The clocks have to be changed again

With the change of time, it will be light early again and dark in the early afternoon. From a purely technical point of view, changing watches is no longer a big challenge: most cell phones, digital watches and household appliances are changed automatically using a signal from the atomic clock near Frankfurt. Clocks on older machines or clocks on older cars still have to be changed manually.

However, what is not so easy to change for many people is their internal clock. Many cite fatigue, sleep disturbances, poor concentration, and bad moods as problems over time.

European Parliament to change the time

An online survey was conducted across the European Union in 2018. 84 percent of respondents spoke in favor of ending the time change. Most voted for permanent daylight saving time. A total of 4.6 million answers were received, three million of which came from Germany alone. However, these votes only mean one percent of all EU citizens.

In March 2019, the European Parliament voted by a large majority to repeal the time change. However, the majority of Member States must agree to this. However, concerns come from many countries. If it comes perpetual summer time, say in Spain, it will be dark until just before 10 am in winter, if everyone agrees on perpetual summer time, say in Warsaw it will be light at 3 am in summer. Time changes twice a year mitigates these extremes.

Introduced in Austria in 1979

Daylight saving time was introduced in Europe in 1973 on the occasion of the oil crisis and with the aim of saving energy. With the time difference, one hour of daylight must be gained for businesses and families. France was the first to do so.

Austria decided to introduce it only in 1979 due to administrative problems and because it wanted to coordinate traffic with Switzerland and Germany. These two countries did not introduce daylight saving time until 1980.

ÖBB must change 199 hours in Vorarlberg

Also at ÖBB, more than 4,000 transactions are transmitted across Austria and servers and computers are synchronized. During this hour, 28 night trains stop at a suitable station along the route and then continue their journey according to the schedule.

Most ÖBB clocks are changed in the customer area in Lower Austria (1,040), Vienna (621), Styria (548) and Upper Austria (418). The federal state with the fewest hours is Burgenland (60). In Vorarlberg, the ÖBB changes 199 hours at night from Saturday to Sunday.

The physically located clocks that passengers can see on the platforms, terminal buildings, or facades are referred to as “slave clocks”. These are synchronously controlled by the “master clocks” in the technical rooms in order to ensure an accurate and uniform display of time. At the same time, the current time is displayed digitally on screens, home screens and platform displays of the latest generation.