33. Germany's laughable Public Transportation

Another topic, another "joke": public transportation in Germany.

There are many reasons why they are now tagged as the worst in Europe, even compared to France and the UK (yeah, you read correctly, France and UK): lack of infrastructure investment and the Deutschland Ticket for instance.
Here are 2 interesting articles about those topics:

• Deutsche Bahn terrible state of misery (the Guardian)
• Deutschland Ticket (BR24)

The Deutschland Ticket costs 58€/month since 2025 and was 49€ before and allows to travel on all trains, except ICE, buses, trams of almost all cities in Germany.
In Switzerland, the equivalent of this unlimited ticket costs 355 CHF (about 378€), and it is a well-known fact that trains are very very punctual, the network is wide, and quality of service is excellent.
(see SBB website here)
The monthly Abo for 2 zones (so that I can ride the 7 stops to the city center from my place) in my horrible city costs 76€, and I guess no one is stupid enough to pay 18€ more to get much much less.

As I was saying earlier, we all heard about the crisis Germany is facing due to its lack of infrastructure investment since the Debt Brake (Schuldenbremse). No doubt that it had considerable impact on the quality of transportation.
However, adding the stupid and unadapted Deutschland Ticket was the cherry on the cake of Germany's pile of issues. As the BR24 article cited before explained:
The Deutschlandticket, while attracting more passengers, reduces public transport quality because its low price causes significant revenue losses for operators, forcing them to cut services due to insufficient financial compensation from government subsidies.

My relationship with German Public Transportation

As I mentioned, I lived in Berlin in the 2000's and was riding on them every day from my place in north Berlin to my university in South Berlin, using the S-Bahn, the U-Bahn and buses.
I also experienced public transportation in Düsseldorf in the 2010's and I must admit, I was happy both times, especially after years of pain in Paris or in France. Merci RATP (Rentre Avec Tes Pieds) and SNCF.

When I came back to Germany, in Bavaria, last year, after years of transportation bliss in Asia with clean, safe and punctual trains/buses/Subways, I was expecting the same in Germany. I should have read more articles about Germany and those about the fiasco during the Euro Football Cup last year.
It was a shock to discover how quickly the public transportation deteriorated, as I could experience the huge contrast between 2010's and 2020's.

Needless to go on and on about it. Germany's public transportation has become the shadow of its former self, and here are some of my experiences during the 3 months I used public transportation, before giving up completely:

• Price are very high: more expensive to buy a return ticket to ride 6 stops on a tramway than to use a car (gas price + parking fees), it costs 8 euros for a round trip of 6 stops using the tramway.
• Always late or cancelled, each time I travel (really)
• Dirty and smelly trains with a lot of garbage or unidentified liquids
• Broken (how many times did I encounter a door that cannot be opened in a tram or train, I cannot count)
• Several times, the train stopped at my station but the car in which I was was too far from the platform so I had to run to the other car to get off
• Train stations are dirty, unconvenient, always in maintenance, unsafe, scary, smelly, chaotic, unclear, old
• Unsafe train/bus/tram stations: for instance, there are some tram stops that are on the side of the road and the tramway stops in the middle of the road so you have to cross half the road with traffic on it of course, with no pedestrian traffic lights or crossings.

Just look up in your favorite web browser (preferably not Google please) and type "Germany public transportation issues" and you will find plethora of articles related to the fall of the Deutsche Bahn.