Selling Public Transportation in Germany

 If you live in a urban zone (Hamburg, Munich, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, etc)....it's pretty easy to carry out a sales-job on people that public transportation 'works'.

You can cite less traffic woes and avoiding traffic jams/accidents.  You can cite how the design of the network going back to the 1960s...has made practical sense.  You can cite the computerized updates (minute-by-minute).  You can cite the smart use of 'park-and-ride' where you parked in some small village and caught the train....with a reasonable monthly fee for parking.  You can cite the 49-Euro monthly ticket (presently).  You can cite the safety-record.  

The negative side of this?  It comes down to three serious issues:

1.  If you live in x-village and don't work in a major zone....it's a marginal service.  I would take a humble guess that 50-percent of the working class are in this situation. 

2.  The trains/subways are full.  If you venture into Frankfurt at 7 AM....most all of the cars are full for at least two hours.  Same for each afternoon.  

3.  Most people who've spent time around the Frankfurt or Hamburg, or Dusseldorf train-station....will readily say that seedy characters (drug-dealers) are the norm these days, and it's best to limit your time within the confines of the station (don't loiter).

But I'll this unique factor....you can take any public mass transit service in the US and attempt to compare to the German network, and it simply doesn't compare.  

The Germans make an attempt to clean the cars each evening.

The Germans mandate a high degree of maintenance and checking things daily.

You don't find 1970s/1980s type cars still in service....with most of what you'd see in Frankfurt being delivered in the past 20 years.  

The big stations (particularly Mainz and Frankfurt) have various cafes, bakeries, and stores within the station itself.  On the run, but needing something....they offer just about everything you'd desire (even American-style donuts now).

The toilets?  Well....the free crappy toilets are long gone.  What you find are fairly sanitized toilets with a fee-system to enter.  

Finally, on the key act of leaving on time and getting there on time?  I'd go and suggest that in 80-percent of your travels....the schedule usually works unless bad weather fits into the situation.