Being a tourist in Berlin, one of my main points of getting around the fantastic German capital was public transport, which is provided by BVG, in the past I have reviewed different aspects of BVG services until I stumbled across this which would be more suited to add on the variety of my experiences on travel across the city as BVG provides everything from bus to tram to metro.
The services offered can depend on location obviously, throughout my time in the city I found some stops, especially metro ones, to be old and not the nicest of places to be, on the other hand nearly 600km south of Berlin, also in Germany, Munich seems to have more spectacular and impressive underground stations, a slight let-down considering Berlin is supposed to be the capital city of Germany. Some stops didn't have access with anything other than steps, which was a shame - I did notice out of date or not working lifts at some stops, which become a slight burden on the transportation system which never seemed to be addressed.
Most services, especially for trams and metro seemed to run pretty quickly, and the price for tickets, in general, wasn't too inflated or expensive.
More general information and staffing at stations and perhaps even on the trams/ubahn etc similar to the services offered at other major cities such as London and Amsterdam would have been a good improvement. It seemed the only part of BVG to have assistance on, would be the form of the conductor on trains, which the most overpriced aspect of BVG's travel in my opinion.
A huge inconsistency in the trams especially also surprised me, some carriages seemed really old to the point I'm surprised they're even in circulation, yet some seemed quite modern, however this is a problem I've found in other cities too, which really did seem to be the case with trams in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Without BVG, my travel around Berlin would have been a hectic nightmare, and although it isn't perfect and a large amount of stops and stains seem to be sub-par, as well as service in general from some staff, it still shows a really well run public transport system in most regards, so I do feel a three-star rating is fair here. Also, it's worth noting if you're looking for something to do or to pick-up essentials, BVG train services operate on Sunday's with restauraunts and shops open inside train stations, a day where all retail outlets outside of such places (airports also are an exception) are outlawed in Germany at the time of writing. read more