It’s a problem of reliability. If you need to be at work at 08:00 and your train is regularly late or getting cancelled, you can’t take the train to work.
Not to mention even a small delay could mess up the timing of taking the next bus/train. For not too busy routes it could mean waiting in the cold for half an hour… If that next bus has a good delay you could be there for almost an hour. (Totally not speaking from personal experience)
When I lived in New York there was a place I’d go sometimes that required 2 trains and a bus. On the weekdays it took about 40 minutes, but on weekends with the cumulative effect of less frequent service it was typically 2 hours, or longer depending on how quickly the first train came.
Haha, DB also does this with foreign delays. I’ve been in a German train starting in Amsterdam that left 5 mins late - they mentioned it at every stop until Munich.
Tokyo I’ve heard. For sure not Europe. Halve of the scheduled trains didn’t run today in Belgium.
That’s still more trains than in the US
It’s a problem of reliability. If you need to be at work at 08:00 and your train is regularly late or getting cancelled, you can’t take the train to work.
Not to mention even a small delay could mess up the timing of taking the next bus/train. For not too busy routes it could mean waiting in the cold for half an hour… If that next bus has a good delay you could be there for almost an hour. (Totally not speaking from personal experience)
When I lived in New York there was a place I’d go sometimes that required 2 trains and a bus. On the weekdays it took about 40 minutes, but on weekends with the cumulative effect of less frequent service it was typically 2 hours, or longer depending on how quickly the first train came.
To be fair they’re striking because checks notes their special treatment is ending.
Only half were cancelled? Man, that sounds nice.
Switzerland is pretty good at well with trains.
I heard they are so good that they point it out in announcements when a delay was caused by foreign trains (Looking at you Deutsche Bahn)
Haha, DB also does this with foreign delays. I’ve been in a German train starting in Amsterdam that left 5 mins late - they mentioned it at every stop until Munich.
They were just happy it wasn’t them for once.
A swiss train operator excused the 30 sec delay
The german trains measure delays in 5 minutes intervals, everything under 5 minutes in punctual.
And if a train is canceled, it doesn’t go into the delayed train statistics as delayed.
https://media.tenor.com/qRq6uenJInkAAAAM/think-smart-meme.gif
Oh true, I forgot that. Nice little talk by David Kriesel on that topic: https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-10652-bahnmining_-_punktlichkeit_ist_eine_zier
“Halve” isn’t a word.
To “halve” something is a real thing. But I think the word wasn’t used exactly right here…
Multilingual Belgian makes a mistake in English. I think we can give them a pass on this one.