Escalator etiquette in Germany, or lack thereof

Can someone (preferably a German) please tell me why German have absolutely no disciple when it comes to standing on escalators. This really drives me crazy, especially after a trip to London where the discipline is clear - standers on the left, walkers on the right. Germans seem to regard the middle of the escalator as their own personal domain and perish all who perhaps would like to get by.

Rant over.

It's actually stand on the right, walk on the left, in both places.

I've not really experience any problems on Munich's escalators though - whereabouts in Germany are you?

Seems to be tourists usually who stand on the left. They don't know what they don't know. I don't have a problem here in Munich with this - people move over with a muttered "Entschuldigung".

Well here in Berlin I have this escalator problem every day... and they are not only tourists... a lot of younger people... or even businessman.

in Munich this is a constant bugbear of mine on the Ubahn. People on the platform rushing and pushing people out of the way in a huge hurry so that they can then stand still in the middle of the escalator so that nobody can pass. It is only a minority of people who do it but it drives me batty. Someone like that would be mown down in a stampede in London!

Also at Munich airport - nobody seems to realise that the travelators are there to aid quick passage to all the gates and not somewhere for lardarses to stand idly with their luggage blocking any possible transit.

And why oh why oh why to German teenagers feel the need to meet their large number of friends right bang at the top of busy escalators?

Ah, but that is a compliment to the tolerance of Germans while showing up the pushiness of Londoners.
As mentioned above, asking to be let by is the solution to what you see as a problem.

I find the school kids I meet every morning, apart from hols (a lot of Italian kids seem to go to school somewhere near Am Moosfeld), like to form groups on the escalator, chatting away happily as if they wouldn't see each other every single day at school ;-) But they will move over without any problems, if asked. Elsewhere I haven't experienced any problems so far, apart from the occasional tourist who apparently doesn't have escalators at home...

The only thing that annoys me is the escalator at Sendlinger Tor, taking you from the U2/1 platform upstairs to U3/6. People stop right at the top of the escalator, taking their time to figure out in what direction they need to go, while you can wave goodbye to the train you'd have caught if you weren't too nice to push them out of the way. Look at the maps, folks, it's not that difficult.

Just say something and they will move and let you go through. Wow, complicated problems you are facing right now.

yeah right. oxymoron if ever i heard one.

More a slam against the Brits.

You could have fooled me.

On a related topic... why can't Germans queue?

The most organised people in the world, but they haven't worked out the humble queue.

Or even the concept of making space. At my local coffee shop, there is a small counter where everyone orders their coffee. Everywhere else in the world, you step away from the counter while they make your coffee, so you can let the next person step up and place their order. Except here, everyone grimly hangs on to their spot on the counter until the coffee arrives.

Top or bottom, parents, anyone. I live by Riem Arcaden, people not caring about others on the escalators is normal esp. families but then stopping at the bottom to look around an get their bearing, oh wait what people behind us...
Also why is it when you have the narrowest part of a walkway (ie. getting past said escalators) do the locals seem to think this is the best place to talk while turning their Kinderwagen sideways on?!?

actually sara I think that the majority of Germans do observe queue and escalator etiquette just fine and dandy. But there is a very rude and mostly older generation who do not and seem to go out of their way to gum things up.

Slightly off topic: why do smokers have to light up on the escalator, thereby forcing people behind them to inhale their smoke?

Edit: I used to smoke and would always wait until I was out of the station before lighting up!

Right! Off topic

Topic is escalator etiquette, on topic. Besides, he's right.

What absolute gall. How dare someone have the utter cheek to stand where you might want to walk! Outrageous.

I see this all the time in Munich. They have no idea and its extremely annoying.

But what pisses me off even more is those two way escalators. People who can see that there are people waiting to go up the escalator but they make a dash for it and come down it. Its bloody way harder to walk up stairs than down it you lazy mofo.

Never saw those escalators you are talking of.

There's already a thread on the 2-way escalators in Munich!

Sorry for my original post - yes of course it is standers on the right, walkers on the left. I never could tell my left from right - ask my wife when she is trying to give me driving directions left...left...left....LEFT!

Oh and yes of course it isn't much of a problem to ask someone to move out of the way but when that person is five in front of you its slightly more tricky.

Perhaps I spend too much time travelling or perhaps I just need to get out more!

That's the advantage to living in Bavaria, everyone here is so rude that they just yell all over the place, e.g. "Geht's da vorn irgend wann amoi weida?" or - the perennial favorite - "Leit, laßt 's d'Leit durch!" Generally, it works.

Really, does it matter that it might not be identical to what we were used to in London? Any reason there has to be "escalator etiquette"? Don't see much of it round may way. I usually just dawdle now, like everyone else. No doubt if there were big "stand to the right" signs that were strictly followed, people would moan about "controlling" or "order-following" Germans.

Chill out, get used to what's just a tiny cultural difference. Or just ask if you really want to go past. No big deal.

Nice idea in theory, but when there's a whole escalator full of fat arsed Gumbies blocking the way, not really feasible.

It is normally one person who blocks the rest and the person behind being too shy to ask him to move.

I just love the way this board is full of schizophrenics.
In one post the Germans are order obsessed control freaks who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire and in the next they are disorderly slothes but friendly with it.

Still I suppose if that if where you stand on the escalator is that important to you then you would be in favour of the pedestrian lane as well?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1049698.stm

to be honest, i think the Germans are actually quite good at standing on the right and letting people through, even though there are no signs to tell them. I've never seen it as an issue here.

Seconded. I hadn't even heard of escalator etiquette when I lived in the UK. You always get the odd exception, but in general, I think it's pretty well observed in Germany.

I think you're right. Whenever I see people standing to the left I assume they're tourists.

I usually cycle but over this winter I took the Ubahn and had to change at Sendlinger Tor each day between U3/6 and U1/2. Those who know it will know if is VERY busy interchange at 8:45am. There were a small minority of people at that inetrchange, including a very fat woman with a backpack, who used to push their way on to the escalator and block it even when everyone could see the U1/U2 trains on the platform below. It was extremely irritating and I know it irritated plenty of the Germans too since there was tutting and the odd exclamation each time it happened.

The travelator experience at Munich airport is every time I go there though I grant you when asked most blockers do move out of the way.

I'm always more than happy to jump onboard with somebody else's gripes about Germans or Germany, but escalator etiquette? Dunno about anywhere else, but in Munich it is so rarely a problem, that it is not really a problem. I go through Odeonsplatz twice a day, and that's a bit of a pain in the arse as a station, but still don't really have any problems. I'd say the only real problems are caused by me, when I am hurtling up the left, but then see a bird with a nice arse standing on the right, so I stop and try to shift people out of the way in the standing lane so that I can get in and have a good dribbly lech at her backside. Especially if she's got those arse-antler tattoos. Well nice.

The largest problem with ubahn etiquette here is the types of beverage that the little shops at the station sell. Take Munchener Freiheit. OK, at the moment there is no shop there, due to the ongoing project of trying to make the station into some sort of space-age torture-cave for anyone with a hangover, or for that matter, anyone who isn't blind. In the past though, the kiosk there only sold helles, with no weissbier atall. Karstadt foodhall thingy have only just recently started putting wiessbier in the cooler, so for a long while, your only option as a weissbier drinker was to go outside of the station to that little fast food place on the corner, and their weissbier was some brand that I've never heard of, and tasted like it had actually been recycled through somebody's digestive system before bottling.

Also, another problem with the ubahn is the quality of the toilets. Granted, any public toilet is a complete nightmare if you are heterosexual man that has always believed that public loos are crammed to the hilt with gay blokes doing stuff to each other, but that aside, why can't they put some bloody air freshener in there? Or maybe open a fucking window on occasion? Doesn'T sound like too much to ask, seeing as the only alternative I can think of is them sitting down with a mathematician and calculating how long it is going to take me to drink a beer and need a piss, and based upon that information and the availibility of weissbier at various stations, work out some sort of cleaning roster that might at least raise my chances of being able find a station where I can safely relieve myself without risking having to breath in somebody elses 3 week old evaporated piss.

Clearly you have missed that other little cultural difference - a thread that is a little tongue in cheek

I have to agree with the others. I didn't learn elevator etiquette until coming to Germany and was amazed at how well it works here.

No one is even aware of such a thing in Canada and we just stand quietly behind the person blocking the way, silently cursing them but far too [s]afraid of causing offence [/s]polite to do anything about it.

seems it is just us Brits that find the one or two Germans who don't conform to escalator etiquette very mildly irritating . . .

However I should point out that anybody who has been to the Indian or Pakistani Punjabs (where elbows, knees and fists are how you get through any crowd or to the front of any queue) will know that Germany is relative heaven of order on that front.

That is a MAJOR pinch point on the U Bahn system, it was maybe OK when it ws built but passenger numbers have risen and safety demands too.
Because you can come up from both sides it is often a little disorientating, I still get confused and I've been using the station nearly 20 years!

There's no space for improvements now. The Südring or U9 would ease congestion if ever built.

Rechts stehen, Links gehen!

The stoppers, gotta love them.

Cleaned reguarly mate but yeah, fairly icky.
I don't know if it also applies to loos in You Barns owned by MVG as well but the ones that belong to the council proper
are due to be privatised soon and you'll be paying 50 cents to go for a jimmy. Or at some locations, mostly U2, a knee trembler with the boys that are good with colours.

Artists?

well that's coz we don't really have elevators on the Indian subcontinent. and our urban ropeways have a specific right of way.


ah but that's off topic. like the other unnecessary comment there.

Organized? Reams and reams of bureaucracy does not organization make. Throw one little monkey wrench into their so called "organization" and watch the fun!

As for the escalators, I couldn't (and wouldn't want to) count all the trains that I have missed cause of blocked escalators and the general "get in my wayness". What I really hate are the people who think they are running to the next train and are yet moving at a snail's pace. It is mind boggling to see people look like they are running, but are actually moving slower than if they were to just walk. All that energy for nothing! Oh, and of course they are in my way so we both miss the train.

Now that the Don has mentioned it, Odeonsplatz must be the worst ever for changing lines. If you come from the U3/6 platform and have to catch a U4 or U5 at rush hour plan well ahead and give yourself at least five extra minutes. If U4/5 trains arrive from each direction at the same time you are facing a wall of people waiting to cram themselves onto one overworked escalator going up to the U3/6. Possibly they leave space on either side for the U3/6 to U4/5 transferrees to march single file towards the platform but often enough the first in line has to break a path like an Arctic explorer after a blizzard.

Even when the masses are moving at least four out of ten people are looking straight downwards at their own oh-so-interesting feet and shuffling forwards, collisions are inevitable. It's faster to go up to the mezzanine (and get some yummy croissants from the yummy salesgirls in the miniscule bakeware shop) and then take the long escalator back down to the U4/5 platform. Being highly claustrophobic I even avoid that and prefer to wait eight minutes and take the bus to Lehel.

This is insofar on topic as the reversered delta, as it were, is waiting for the escalator where the "stand right, walk left" method generally works like a charm.

I also hate the Odeonsplatz Ubahn, I find the narrow escalotor not really wide enough for one to stand one to go up, if you stand, your bag or you are always being bumped, if you go up, they are steeper than normal and I find that bags or people are always in the way.

If I have a need to take the U3/6 during busy times, I tend to take the bus from Arabellapark to Schwabings Giselastr station.

for me the Escalator etiquette can be delt with, usually a swift elbow or shoulder as you attempt to pass by, its the lack of Elevator etiquette that gets me. Today, the doors open here on my floor at home, its a long narrow elevator, and the women standing there didn't move to let me in, this happens all the time, just shift over a bit, or take a step back, but not to move at all, to let another passanger in is just rude.

Once again, the powers that be are following up on a problem recognized and flogged to death by expats on Toytown. After the complaints about the lack of courtesy in the U-Bahn leading to a politeness initiative sponsored by the MVG, the Süddeutsche Zeitung is asking: Why do people stand on the right of the escalators and walk up or down on the left?


Allegedly, the natives are well aware of this custom and either call the offender to task or (see Bell the Cat's claim about Londoners) trample him down.

However, there is no justifaction for a full broadside of Bavarian diatribes replete with holier-than-thou-iness: What is law in such metropolis (metropoles? metropolises? metropolei?) as London, Paris or Düsseldorf is merely volontary behavior in Munich except at the airport.

Go native under the laws of anarchy - rechts stehen, links gehen!

Nooo the worst interchange is Hauptbahnhof going between the U4/U5 lines and the S-Bahn! It takes an age to walk there taking you across the entire length of the station even right onto the main platforms where all the proper trains are!

But there's room!

But there's Haagen Dazs and international magazines to tempt you along the way!

And Rischart if you take the long way round via Stachus.

I miss that and Bienentorte thingy.