Comment by olex

5 months ago

>German public transport fascinates with its ease of use and quality

Ease of use maybe, although my parents and grandparents would like to argue differently. They are not as quick to work their smartphone, and the ticket machines are being removed everywhere to be replaced by apps that are much cheaper to run. This works fine for the younger generations, but older and less tech-savvy people are getting left behind.

Quality though, no way. Every single time I tried to give ÖPNV a chance in the last 3-4 years I was either different degrees of late or didn't arrive at all without switching to some alternative method of transport on the way. Doesn't even matter if I tried local routes (Frankfurt and Darmstadt) or longer inter-city connections to Munich or Leipzig, it's all completely broken. People in my company routinely book connections several hours earlier than they need to be places to have a chance of arriving in time, and often are still late. Trains are overbooked, connections are late or often cancelled altogether, seat reservarions don't work more often than they do, WiFi on the trains never works... Many, many things have to change for me to reconsider my default of taking the car everywhere, and I don't think they will in any sort of a relevant timeline.

2 comments

olex

Reply
larodi  5 months ago

> Ease of use maybe, although my parents and grandparents would like to argue differently.

at a second read (and thought) you are absolutely right, and there is a major moral to take from this story: it may be viewed as being against humanity's nature to remove legacy UIs for as long as there are old users willing to stick with them. like banning bicycles that do not run on batteries, can you imagine, as they'd be slower than other bikes!

we can definitely argue that a person in his right mind, and no matter the age, should be able to choose to stay with certain interface, if this does not incur massive costs. where I live you can still buy paper tickets from the driver, even though pay-as-you-go is the de facto choice for many, and of all ages. today I saw a minority ethnic girl buy a paper ticket rather than be penalized. everyone knew what happened, and I believe they were 100% human and much appreciated them getting paper ticket last minute from the driver.