Greta Thunberg's spat with German railway company

[David Benton]

"Climate activist Greta Thunberg and Germany's national railway company got into a heated online debate after she posted a photo of herself sitting on the floor of a train surrounded by lots of bags on Sunday."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/ ... ay-company

[kato]

My reaction to her photo was to wonder whether Sweden has weird conceptions of what constitutes a "crowd".

Because the last couple times i've been on a ICE that section where she's sitting would house at least 4-5 people standing without a seat reservation. In second class anyway.

[David Benton]

True.
I wonder what the official definition of overcrowded on a unreserved train is . 110 to 150 % of seats available. ?
Perhaps a trip to India would do her good, tha train is empty by their measure.
The whole thing seems a media beat up anyway, I doubt she intended to make a point out of this. She certainly brings publicity to the issues , and that can't be a bad thing.

[kato]

Internal regulation for DB ICE trains:

100% (all seats filled): Start announcements to keep escape paths clear.
120% (10/car standing) : Allow upgrading individual passengers to 1st class to better distribute load.
140% (20/car standing) : Only allow new passengers with reservations onboard.
200% (50/car standing) : Cease movement until passenger load has been brought down.

There's additionally a hard load limit which broadly conforms to those 200% but with less-than-optimal distribution can be reached considerably earlier. Once the computer registers axle loads above that hard limit that train isn't going anywhere.