I'm not sure it's any better at all! It's likely also a cultural difference, as I would prefer to use a system that would arrive early. I'm just saying that there are reasons a train system might like its trains to arrive on schedule, rather than early or late. Saying that there are "no reasons" to arrive on schedule is just silly. There are lots.
Keeping trains on schedule is a reason. A very good reason to do something. It is unlikely that earlier arrival would have benefited anyone in cases like this, where they likely would have had to wait the equivalent time at a different transfer stop or signal, given that the whole system is timed so well.
Because sometimes people need to get places at specific times. One obviously doesn’t want to be late, and, being very early can be a colossal waste of time. Taking the specific train that gets to the destination a little early (but not too early), or on time, solves that problem.
> if a train never arrives at a station, it's not late, according to the Deutsche Bahn.
I think most rail systems do this; it would be considered a reliability problem, not a punctuality problem.
You definitely have to be careful with the definition of these things, though. For instance, Irish Rail considers intercity rail to be on time if it's within 10 mins of schedule. Commuter is within five minutes of schedule. Given that, at peak times, some commuter services run once every ten minutes, and thus are ~always on time per this definition, it's wise to be a bit skeptical of the punctuality reporting.
Yeah. I'm British, and a few years ago spent several weeks travelling around the US by Amtrak. Not one of my trains was actually on time, and the Sunset Limited (LA -> New Orleans) was over a day late. Our trains aren't great for punctuality, but they're nowhere near that bad.
Of course, the reasons are somewhat different, too. In the UK the problem is mostly that the tracks are very heavily timetabled with passenger trains, such that there's very little slack: an issue with one service can screw up an entire chunk of the network with effects that last for hours. In the US, freight trains have priority outside the Northeast Corridor, so we would get looped for several hours to wait for a train of oil tankers going the other way.
>Given that, at peak times, some commuter services run once every ten minutes, and thus are ~always on time per this definition, it's wise to be a bit skeptical of the punctuality reporting.
I think that makes sense. If a commuter train leaves every 10 minutes, but due to some technical problems, the first train of the early morning leaves 20 minutes late which then continues through the day, does that mean every train is late? The users wouldn't know the trains they're using should have actually ran 20 minutes ago, they just know a train is to go every 10 minutes.
Nobody really cares if a train is on-time. They care about the consequences of being late wherever it is they have to go. If transportation is generally unreliable across an entire country, then appointment times will be lax, nobody will be fired for being a few minutes late, your date won't decide they don't like you, etc. It's all about the surrounding expectations and how other people will treat you because of them. If Western European countries also had a culture of no hard timelines and schedules only being suggestions, then people who lived there wouldn't get stressed over a late train.
I do wonder how many train passengers would prefer a system where trains were randomly between 0 and 1 minutes late with no information to guide them on expected arrival time, and one where trains were randomly between 1 and 60 minutes late with reliable information detailing how late they were each time.
I live in Midwest USA, and trains and busses here are routinely off schedule. More than say 60% of the time, it will be 5 to 15+ minutes late, and you'll be forced to waste that time just waiting for arrival/transfer. Also, occasionally buses arrive and depart a little bit early, so you can't just arrive on time and be safe either, you have to plan on being at least 10 minutes early to be safe.
If a scheduled departure time is 1:10PM, then a weekly list of actual departure times in the US might often look like : (Monday, 1:15PM, Tuesday, 1:18PM, Wednesday, 1:04PM, Thursday 1:22PM, Friday, 1:11PM, more or less at random). There's no reliable way to plan ahead for that, so realistically you just have to always be 10 minutes early, and expect to wait through to 20+ minutes late, just in case.
This also repeats for every single transfer you might have to make... and most trips require at least one transfer...
I suppose it relies on some slack in the system and everything else moving as expected. Which could also be the reason why they don't want to restart a schedule at mid-day with every active train in a non standard state.
I think your experience may be jaded from the one side as much as mine is from the other side.
Your example assumes the same level of quality and guarantee of timely arrival.
Maybe it's just me but I've had such bad luck with trains in Germany that if I need to be somewhere I will fly or take a train one hour earlier. Or two. It was a running joke at my former company that every single time I visited our other office my reserved spot in an ICE was cancelled or the whole train was changed to an IC (yay, working with a laptop on your lap).
I think of all the times I've taken a plane in my life there was major delay twice - and one was at the other end of world, so a single time starting from here.
And no, I'm not one to regularly fly (and I hate to do it) but if you for example take Munich - Berlin or Munich - Hamburg, if I need to be there in the morning I'd need to take a train the day before and pay for a night in the hotel, or I fly in the morning. Proper night trains would solve that but then it might still be a wasted evening in a hotel room whereas I have no problem getting up at 4 am and catch a plane at 7.
For clarity: while part of my story doesn't apply for "train rides of 2.5h" the gist is the same. If I don't trust that the 6:30 train will make me arrive on time at 9:00 I'd need to take one at 5:30 or 4:30.
Also I fully support this ban. I'm just not buying the time+stress argument.
The parent's point is that if you actually wanted to get there at any time other than exactly when the 7:08a train arrives, say because you have an appointment at a set time, then you're going to end up having a wait somewhere along your journey because the train wasn't on your ideal schedule.
For example, if that train arrives at 10:08a, say, and the next train is the 9:09a which arrives at 12:09a, and you had an 11:00a appointment, you're going to wait 45 minutes at your destination because you couldn't arrive closer to the target time.
I agree they are definitely more on time than in other countries (in France the timings are a joke!) but they are still getting late quite often. Several times in a week at least.
It's not so much of a problem because there is a high frequency of trains anyway.
My hypothesis is that planes are just as often late but people complain less because :
1. They have already taken the whole day because getting to the airport, booking, security... so they don't care as much about a two hours delay.
2. They have some respect for the fact that we are allow to fly and see that as big technical challenge depending on weather and good security practices. On the other hand a train *seems* trivial when in reality it's not. Psychologically for most people it's just putting some cars on rails and it will basically drive itslef to its destination.
LOL Switzerland (i.e. extremely punctual society) actually does this with their rail system. There is a time buffer in the rail schedule for each of the stops. If a train is running late, and is /expected/ to be late, according to the estimated time of arrival, the train adjusts its speed, going faster, to arrive at the originally planned scheduled time. Failures on the rail system are of course rare.
> Systems were up within an hour, but if you throw an hour's delay into a busy part of the rail system, you have knock on effects (trains aren't where they are supposed to be) that will basically last until the end of the service day.
And at a location where almost all lines are running at near capacity you can't "catch up" by getting more trains through the location once things are working again to get stock back in place, you can only get the regular timetable through it.
In most public transit systems that run according to published timetable departing early is taken as more serious issue than departing late. It might seem counterintuitive, but inconvenience caused to passengers by arriving/departing late (small additional wait time) is significantly smaller than by departing early (missing the connection entirely and having to wait for the next one).
IIRC in Prague's transit system drivers are fined for not observing the timetable without external cause and the fine for departing even one second early is same as for being several minutes late (and is relatively significant fraction of their monthly salary).
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