History and overview:

Germany deployed the subway in 1902, which has a history of 120 years.

The subway system is part of the public transport system of the Federal Republic of Germany, including 4 main types: bus system, tram system, overground railway system (S-Bahn or Strassen-Bahn – urban railway) and underground train system (U-Bahn or subway).

The German public transport system is managed by each administrative region, and includes all four types of transport or fewer if the region is not densely populated. Public transport tickets can be used together and transferred or combined between all four types of transport: bus, tram, underground and S-Bahn.

Features of the subway

So what’s so strange about the subway in Germany?

First of all, we need to distinguish it from the other three types of public transport. Buses and trams are completely different means of transport, so we don’t need to spend too much effort to find the difference – except for buying the same ticket, they have nothing else in common.

What we need to distinguish is what is the difference between U-Bahn and S-Bahn?

For many Germans when referring to the subway with the word “U-Bahn”, they often think that the letter U stands for Untergrund or Unterirdisch (underground/underground).

In fact, German transport officials assert that the U-Bahn stands for “Unabhaengig”, meaning independent – ​​meaning it is a form of transport that is not connected or associated with other means of transport.

Here it should be understood in the sense that the subway trains run on their own tracks, in dedicated tunnels or separate elevated railway lines, without sharing the road with any other vehicles.

With the S-Bahn, these are railway lines that can share tracks with the federal or inter-city railway system, usually to connect localities at the district/commune level or below within a residential area.

Some interesting points of the German subway

Subways are only available in big cities.

German cities are usually small, with fewer than 200,000 inhabitants. Wealthy cities or state capitals have populations of over 300,000, and even those with over 1 million inhabitants can be in the top 5 largest cities in Germany.

Therefore, not every city has a subway, only large enough cities have subway infrastructure, and the complexity and size of the subway system is proportional to the population of that city or residential area.

Map of Munich’s metro system with 8 lines from U1 to U8, Munich has a population of about 1,300,000 people

The subway in Germany is wide, you can bring your bike on the subway

Subways in Germany have relatively large compartments, and can be arranged in rows with 4 seats per row, or in rows with 2 seats per row. 

It allows passengers to bring bulky suitcases or even bicycles on board along. 

In fact, the subway is one of the main and most convenient means of transportation for people if they do not want to use their own cars.

(Photo source: Website of SWM / MVG / N+P Industrial Design – SWM/MVG is the company that manages the public transport system of Munich city)

The subway runs quite fast and the distance between each station is quite short.

With the characteristic from the definition of “independent fork railway” – Unabhaengige-Bahn – U-Bahn, they can basically run and usually run at quite high speed, on average 80km/h or if the line runs long between stations can reach 120-140km/h. 

The only thing that limits their speed is the distance between two metro stations. This is usually 2 km, more or less, at the ends of the line the distance between stations is longer, then the train will run at a higher average speed.

Subway tickets purchased by day/week/month or by area

Train tickets can be purchased through automatic ticket machines located in convenient locations in front of the ticket control area, or at the counter (usually each subway station has only 1-2 ticket counters, most people buy tickets through automatic ticket machines because they are quite convenient).

Vending machines accept notes, coins and debit cards.

The above mentioned metro tickets can be used together or interchanged between travelling on the metro, tram, bus or overground railway. Tickets are divided and priced according to validity period, maximum distance or area of ​​validity.

• Time-based tickets: means tickets purchased for a day, 3 days, 1 week or a monthly ticket. This type of ticket also specifies the area in which the ticket is valid – for example, only valid in the inner city, or valid for both the inner city and the suburbs, or only valid in a certain suburban area.
• Trip ticket: Single-trip ticket valid for one trip, with the cheapest ticket only allowing you to travel up to 2 metro stations, the most expensive ticket can be used on all metro routes or other forms of transport such as trams, buses, S-Bahn, one way. If you want to travel round trip, you need to research the time-based ticket – for a day or for 4 hours.
• The metro doesn’t run 24/7: they run usually until 1am and start running again around 5am every day, with fewer trips on Sundays and the first trip later than usual.

(source: Munich Transport and Tariff Association GmbH (MVV))

Control subway tickets with self-awareness

In Germany, ticket control is mainly carried out by voluntary awareness, right at the entrance to the subway station.

When buying a ticket – if it is not a monthly ticket with a pre-printed validity date, we must punch the ticket to make it valid. If we do not punch the ticket, the single ticket will not be valid and if checked, we will still be caught and fined for “fare evasion”.

Ticketing for underground stations is done by inserting the ticket into the ticket machine, which is installed right in front of the stairs leading down to the underground subway, and it happens automatically – there is no ticket inspector to check this.

So how do people control the voluntary purchase and use of tickets by passengers? The answer is through random ticket inspectors, like the 141 police who randomly conduct administrative checks on pedestrians.

Occasionally, there will be random ticket inspection teams. They get on a subway train and start flashing their inspector badges and asking every passenger to show their ticket for inspection.

If the passenger fails to present a valid ticket, he/she will be fined – 40 – 60 EUR for one fine (if he/she has purchased a monthly ticket but forgets to bring it, the fine is lighter – 5 EUR, but when paying the fine, he/she must present proof that the ticket was purchased before the time of the fine).

If passengers do not cooperate and try to escape or resist, they can call the police (Polizei) to handle the crime of causing trouble and obstructing law enforcement officers.

The problem is, the fine receipt itself is something that each person takes home, and paying the fine is also voluntary.

That’s why in the early 2000s, many Vietnamese students often tried to avoid tickets, sharing tickets with each other (in essence, it was still fare evasion).

However, if we talk about the act of evading paying a fine after receiving a fine receipt, there are very few cases. Because Vietnamese students tell each other that there have been cases of people who took the train without a ticket and received a receipt but did not pay the fine, when they applied to extend their visa, the extension was denied and they had to return home (deported).

The truth of this rumor is unclear, but one thing is certain, the data of these fare evasions are all transferred directly by the train company to the police station and recorded as a criminal record (it is unclear how long it will take for these minor crimes to be cleared), so if you have been fined and still delay paying the fine, there is a high possibility that your record will be blacklisted by the police as well as the Immigration Department and it is not difficult to understand why visa renewals are difficult.

Germany is a country of law, German people respect the law. With the process of digitization, application of information technology in public management, data of violations are transferred between state agencies, law violations will become very risky and most people will not want to get into trouble just because of a few coins of fare evasion.

underground station

Some pictures of subway stations in Germany:

• Subway station entrance

• Underground subway lobby:

• Some metro stations in busy downtown areas that are connected to other transport systems such as the S-Bahn or trains have additional “mezzanine” areas:

Driverless subway

In Germany, the only city that has operated driverless metro trains since 2008 is the city of Nuremberg.

In the image below we can see that the front of the train, instead of being the driver’s area, is empty and has passenger seats for those who want to enjoy the view ahead while the subway is running.

The subway is an extremely safe means of public transport.

There are many reasons for Germany to maintain and expand its subway system as public transport has many advantages.

• The subway runs on electricity, which helps reduce emissions from gasoline vehicles, reducing environmental pollution.
• Energy consumption for operation is extremely efficient because they run on their own roads without intersecting with other vehicles, so they require less braking, giving way and maintenance than other means of transport such as cars and buses.
• The accident rate for train passengers is only 1/38th of the car accident rate in Germany. The subway is considered one of the safest means of transport in Germany.