> I suppose anything below 30 minutes is consideres "on time".
sounds about right for the stereotype. it's the 'murikans that are the ones so uptight about time
sounds about right for the stereotype. it's the 'murikans that are the ones so uptight about time
I road a swiss train a couple years ago that was something like 5 minutes late. To me (American) it was “on time” but the conductor came on the PA and apologized. He did make a point to clarify the delay was because they’d been stuck behind an off schedule German train.
Exception: the New York regional rail system. Its on-time stats are comparable to Switzerland.
We love to talk about subways and intercity high-speed rail. But in America, it doesn't make sense in most cases without subsidies. Drive-on / drive-off regional rail, on the other hand, trades pursim for pragmatism and could really work in our car-dependent metros.
That's the point of public transit, and that's the case everywhere. Also that of roads; roads wouldn't exist without government subsidies because nobody wants to pay toll to exit their driveways.
Of course you'd need to reduce car dependency for any public transit system to make sense, and I don't think Americans care for that. For some reason, "15 minute towns" were turned into some kind of boogeymen to scare conservatives for a while during the last election cycle, which says a lot about the American approach to infrastructure design.
This is what I mean. To reduce car dependence given America's built infrastructure, demographics and geographic spread, you'd have to build such a massive amount of public transportation that I think--outside major metropolitan areas--it would be cheaper to stick to cars.
> But in America, it doesn't make sense in most cases without subsidies.
Also perhaps Ukraine. I heard they had stepped up during war time to the point of being more punctual than many other European countries.
I would be glad to hear more about their success in the train management. Probably starting with one of the most important parameters - the cost of travel per kilometer per passenger (taking into account all subsidies, infrastructure and operating costs, and everything else)
>Also perhaps Ukraine. I heard they had stepped up during war time to the point of being more punctual than many other European countries.
Probably they have simply returned to the good old Soviet tradition of compiling beautiful statistics. Brought back bad statistics? Perhaps you and your male relatives will be more useful in the trenches. Complaining about train delays instead of productive work? Such active people and their male relatives are exactly what are needed to storm Russian fortifications! And voila - the statistics went through the roof.
Maybe trains in many/most systems are running faster than they should for optimal performance?
Also, there is almost always delay between Budapest and a smaller Hungarian city. ÖBB changed schedule for their own trains quite quickly reflecting that. MÁV (Hungarian railway) still hasn’t done that for almost two years now on the same line. They still basically lie about it.
For long haul journeys, not really true. The reclining seats on most Amtrak rolling stock are amazing compared to most European seating (bigger, softer and they genuinely recline). The sleeping cars on Amtrak are at least if not more comfortable than the equivalent in Europe until very recently (and that exception only applies to specific night train routes so far).
It is true that if you're just hopping on a train to move around within a metro area, or to take a short journey within a corridor, US trains are not particularly comfortable, and their European equivalents are probably more so.
That's hilarious.
https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance
It's interesting how much effort here is dedicated to explaining that it's the freight rail companies' fault.
That sounds like a great idea for a mystery novel. Perhaps one that includes the world's greatest detective. It might even get adapted several times for movies, both on the big screen and made for TV.
I'm going to write it all down and make a mint!
Regardless, my point is that the optimal amount of delay for profit and passenger satisfaction is not the same.
Ever since I’ve seen Japan’s trains drive perfectly as long as it’s not raining, on segments as short as 2 minutes apart, its become abundantly clear to me that delay is not an inherent property of any rail system.
It's immaterial though. They could instead face increased cost in taxes, decreased investment elsewhere, or good-old eminent domain for infrastructure expansion. The downstream effects of an infinite number of backup lines to guarantee service following an infinite number of track trespassers are not good for passenger satisfaction.