Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by microtonal 169 days ago
And being delayed for 15-40 minutes, getting thrown out in the middle of nowhere, or having to continue by bus is an inconvenience for most people, but a nightmare for people with disabilities. Imagine being in a wheelchair, having a digestive condition (Crohn, IBS, etc.), or some sort of anxiety. I imagine that there are groups of people in Germany that simply do not travel anymore.

It is an area where proper governance is failing. I don't know about Germany, but in The Netherlands, Dutch law requires at least 90% of the trains to be on time (less than 5 minutes delay). If national train company do not reach those numbers, they are fined and I think in an extreme case they can lose their concession.
2 comments
anal_reactor 169 days ago
> they are fined

NS is state-owned so all fines are just money transfer between two branches of the government. Also, they know that "the trains fail with current amount of public funding, I wonder if less funding will improve the situation" is not good logic. Therefore there won't be any actual fines.

> and I think in an extreme case they can lose their concession

And then what? Most of the country will be left without trains? The company will be dissolved and replaced by the Chinese? Not gonna happen.

link
martijnvds 169 days ago
> the trains fail with current amount of public funding, I wonder if less funding will improve the situation" is not good logic

Tell that to the current government (and most of the previous governments in recent years).

You can't put money into it! Guess NS will just have to increase ticket prices _again_.

link
microtonal 169 days ago
And then what? Most of the country will be left without trains? The company will be dissolved and replaced by the Chinese? Not gonna happen.

I don't think it would happen all at once for the main network, but Arriva sure likes to get more and more lines.

link
jeroenhd 169 days ago
> Dutch law requires at least 90% of the trains to be on time (less than 5 minutes delay

Yes, however, any train delayed more than 30 minutes gets canceled entirely and doesn't get counted in the statistics. The train this article is talking about would not be registered late under Dutch terms (though it probably wouldn't have traveled comically far without stopping).

Not saying Dutch trains are as bad as German trains, but applying the same laws won't fix DB's problems.

link