I fully understand not wanting to use a train in Greece.
https://www.dw.com/en/greece-train-crash-government-admits-decades-of-failure/a-64864913
A probe into the tragedy would focus on the “chronic delays in implementing railway works, delays caused by chronic public sector malaise and decades of failure,” government spokesman Yiannis Economou told reporters in Athens.
That said, I feel all European countries, maybe except of Switzerland, have failed to proper care for their rail infrastructure and missed the chance to convince more people to travel with trains instead of cars. :(
I’d use the train if we had one
Here’s the article this image arms to be based on, which includes many more counties.
This is the wrong statistic! It doesnt matter how often you take the train, but how far you go. There is something called a passenger kilometer. Someone traveling one kilometer by train makes one passenger kilometer, 6 people on a train going 10 kilometers makes 60 passenger kilometers. The same can be done for other modes of transportation. The modal split (the right statistic) then shows how much each mode of transportation is actually used. Here you can find the statistic for each country of the EU: https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/daviz/passenger-transport-modal-split-2#tab-chart_1
A few examples why modal split is better than frequencies:
- Environmentally CO2 is emitted per kilometer. Someone may bike a short distance everyday to work, but visits his parents who live far away every weekend by car.
- On the way to work someone could take the car and the train on the same commute.
It isn’t necessarily wrong, it’s just two different metrics meant to measure two different concepts.
Thanks for your comment. Not wrong in the sense that the data is wrong or faked, but that the metric is not useful. Especially when better metrics are readily available for that region. Can you name me one prediction or result which you can infer from the frequency of train travel other than „fun facts“? (I am actually really curious :) ). With the modal split you can for example calculate CO2 emissions or estimate needed capacity increases if you want to replace one mode with another and much more.
I think the number of trips says a lot about the role trains play in people’s everyday lives, maybe even more than the kilometers travelled. Sure, that’s not a “metric”, but it does give us an idea if people use trains just for vacation a few times a year, or for their commute to work or other daily trips. For someone taking a train just once a year, even if that is for hundeds of kilometers, we know that they will use a different means of transportation for most trips.
I really like when I can just show up at the station and jump of a train without the need to consult a timetable beforehand. Not sure what you can infer, but I value frequency!
Germany, would be better in Case you would measure the time that it takes to travel.
Danks ju för traffeling Wiss Deutsche Bahn …
Even that has problems. German railways might not be on time, but most of the main lines are upgraded to 200km/h and some new lines are even faster. So compared to for example Switzerland that means higher speed, but it is much more likely to be delayed.
The main reasons of which the German trains are mostly to late are Not enough Tracks for all the trains and Not enough people who works at Deutsche Bahn.
If we would like that more people taking the train, we need also more acces to trains, that means more trainstations in villages Connected to the railway systhem
Well sure but that’s because Switzerland has a pretty awesome and geographically-appropriate-for-its-size train system.
What does that mean? I’m not sure if I correctly interpret that as somewhat dismissive, as if a good train system was a given or not. It’s the result of political will and investment.
in 2017, Germany invested €69 per citizen in its railways, ahead of France’s €38 and Spain’s €32. It’s still far behind other countries, however, with Switzerland and Austria investing €362 and €187 per citizen respectively.
A bit like when you get Zerg rushed in Starcraft and say “Well sure but that’s because they built so many units early on”. It’s a decision, and becoming good in that metric was precisely the intent. Also not to do so is a decision. Unlike in Starcraft, the decision to neglect your public transport is not a similarly viable strategy.
I mean that Switzerland has a local and regional rail system that is damn near perfectly sized, scaled, and engineered for its geography and citizenry, which also integrates pretty well with the rail systems of all of its neighbors.
They could have made faster trains, but with the way they wanted to run them, it made more sense to design the rolling stock to have good top speed, but excellent acceleration, thus improving the average speed more meaningfully than a higher top speed would. The rail network is fairly pervasive - you can from and to just about anywhere in Switzerland using trains, with perhaps a bit of bus travel tacked onto either end.
Source: was just over there a couple months ago visiting a family friend, and used the train system a lot.
