Deutsche Bahn Turned a Ticket Into Portal Archaeology

I do not complain about Deutsche Bahn all that often. This time, though, I absolutely do.

I get my Deutschlandticket through Deutsche Bahn. Honestly, I would only recommend that if you care about BahnBonus points. Otherwise, there are much better providers out there, like MoPla Solutions GmbH or Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (hvv). They give people more flexibility in how to pay, whether by direct debit, credit card, or PayPal, and the overall ticket management is simply better. And MoPla even sends a proper invoice every month that I can just forward to Die Haftpflichtkasse VVaG Human Resources and drop into my bookkeeping. Honestly, getting invoices like that should be a complete no-brainer. With Deutsche Bahn, that is still manual work. And yes, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) Deutschlandticket is also on a similarly low level, so the bar was already in the basement. But even that was not the actual problem.

My real issue started when I recently got a new Pixel 9a. I logged into DB Navigator and expected my Deutschlandticket to be there, like in any halfway normal app. It was not.

I only noticed that during ticket inspection last week on the train from Darmstadt to Frankfurt. Luckily, the VIAS conductor was relaxed. Otherwise I probably would have gone straight into stress mode. He believed me when I said I did have a Deutschlandticket and did not turn it into a full drama.

But what did I have to do to actually get the ticket into the app?

First, I had to find my subscription number. That meant going into the subscription portal. Then I had to enter that number and my name in the app. Before that, I had to deactivate the ticket on my old phone. Amazingly, that even worked without having the old phone with me, just via confirmation email. Then I had to activate everything again on the new device. In total, this cost me around ten minutes to get running.

Ten minutes may not sound like much. But this is exactly the kind of thing that turns bad UX into a real-world problem. I would not want to put my dad through that flow. It is an absolute UX catastrophe.

And while we are at it: in Berlin, those ten minutes could easily have cost me 60 euros during a ticket check. So cheers to the VIAS conductor for being pragmatic, because the system very much was not.

A ticket that is tied to an account should just appear after login. Full stop. Not hidden behind subscription numbers, deactivation rituals, old devices, and portal archaeology. This is not innovation. It is just making public transport harder than it needs to be.

Originally posted on LinkedIn.