>There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on time". You only read about some train having had an AC issue or the like.
I feel most know about Japan's shinkansen being run well.
For those who don't, the average delay is 1.1 minutes on average.
For comparison, the DB long distance trains are considered on time if they're less than 6 minutes late, and still only 64% are considered on time.
They have dedicated tracks. In Germany all train lines (freight, local trains, long-distance trains) share the same tracks and especially at different speeds this causes delays and problems.
Building new track or even adding more lanes is extremly difficult because of NIMBY's and from 1995 to 2005 switches and extra lanes for overtaking where build back to save costs.
Additionally signalling is in large parts still very labour intensive and smaller tracks are often still running with technology from the early 20th century and late 19th century.
So the problem Deutsche Bahn has to solve is quite a bit harder than shinkansen.
I feel most know about Japan's shinkansen being run well.
For those who don't, the average delay is 1.1 minutes on average.
For comparison, the DB long distance trains are considered on time if they're less than 6 minutes late, and still only 64% are considered on time.