Genuine Question. Even if I look at hungarian Transport, and they to this day use trains from the UdSSR, they come more consistantly then the DB.
They are really Bad sometimes, with like 20 seperate prices: Theres the bayernwald ticket that only works in the alps, then theres the official ticket to the destination. Theres a special offer, but only in the very special APP. You can use a d-ticket, but look! Some random ass slum in the middle of the worlds ass dosent accept that, but it does the MVV zone Tickets. But then you need the MVV zone 11-M, a ticket to the beginning to the Nürnberg zones, and a ticket for the Nürnberg zones.
And yet this shit is better than americas rails? How?
I live around the Twin Cities metro of Minnesota (two cities split by a river), which installed its first passenger light rail about 20 years ago. I recently moved from the north suburbs to the south side of town. I was very excited to be able to drive 10 minutes east on the freeway to my buddy’s house within walking distance of a station to take the 10 minute light rail ride downtown for a basketball game. Previously I would have driven 20-40 minutes (depending on traffic congestion) to pay $20 to use a parking ramp because the light rail doesn’t extend north.
Over the last 20 years they have extended the rail between the airport/Mall of America on the south side to the downtown of one city, and connected that downtown to the downtown of the other city across the river. If you live anywhere north of the city proper, or more than a few miles away from the one line running south, there is little reason to use the rail system over driving the whole way. If you do though, it’s pretty great.
That’s just been my experience, my understanding is some larger cities (Chicago and NYC are what come to mind) have more robust rail systems, but many cities (mine at least) have limited access for most people living in them.