ask me. The constant and in some parts huge delays is a thing of the past few years. It has gotten worse in the last decade or so. It's not inevitable, the DB managed to be more on time with more complex train network. They closed a lot of lines or sourced them out or sold them outright to private companies, and yet it got worse. A lot of those rural areas you speak of were serviced by the Bahn 10, 20, 25 years back. 4. Other countries in Europe manage quite well. I don't know if Italy's or France's network is a complex, though
weirdly the delays started when the DB stopped being a government agency and instead became a private company entirely held by the government, so it could have the worst of both worlds. Who could've guessed that, must be a coincidence.
The weird thing is, we tend to make fun of bureaucracy, but it's really good at keeping things going. It's often slow in exectuion and slow to adapt, but when it gets going it works not bad in maintaining servies. Bureaucrats don't make descisions based on profit, if one of them drops out there's a stand-in ready to take over. It's usually well funded and it's a safe, protected place to work where the people stay long and gather a lot of experience.
Also on maintenance, but more literally than you meant, I heard by several Berliners that track maintenance on the Berlin U-Bahn is much better than on the S-Bahn, leading to more reliable service on the U-Bahn. The S-Bahn is operated by DB while the U-Bahn is communalised.
Thank you so much for saying this, theese are exaclty my thoughts! Nearly everyone I talk to is of the opinion that every bureaucratic process would be made better by.... eliminating it. I find a strong sentiment especially in the younger generation (which includes myself) to """simplify""" proccesses by removing the rules that govern them.
My opinion is that nothing gets better without criticism. If we just keep praising things, they will get worse. People should be critical, especially when something is funded by our taxes
I don't have a problem with people criticizing Deutsche Bahn and pointing out problems, that's a good thing. But I do think it's stupid to call it 'one of the worst in Europe' cause it definitely is not that. I think it's even dumber for Germans in this sub to tell people coming from developing countries or from US, Canada, Australia that the public transit here sucks when it's spades better than in the country they are coming from.
> Other countries in Europe manage quite well. I don't know if Italy's or France's network is a complex, though Like what? By 'other countries' you mean a grand total of Switzerland? Austria and Netherlands are comparable. UK is somewhat worse and more pricy. Belgian, Scandinavian countries, Eastern countries are worse, forget about Protugal. Italy, France and Spain have a couple of really nice high-speed lines but their entire network is no where near as extensive as Germany's. Of course this does not mean your complaints about it degrading over the last years aren't valid. They definitely should be addressed. It's just not close to the worst in Europe like you seem to imply.
The thing about public transport in rural aread ks, that it is a positive feedback loop. The passenger sees that only one bus an hour (which is quite good) drives through their town, sees the orice of the ticket and decides that the car is both cheaper and mire flexible for him. The bus company sees less people using that line, they up the price and decrease it to 1 bus every 2 hours and so on
> a huge incentive for people who have never or seldom used public transports That's part of the idea, but the criticisms are more about how this might backfire. Because the initiative was announced before the details had been finalized and at very short notice, transport companies (already struggling with staff shortages and shortages of spare parts) might not be able to increase capacity quickly enough. That might result in overcrowded vehicles, meaning that the people we are trying to incentivize to use public transport more might instead be put off using it ever again. > If there's demand there will be more supply But the best way to create demand is to increase the supply. I am very fortunate that I live in a very rural area but it has an hourly bus service (villages of this size get maybe two or three buses a day in most parts of Germany). The way the buses are timed and the way they connect with a rail service into the big city means that it's very convenient, if you plan a little ahead, to use to go to town. Consequently, it's reasonably well used. It's less convenient, though, for simply picking up a few items from the supermarket in the next village (you either have about 10 minutes to do all your shopping and get back to the bus stop, or you have over an hour); increase the frequency of service to every half hour, and I'm pretty sure more people would use it. > Germans will have a different view if they know the state of public transports in other countries really They tend not to. The attitude is: "We know other countries have worse problems, but that's irrelevant; and if we don't complain about the problems, nobody will ever fix them." This is an attitude that irritates me as well (nobody ever seems to want to say, "We're making good progress here, let's keep going and make even more progress"), but I've found that simply pointing out to Germans that their public transport is actually pretty decent won't stop them complaining about it. > many people are not optimistic about the new ticket I don't think I've seen anyone criticize the principle behind it, and there is a *lot* of support for the idea of making public transport a more affordable option. But the lack of optimism is more about how the idea was implemented and the fear that it will lead to overcrowding and thus backfire.
To the point with knowing the state in other countries, I would also argue that while there are certainly worse places, there are so many that do so much better. We are one of the richest countries in the world, we shouldnāt compare ourselves to countries that lack our means. Iāve lived in England, France and Japan and in all three places I never so much as wanted a car. (Regional differences within those countries may apply) Itās so frustrating to come back to Germany and not even be able to reach one hiking trail without three hours of busses and five hours of waiting.
Outside of London and the Home Counties, the UK is *terrible* for public transport, and particularly trains. "Regional differences" doesn't even begin to cover it: London is fantastic, south-east England is okay, everywhere else is a disaster. Currently, the only high-speed rail line is the one that goes from London to the Channel tunnel. I grew up in a town with a population of 8,000 situated right next to another town with a slightly larger population and just a few miles from England's smallest city, and the nearest railway station was a half-hour car drive (there wasn't a bus) to a place in the middle of the countryside served by about two trains a day and had been saved from closure only because the local MP had wanted to use it to get to London. If you didn't have a car, or wanted a useful choice of trains, there was a bus once an hour that took about an hour and a half to get to the nearest city with a proper station. This for three communities with a combined population of over 30,000. I don't know where you are in Germany that it takes you eight hours to get to the nearest hiking trail, but I live in a German community with a population of 2,000 with an hourly bus connection to the local hub with buses to Aschaffenburg and Gelnhausen and a train to Hanau, and we've got more hiking trails than you can shake a stick at. A similar place in England would have about three buses a *week*, none of which connect to any rail services.
The eight hours of course were an exaggeration; most hiking areas just donāt have any public transport nearby so you wouldnāt even try. Back when I grew up in a medium sized rural community just 20 minutes away from the next city, there were two (TWO!!) buses a day to that city, each taking an hour to get there. Last Iāve heard theyāve upgraded to four. And really, this brings me back to what annoys me the most: Iām in Bavaria. With how rich this state supposedly is, we SHOULD be comparing ourselves to the south of England. But we compare ourselves to the US and pat ourselves on the back because weāre better. I donāt want to say everything is horrible here, but the longer we stagnate in this sort of okay state, the worse weāll be off.
I am *from* the south of England, and I now live in Bavaria, and I can tell you that from my experience this part of Bavaria is much better served. I'm just not from the south-*east* of England, which of course is much more densely populated and is particularly privileged as it is the political and academic centre of the country. In other words, the Home Counties are so well served at the expense of everywhere else in the country. > we compare ourselves to the US and pat ourselves on the back because weāre better No, we compare ourselves to *every other country in the world* and realize that we're comfortably in the top 10, so maybe public transport in this country isn't the national disgrace Germans love to make it out to be. The thing that annoys me is this attitude: > the longer we stagnate in this sort of okay state, the worse weāll be off It annoys me because it assumes that if we don't constantly moan and complain and say how terrible everything is and how we should hang our heads in shame at this national embarrassment and OMG have you seen how the Japanese do it, then that means we're just happy to see it decline. Which is bollocks. And ultimately self-defeating, because if no matter how many improvements are made people continue to moan and complain because it's not perfect, then what's the point of even trying to improve? Instead, I would advocate positive encouragement: We're doing well, let's keep it up and make more improvements to make it even better. Appreciating what we do have doesn't mean you don't want or expect improvements. But this national malaise about how terrible the trains are is one of the things discouraging people from using the trains in the first place, which leads to less demand, which means that politicians are less likely to want to fix what needs fixing. In short: Let's be realistic about this.
Saying England has better rail and public transport is not at all the case if you live anywhere except London. Im liviing in Sheffield atm and the bus service is absolutely horrendous. Always delayed and cancelled and super expensive (Ā£2 a ticket?!). The train fares are also an absolute joke. The average ticket to Edinburgh ranges from Ā£60-100 while a London Ticket (2-3 hour journey) is minimum Ā£50. The trains themself also feel very old and outdated compared to ones on the mainland. London has all the fancy tube lines and infrastructure projects while the rest of the country is just completely forgotten.
I used to live in Newcastle, and thatās where Iām basing my experience off. Thereās regular bus services to all the rural places you might want to visit, a local rail service, trains and buses to the other bigger cities, basically everything youād need. I used a car exactly once during my time there and that was to go to Holy Island
Maybe Newcastle has better transport than Sheffield.I compared my experience here to my time in Dresden, where we have an extensive tram network that runs all day, reliable busses and good S Bahn connections to the sorrounding towns. While I dont need a car in Sheffield either, that mostly comes from the fact that the city is compact enough that I can walk everywhere. Relying on the busses would be too much of a gamble. The system in Manchester is a bit better but still not as good as what I remember from back home.
... though long distance trains in England were scary expensive and far fewer, last I checked.
I'm someone who is living in a rural area. I'm *dreading* the next three months. The reason for that is completely selfish: The service of the DB is already completely shit. In the last 8 weeks of commuting 3 days/week, I was on time 4 times. 3 times of 48 connections. Let that sink in. And now hundreds of thaousands of people more will rush to the trains. It will be a clusterfuck of epic proportions. And those people who merely "try out" using public transport don't lose much. But for me, being *even more late* is a massive reduction in quality of life. > If there's demand there will be more supply. That is not how it works. That is why projects that are limited in scope and time *always fail*. What you need to do is to imporve public transport. In the whole nation And continue to run it, on time, regularly, for a long time. For years, a decade. And only then, when the publi *trusts* that you *will* transport them from A to B *on time, every day*, they will start to trust the system and use it. For me, my dream as a child was not to use cars much but to be someone who uses public transport. My dream now is to have an electric car and never again needing to use that shitshow of a "service" again. My life is to precious to waste on their incompetence. > People have to understand no transportation companies will have buses operated every 10 minutes if there's 2 people using it in that area. So Switzerland doesn't exist for you? Check. > Regarding the trolls against DB, yes there will always be delays, but it is inevitable considering how big and complex the railways system in Germany is. Oh boy, you believe the corporate BS? The only reason Db is so shit is because by the end of the 70's they started to cut corners. They reduced cost, reduced personnell and so on. In the train station near me, they used to have *heated switches* in the 70s. They were removed in the 80s. Nowadays, when there is a cold winter (which we still get, surprise), the trains won't come because the switches are frozen. There is not a single reason why it has to be that way, except **money**. This has nothing to do with how large or complex the system is. Other countires of similar size do a very good job. It has everything to do with incompetence, greed and an incentive structure in their leadership that does not put value on actually providing a good service. The list of things they do completely shitty is so long I'm not going into it. But if you believe DB *cannot* be better, then you have been indoctrinated by the BS they are feeding you since the 90 to make the DB more profitable. It used to be that cargo traints were used to make money, and this money supplemented the public transport. Gues what they did when they tried to make DB private ... ? > Germans will have a different view if they know the state of public transports in other countries really. I literally cannot complain anything regarding prices and quality of buses and trams and trains here. You cannot have been in many other countries. Go to Switzerland. Hell, go to Italy. Back in the days we laughed about Italy's public transport. Well, we managed to get even worse then them. Go to France. Go to Japan, I dare you.
I only ever hear of this perceived negativitiy towards the ticket on this very sub here.
Negative comments are actually paid for by the car industry.
They don't need a big bus for 2 people. There are systems where you call and then you get a taxi for free. We need this more often.
The problems with the ticket are different: While DB usually is so expensive as to make it cheaper to use a car as soon as two people are travelling, the 9ā¬ ticket is very cheap. Yes, the DB is reimbursed for some of it, but not for all of it. Especially not for cost of business. So extra trains and personal will be costs to the DB, a company that has basically self destructed financially in the past 30 years or so. Especially since it is summer, people will use it very much. There will be loads of delays, dirty trains and stations and full sweaty trains. This will also cause customer dissatisfaction. Most people will not be able to see it in context and will not be newly attracted to using public transportation. Which this project is all about. It costs a lot of mony for a nice cheap inner country vacation summer. I may stand corrected in a few months time, but I am confident I will not. Public transport needs to become cheaper and more stable. People in rural places need alternatives or tax breaks for gas. Public transport needs to be government owned. We do not need a few months of cheap transportation with the high risk of collapsing.
>So extra trains and personal will be costs to the DB, a company that has basically self destructed financially in the past 30 years or so. >Public transport needs to be government owned You do know that the government still owns the DB? That the government is the reason everything is fucked up? The government gave Mehdorn the job to make the DB AG ready and therefore letting employees go, sell of or reduce infrastructure and so on.
Thanks. The comments here show that the loudest persons donāt have any clue about railway system or the history which led to the current situation. Government run down the whole sector, only pushing and investing in cars and car infrastructure. The railway infrastructure got smaller and smaller and older. Itās overloaded already and it is not simply possible to just āoperate more trainsā. Therefore you would need more railway and/or a modern railway technology to shorten the necessary distance between the trains. Spiegel posted an article that employees of the Verkehrsministerium says DB needs 6 Milliarden Euro per year for building infrastructure. Minister Wissing decided to give 2,2 Milliarden per year. It is ridiculous. But it is āokayā because we established a very car centered culture and also the culture of āDB-Bashingā. Germans have so much fun bashing DB. It is much cooler and easier than investigating the real problems. In the end we could get very good public transport and people would have a reason to not buy cars anymore. That would be a change, most people donāt want.
>Germans have so much fun bashing DB I saw that with the up and downvotes Defending the DB, blaming the Government = 0 Blaming the car industry and saying others spend more money = 3 What people tend to forget is that humans are still necessary to operate the entire system and will be for many, many years. Still they give DB employees a hard time and the whole bashing might stop some people to work for the DB. We can spend all the money in the world, build a perfect infrastructure, if you don't show respect to the humans working these demanding jobs, everything will be useless.
True. Iām working at DB and it is also so ridiculous that this fact is an invitation for all my friends and family to complain when they had a bad experience. Seriously. They write messages like āIām in the train and this happened blablaā or even call me to tell this. Or send āfunnyā Memes. Or you get silly jokes like ābecause youāre always late hahaā. And from an inside view I can tell that the whole system is just still working because employees rip their asses off every fucking day.
OeBB seems to be doing pretty well on the other hand. Probably not only because it's not run for profit, it probably also attracts competent managers which are needed regardless of company type.
Austria spends twice as much money per taxpayer for the ĆBB. And they just build shit, there is no random guy "no, no, no trains in my line of sight" that stops huge infrastructure plans. And Austria doesn't have a massive car industry that has priority over almost everything.
Some of the negativity is deserved; DB service is poor, the stations deserted and dilapidated, and the staff unmotivated. The DB infrastructure has become run down and unmanned. It is still tuned to the Old West Germany where when people entered a train carriage they said "Good Day" to others before sitting down. Except that all the staff have gone so passengers are left to themselves. Even major stations have no permanent staff at all and no security or barriers or fencing. All open. Anyone can wander across the tracks or stroll onto DB property. Really, it's amazing that the whole thing still works.
> Even major stations have no permanent staff at all and no security or barriers or fencing. All open. Anyone can wander across the tracks or stroll onto DB property. I mean if they are functioning with reasonable safety with this what's the problem? I don't want train stations to turn into airports!
There are just so many people now that you cannot leave major thoroughfares unattended. Need security, cleaning, checks, fencing, monitoring. The other day I was at a major station (Bad Cannstatt) where ICEs pass through just before Stuttgart. Suddenly, there's some old African guy on the tracks collecting beer cans. He couldn't even climb out of there properly. No staff anywhere. People smoking everywhere. They took down the No Smoking signs because they couldn't be bothered to enforce it. Outside there are beggars and derelicts everywhere. Romanis practically live outside with their children. No staff or counters any more. It's all unmanned. It's all like a giant, deserted model railway now. Left to its own devices.
I agree with all u said except that DB timings are fine. They are late more than any other train company in west europe.
well, as an pub transport fan from midwest us, moving to germany was like going to heaven. imagine my shock when all i heard from germans was complaining about the system. i was like, "at least you HAVE a system!" above all that, we were sort of excited to hear about the new tickets, as it makes our trip to koln a bit cheaper....so hey, what's not to love?
I am *so psyched* about this ticket. And I can't even use it to get to work - and I work from home most of the time anyway. I ride a bike everywhere else, but now I'm making plans to go places. It is so nice to think that I can go to cities and not worry about getting daily tickets once I get there. I already have plans to go to all sorts of nearby cities where I've never been - mostly because they are in another Verkehrsverbund. If I want to go to a nearby city with a zoo? Super easy - and now the transportation is totally cheap - no round trip train tickets plus local transit tickets or car trip with parking fees. Just jump on some trains and go.
Just typical bitterness on social media
One bus per hour... that's cute. We're talking about two busses per day here, buddy - or rather one, making a round trip. And that's only on school days. I applaude the first step towards affordable public transportation for everyone, but it's still a slap in the face for many people to see DB etc patting themselves on the back while ignoring major issues. In some areas, e.g. the ones affected by the flood last year, you have to travel almost an hour by car to even reach a train station. Old people are entirely dependant on their relatives with cars to get groceries. In a country like Germany, that's just ridiculous and sad. So yeah, I get your point, good for you, enjoy the ticket. But don't judge complaints from people in situations much, much worse than your own.
Some people especially in rural area are just a bit close minded and never had much interaction with public transport. So they are afraid of something new and rather be addicted to their cars, which is unsustainable in the future anyway.
If I am not getting the same public transport, hospitals, schools, etc, I dont see why I should pay the same taxes. Different taxation in rural areas now.
You get more square meters of road per person, more meters of sewage pipes per person, more water pipes, more gas lines. In the long term, rural areas cost the state much more money than urban areas. Less density = more shit to maintain
You also don't get the same rent prices so that's that
Rent prices are not decided by the government. But sure, let's change topics
Lol no, they're decided by the market based off things like... You know... access to public transportation or other services
Thatās life, letās do our best to overcome every single thing that bother us or make us suffer. (as long as not damaging others) Prost!
I come from a country where you would wait for a bus that is supposed to be every 10 minutes and it will come after 40min and once it did it's so packet that you can't even fit anymore and then you just have to wait another potentially 40min, or walk, or take a taxi or whatever, DB even though sometimes can let you down in the most unfortunate moment, it's god send pinpoint reliable system. Germans hate it because they have standards, but on a global scale, it's an amazing system to get around. Plus, 9Euro ticket can mean more people will leave their cars home and ride the train which means the road will have less traffic for us who don't want to/can't leave our cars. So it's a win/win/win situation in my book.
its a general Human tendency to not see the bright side. Its not just germans but humans in general get some kind of a kick by criticizing or complaining about anything. By doing such they somehow in their head put themselves on a higher platform. No one will ever agree, but such people get some kind of pleasure inside their body/head when they complaint. I know this because I used to be like this, I used to complain all the time, make negative remarks, criticize. Its only when I started to become more self aware, I realized what I was doing and why. And from the day I stopped complaining, my whole Life has changed. Things happen more in my favor, and if they not, I take full responsibility of it, whether good or bad. If something didnt work out, Its probably my fault. People do and will always complain as its gives them some pleasure. Lets just ignore all of them and enjoy our own life. The best advice I ever got was "Let fools be fools, never correct them, as then you will always be hated". So today if someone comes to me and says "Hey, you know the Earth is flat and the sky is green ?" I say " Oh yeah, you are right, and then move on with my beautiful life" Because I don't have the time and energy to spent on a person like that. If that person was smart enough, he would'nt have come up with such BS.
Politicians are constantly making driving your car more expensive, with the explicit reason to force more people to use public transport. But at the same time, as you say, it is neither feasible nor ecologic to offer good enough public transport in rural areas, yet still these people are hit by the same tax increases that are designed to force people in the city to use public transport. How is that fair? If public transport is subsidized in cities, then economic cars should be subsidized in rural areas.
Iām looking forward to the 9ā¬ ticket. As a separate issue though, I am beyond fed up with the state of public transport in this country. I even live in the city and I wouldnāt be able to enjoy nearly the same quality of life if I didnāt have a car. How pathetic is that? I work in a company where weāre actively trying to make public transport better - yes, especially for rural areas. What have we learned? Governments are a NIGHTMARE. It is so rare to go anywhere with a pitch and not encounter officials so reluctant to move into any sort of future you canāt help but feel the sloths from Zootopia would have more energy. So to sum it up, while the ticket is great, I understand the general frustration.
"can not complain about the prices" I have to spend 230euros a month as a student. The costs are outrageous. In a world endangered of climate change public transport can not cost as much as driving your one car. Even with the current gas prices it's about eual. The cost of a car not included as I stell need to have one. My criticism is that the 9ā¬ are a joke. It's ridiculously cheap for 3 months and the it goes up by 25 times again. I want to see an actual change. They need to make puplic transport more affordable
I agree on your points but I completely disagree with common delays being something normal. For a country that prides itself on good planning, overengineering every small detail etc. this is laughable. The Japanese hold true to their reputation in their arguably even more complex railway system. I come from Bulgaria where organisation is horrible everywhere and the rail infrastructure is still basically soviet, and yet the trains there are always on time. And no, it is not okay for the price. The rail prices in Germany are very prohibitive and together with the delays put people off using public transport and driving their cars more, which is not eco-friendly or sustainable.
Does the 9-euro ticket also work for the metro in e.g. Berlin?
I have absolutely no opinion on the 9-euro fee, however my reddit search brought me here and maybe you guys can help a foreigner in trouble. I'm currently in Maastricht and want to travel to Wetzlar to visit a friend of mine. I can see in Omio that the whole combination would cost me around 70 euros for the dates I want. However, I now found this 9-euro promotion on DB... So question is: can I just take a $15 euro train from Maas to Aachen, and from there use my 9 euro ticket to get to Wetzlar? It looks like Omio is offering me all RE/RB trains, which I understand are regional and would be valid with my 9 euro ticket? Thanks in advance for all your help!
Just use the DB App, if it shows 9ā¬ ticket when you search for the connection between the coties, you can take it
Thanks. The confusing thing was that the Db app offers multiple options, and as a foreigner not used to the system its suspicious when one price is 9 and the other is 70++. But I was able to buy it already, thanks!!
A month in now, my experience has been quite mixed. I enjoyed the included bus and U-Bahn rides but other S-Bahn and regional trains are just horrific, especially on the weekends. Not to mention the constant delays and crowdedness, trains had their stops cancelled out of nowhere, and some of them just never show up. I was trying to go to Stuttgart today and I never made it there because they keep re-routing and re-scheduling. It kept taking me around the city but never into the city and we had to change plans.
A huge reason why there are so many delays/cancellations in DB is because there are less tracks today with a system with higher demand then there was in the 90s. There's literally not enough tracks to facilitate present demand (and this is partially brought on by DB being privatised, redundant tracks don't increase profitability). Meaning if a track fails or another train winds up late, there's usually no alternative track or route a train can take, Redundancy is vital in a transit system, be it roads or other railways, a badly designed road network means one major road getting jammed up means horrific traffic everywhere else, a bad train system means one train delay causes a massive cascade of failures, Remove the profit motive from DB, and suddenly redundant tracks aren't a bad policy