[remolueoend]

> Another figure illustrates why the practice is necessary from a Swiss perspective: in 2023, 92.5 percent of all trains in Switzerland reached their destination on time, compared to only 64 percent for long-distance trains in Germany.

To add a bit more detail: SBB (Swiss federal railways) consider a train on time if it reaches its destination with less than three minutes’ delay [1]. DB (Deutsche Bahn) puts the threshold at 15 minutes ("Reisendenpünktlichkeit") [2].

[1] https://company.sbb.ch/en/the-company/responsibility-society...

[2] https://www.deutschebahn.com/de/konzern/konzernprofil/zahlen...

[lqet]

To put this a bit into perspective: long-distance trains in Germany typically travel for at least half a day. "Long-distance" trains in Switzerland can be compared to regional lines in Germany (the country simply isn't that large, and the majority of rail travel in Switzerland happens between Zurich/Olten/Berne/Basel, which are all within 100 km of each other). The likelihood of anything going wrong during a 1:30h train journey from Zurich to Basel is simply much lower than during a 10 hour train journey from Kiel to Freiburg. 3 minutes delay on a 1:30h train journey is a delay of 3.3%, 15 mins delay on a 10 hour train journey is a delay of 2.5%.

The reason regional trains are also delayed is that regional lines, local lines, long distance lines and freight trains are typically using the same tracks in Germany, and delayed long distance trains always get higher priority. A typical situation is that your regional train is perfectly on time, but suddenly stops, and waits for 5-10 minutes for a delayed long-distance train to overtake it. Switzerland has a similar mixed system, but as noted above, does not really have long-distance rail lines, apart from the trains that enter from Italy, Austria, France and Germany, which is the main reason why these trains are not allowed to enter if delayed. This is in contrast to the system in France, where TGV lines typically have dedicated high-speed tracks, where all trains on it travel more or less at the same speed.

Shouldn't you then add redundancy to the system by having time buffers at large stops every 2-3 hours? Or even let replacement trains start at intermediate stops as soon as the delay of the regular train is greater than X to avoid propagation of the delay into to rest of the network? Absolutely, but most stations and rail lines in Germany are either at their operational limit, or above. Having a train wait for 15 minutes in a large station just in case it is delayed would block that track for 15 minutes in the majority of cases, when the train is punctual. Also, DB simply has not enough rolling material to start replacement trains, and the rail infrastructure to even park such trains has largely been dismantled in the years after the privatization (they are doing it sometimes, but not very often).

[captainpiggies]

As someone who used to travel regularly between Zurich and Frankfurt (Zurich - Hamburg line ICE) I can 100% tell you that distance is *NOT* the root cause of DB's reliability problems. Infrastructure decline is. From lack of electrification, badly maintained rolling stock, insufficient tracks you find everything. Swiss railways deal with problems like lack of capacity and geography. Deutsche Bahn deals with a lack of maintenance and investment.

[dobin]

Maybe you are not aware, but swiss trains dont go back to sleep after they arrive at a destination. They stop for 3-5 minutes, and then continue to their next destination. All day long, from morning till evening. Geneve to St. Gallen with like a dozen stops is pretty long way. Especially when you drive it 6 times a day.

Also generally the length of the tracks dont magically change. It is possible to create a timetable: which train should be where when, and then stick to it.

Note that before the DB, SBB were anoyed with some models of french or italien trains, which broke down regularly, putting too much pressure on the integrated timetable.

[maratc]

To put this into a bit of perspective, DB once was much better:

   DB reported some 94.1 percent of services arrived within five minutes of their scheduled time in 2017.[0]

[0](https://www.france24.com/en/20180322-record-2017-deutsche-ba...)

[t_mann]

Fyi, it's actually easier for trains to be on time the longer the journey is - that's because sane travel times aren't calculated at max speeds. So if there is any delay, you can go at a higher speed than what was used in the calculation to catch up. On shorter journeys there are simply fewer opportunities to catch up.

Now, I wouldn't be exactly shocked if DB using too high speed assumptions in their stated travel times was part of their problem with delays.

[oneshtein]

Slightly longer stops solves the problem. :-/

[ivan_gammel]

DB is in major crisis with the workforce with tens of thousands of boomers retiring soon. They don’t have enough people for any redundancy.

[Gud]

And how many passengers are on those 10h+ train rides that you compare to?

Because your entire point is that most passengers in Switzerland travels on those short distances. How are the riders distributed in Germany?

[fmobus]

And its doubtful any statistics from the German side can be trusted. In more than one occasion, I've personally experienced delayed and cancelled trains that were shown as running on time in every information system. DB either doesn't know where their trains are, or is continuously fudging the numbers.

[trueismywork]

They are intentionally preventing transparency. The operational side of DB knows where the trains are, and the infrastructure to communicate it transparently to consumer side is intentionally hampered. And so information I'd either delayed or not available.

[maweki]

I don't really understand the downvote, as cancelled trains do indeed not count towards the delay.

So often trains are cut short and do not reach their final destination, which is arguably even more inconvenient for the customers.

[macbr]

Having read through the links you provided: You are comparing two different things. DB’s Reisendenpünktlichkeit takes in delays caused by missed connections etc. SBB’s 3 minute delay are just the individual train delays. For that DB has a similar measure which defines punctual as below 6 minutes of delay. So the difference is big (3 vs 6 minutes) but not that big (3 vs 15 minutes).

[remolueoend]

You are of course right, "Reisendenpünktlichkeit Fernverkehr" hasn't even been published by DB before January 2024 - my bad.

[zelphirkalt]

15 min already? Damn, I remember, when the threshold was at 5m59s and that was already kind of outrageous.

[Rinzler89]

Isn't moving the goalposts convenient?