Quite a understatement, because automobile industry is the backbone of German export economy. Anything that seriously competes with automobile industry is a BIG no for many German politicians with connections to automobile industry. Like the short lived public transport 9-Euro-Ticket.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket

Tiny disturbances cascade and you get large fluctuations.

I have the standing hypothesis that there is a second order phase transition between free flowing trains and total collapse where the control parameter is the train density.

I just cannot identify the correct order parameter.

Kinda, yes, but also, no, I expected better journalism from Le Monde? This is a bit heavy on extremist right-wing's talking points.

DB is a case of "kaputtgespart" (austered into brokenness), and pretty much all people I (German) know consider it either a result of failed privatization, or just privatization in general. They were squeezing it as tight as they could, in the hopes of throwing it public for good money. Except it never got there. And now we're dealing with the results of that.

At minimum the track part (they keep renaming themselves, I think it's DB InfraGO currently?) needs to be 100% renationalized.

[Ed.: honestly the article is not bad, I'm just confused why they had to bring in AfD commentary. They could've asked pretty much anyone and gotten the same.]