Regulation Done Right; or, a Hymn to the Deutsche Bahn

Over in The Independent, former British press secretary Alastair Campbell, first slags the triviality of British newspapers, "which seem to be full of irritating articles by contributors anxious to tell us all about their summer holidays."  He then proceeds to do just the same, telling us all about his holiday in France.  He's got sturdy Anglo-Saxon opinions about that country: lovely place to visit, but the people are depressed and cynical, and seem to be trapped in a strait-jacket of unnecessary regulation they don't know how to get out of:

[I]f you talk to the same kind of French people we have been talking to, you could hardly underestimate their sense of depression and decline.

...I can report that virtually every one of the French businesspeople we have met this year has expressed strong opposition to the 35-hour week. Perhaps more surprisingly, the opposition seems to be shared by virtually every one of the French tourists we have talked to. Their complaint is not that they work less than they did — that bit seems to please them. It is that they now have more time for leisure and holidays, yet severely reduced spending power. Restaurants report the French to be eating and drinking less. Hotels report that Belgian and Dutch families tend to be the ones taking the de luxe bedrooms and expensive set menus.

The French, Campbell says, have just plain regulated themseves into oblivion.  For a contrary view, though, read this piece by Paul Krugman, who cautions Anglo-American observers not to assume that French policies have "failed" simply because their economy is weak.  If you value time over money, you might just be content with a slow-growing, highly-regulated economy that guaratees you 2 months of effective or real vacation a year.

Further, Alastair might want to stop crowing about how, in his words, "no sane Brit" would accept the level of regulation one sees in France.  Sometimes, regulation is a good thing.  God knows, here at German Joys there have been some outbursts against the many-tentacled German regulatory state.  But anyone who's tried to travel by train in Britain lately knows just what a nightmare the wrong kind of deregulation can unleash.  British train service is now provided by a variety of different semi-private companies, who appear to have some obscure quasi-competitive relationship to each other that I was never able to figure out. 

I wanted to get from Oxford to Chipping Campden one find Sunday, and was alarmed to find all service counters closed.  This in a country where Sunday closing laws have been battered into meaninglessness, and in a city with 150,000 inhabitants.  No problem, I thought, I'll just buy a ticket from the machine.  Said machine waited patiently while I fed 8 pounds of change into it; then regurgitated every penny at the end without providing me either a ticket or explanation.  I thought I could see a little man inside, with glowing red eyes, laughing himself silly over my mounting rage.  Good thing the machines didn't work, though, because I would have ended up buying a worthless ticket -- the route advertised on the train schedule had recently been cancelled.  I only learned this because a security guard took pity on me.

In Germany, by contrast, everything's run by the stodgy old Deutsche Bahn.  And die Bahn, as everyone calls it, is a miracle of efficiency, reliability, and capacity.  The reason it's hard to get around England on a train is that private entrepreneues cancel unprofitable routes (or unprofitable policies such as having Sunday ticket counter service).  You may desperately need or want to get from Oxford to Chipping Camden, but if it's just you and 3 doddering old ladies, that's not enough to make it profitable.  You'll just have to dodder about in your own villages.  In Germany, though, there will always be a Sunday 3 PM train from Bad Scheidungsklage to Niedervollweib.  Always.  Because die Bahn doesn't care, and doesn't have to care, whether it's profitable to run a train from Bad Scheidungsklage to Niedervollweib.  What's important is that every citizen have a chance at mobility. 

Many Germans, displaying the whiny, negative pessismism that poisons everything it touches, complain about die Bahn.  Have these whiny weenies no shame?  I travel constantly on the German train system.  It can be expensive if you pay full-price, that I admit.  But by and large, with only trivial exceptions, it promises to take me exactly where I want to go, in fact does take me there, and does so safely and in style.  To complain about this gentle giant of an institution is like complaining about a slightly blackened crème brûlée in the midst of a famishing Nigerian village. 

All hail the bureaucratic, highly-regulated, state-owned German railway network!

Comments

[cmk]

I think a majority of German complaints in respect of Die Bahn stem from the notion that about a decade ago, train service and customer service was better. I don't have any facts to support this - just vague memories, but I do remember being phenomenally impressed at the timeliness, range of options, and (relative) ease of service available in the early 90s here. In recent years, I believe timeliness has decreased (wir bitten wiederholt um Verständnis...), many routes are now only serviced by the more-expensive ICE or IC trains - one used to be able to travel from Tübingen to Jena using only regional trains, and yes, it took a day, but sometimes that time was enjoyable, or at least, very inexpensive, and what tourist doesn't want to spend a half an hour touring the lovely courtyards and wild verdant greens of Lobeda... And I haven't been able to walk into a Service Point in this country and not wait in a ten minute (at least) lineup (regardless of city, size, time of day, etc.) to buy a ticket in years. Even the Bahn has conceded that the wretched ticket vending machines are user-unfriendly, tend to select more-expensive routes, and can provoke customers to damage them in frustration. Anyways, that's my own Bahnklage for the day, and my suspicion as to where the current puling, moaning and whining stems from.

[Georg]

Germany's rail system has in fact been deregulated. In Germany, "local" passenger train service - which basically is everything except IC, EC, ICE and sleepers - is subsidised by the government. This has always been the case somehow, with the former "Deutsche Bundesbahn" beeing part of the state. In 1994, "Deutsche Bundesbahn" was restructured to a private company (although 100% of it's shares are still owned by the state) called "Deutsche Bahn".

Local train services are now subsidised via the so-called "Aufgabentrager". In most cases the "Aufgabentrager" are the Bundeslander, in some cases smaller entities distribute the money coming from the Bundesland. The Aufgabentrager does order train services by making contracts with train-operating-companies for a defined period of time (usually something around 10 years) and paying them a fee per train-kilometer. The Aufgabentrager predefine the routes the trains operate and also make the schedules.
The Aufgabentrager, not the train-operating-companies, are responsible for the existance of a Sunday 3 PM train from Bad Scheidungsklage to Niedervollweib - or for discontinuing it. Lots of branch lines have been closed in the last 10 years, especially in the east of Germany. On the good side, most of the money saved there has been used to improve service on the remaining lines, which - as a whole - nowadays have a level of service (number of trains, age of trains, etc.) unknown before deregulation.

Contrary to what you said above, the "Deutsche Bahn" is not the only train-operating-company. Historically, there have always been some small branch lines operated by companies owned by the local governments or private companies. Since 1994 the former "Bundesbahn"-rail-network is operated under "open-access", which means that every company satisfing extensive safety requirements can operate it's trains on it. Most Aufgabentrager do now use the resulting possibilities by contracting out local train services to the best/cheapest/whatever tenderer.
Apart from Deutsche Bahn, there are now about 60 companies operating passenger trains on behlaf of the Aufgabentrager in Germany. These vary from companies owned by the bundeslander (e.g. "metronom" between Bremen and Hamburg) to companies owned by international transportation groups (e.g. "Prignitzer Eisenbahn", part of british Arriva-group).

Let me finish by saying that I agree with the conclusion of your post: Germany's rail system is not nearly as bad as the image it has in some parts of the population.

[TCHe]

You're right – in almost everything.
I know many people who suffered from train delays up to an hour – I never did.
My negative experiences with "Die Bahn" (that's its official name since a decade or so – they wanted to get away from the old "state-owned-company-image") are few and I use it often because I don't like travelling longer distances by car.

Pricing is a problem and here's where you're wrong.
"Die Bahn" has to be profitable, at least that's what the management thinks.
So they raise the fare every once in a while (they did so twice last year) and, also, they close down ticket counters (in fact whole train stations) as well as various"unprofitable" routes.
There're no longer trains from "Bad Scheidungsklage to Niedervollweib", or only few on a regular day.
(I admit that this may vary form "Bundesland to Bundesland")

In fact, I guess the best train service around in Europe still is the one in Switzerland.
They're said to be ahead of all others.

In Germany, some kind of deregulation came in.

[zrz]

I agree with you, by and large. One thing really should be better: if it ever happens that you have a complaint, they don't know how to answer it and just try to get rid of you. But in general, I've used travel go by train since I started to travel at all, and I will go on doing so.
I believe, there are two groups of people who complain about the Bahn: professional moaners, i. e. media people believing moaning is 'being critical', and car drivers, who feel going by train should be much easier, because it's that difficult to read a time table - wonder how they ever managed to get a driver's license.