My recent vacation in Germany left me with a lingering question: do people create systems, or do systems shape people? I wrote earlier about unruly behaviour in public spaces. This time, however, my experiences were not about people, but about systems-specifically, the much-regarded German railway network, Deutsche Bahn (DB).

We were to travel from Prague to Berlin by train. Even before we had begun our journey from India, we received an email informing us that our scheduled train had been cancelled. An alternative was suggested, but it was either unavailable or not easily traceable on their website. Eventually, we decided to make the journey by road-a decision that turned out to be fortuitous, allowing us to take in the landscape along the way.

For the final leg, from Berlin to Frankfurt, uncertainty continued. It was only upon reaching the station and checking the display board that we discovered our train would........

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