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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

Why do you avoid the rail system?

Because waiting im Stau (traffic jam) is so much better.

Because missing important appointment (Termin) that you have arranged 3 fucking months before by waiting in a phone queue for 30 minutes because your Sbahn was cancelled because of a nonsense signal-related reason is so much better.

I'm not denying that rail service quality has gone down the drain in Germany.

The foolproof transportation is to take a bicycle.

I kind of agree and disagree with you. My main train lines in Berlin are U8 and Ring and it can be annoying sometimes.

And I will still probably never get a driver's license. Been going without for 40 years already. Just being able to jump into any train, bus, tram or ferry anytime is really nice. I could pay double the monthly price for this privilege.

Not exactly hard to nowadays in Germany

Using the rail system? Now that’s a trick and a half.

Only 62,7% of the trains were in time (and by in time they use a rigged system to count what is in time and what is not). So it's basically a 50% chance if you will be delayed at your destination or in time. Also note, that if you have to change trains mid travel you have that chance again. That means you will be late very very often. If you travel as an individual and you don't value your time at all this is a great deal, if you travel for business purposes good luck to you.

Apart from that, it's a lot more stressful (and time consuming) to go to a train station and leave at a train station instead of just driving by car.

Punctuality of local trains is much higher than the long distance ones whose stats you’re quoting here. For rapid transit, punctuality is less of an issue, compared to frequency.

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