[HN Gopher] 9-Euro-Ticket ___________________________________________________________________ 9-Euro-Ticket Author : _Microft Score : 703 points Date : 2022-05-20 11:15 UTC (11 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bahn.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bahn.com) | april_22 wrote: | The German government did that to compensate for rising gasoline | prices. While I think that is in general appreciated by the | public, I am not quite sure how many people aged 45 above will | use this ticket. They trains will be super crowded this summer | and people will just prefer to use their car instead. | Hendrikto wrote: | Also it is completely useless for people living on the | countryside. The nearest train station is a 20 minute drive | away from where I live, so this does nothing for me. | | Still better than nothing, I guess. | radiospiel wrote: | Well, this is part of a package deal where they also reduce | gasoline pricing. | foepys wrote: | Over 75% of Germans live in cities or towns which | overwhelmingly have reliable bus transit at least at daytime. | | Those remaining <25% are not really important here and can | still use their cars. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | > Over 75% of Germans live in cities | | Unrelated to this topic but that explains why Germans are | so eager to remove forest in order to build windmills. | People in the city obviously don't notice it anyway. | foepys wrote: | Give me an example where trees were cut and no new were | planted. Coal mines are eating whole forests in North | Rhine-Westfalia at this very moment and activists are | getting beaten up by cops. Look up Garzweiler and Hambach | [1]. | | You argument is the usual fear-mongering by (often right- | wing) conservative politicians, wanting us to keep buying | oil and gas from dictatorships. As you can see in France | where they routinely have to shut down nuclear power | plants to not overheat their adjacent rivers in the | summer, nuclear is also no build and forget solution. | | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambach_surface_mine | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Eifel. Around national park. I see it with my own eyes, I | live here. | | Regarding Hambacher Forst. Does it not make you wonder | why the situation quiet down while the country is going | though an energy supply crunch? | kappuchino wrote: | Well, unless you have some data about loss of forest for | wind turbines, your observations on your surroundings | attached to 75% living in the cities is just anecdotal | evidence casually presented as a fact. Not helpful in a | discussion about a related topic, even less when this is | about the 9euro ticket. For reference: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence | | As for Hambacher Forst, you failed to mention that most | issues have been either finalized in courts or were dealt | with in protests/politics. I'm not taking sides since | this was never a black or white situation, it is always a | multi faceted problem. (Empathic example: For the people | living in the villages that were destroyed, the loss of | their homeland is for most of us simply unimaginable. | Then again for some time, germany needed the energy from | these deposits under the villages.) | snickerer wrote: | I see three points in your post: | | 1. You want to tell something 'unrelated to this topic'. | That's a bad idea because it clutters our discussions. I | assume you have some inner pressure and strong emotions | about the windmill topic and want to release it. | | 2. You're picking on city people. They don't notice the | decrease of forests because they don't see it when they | look out of the window? | | 3. You are telling us that the decline of the forests in | Germany are caused by... windmills? Really? That's so | wrong that I don't know where to start to explain. | | I don't know where the hatred against windmills or | against 'city people' comes from. But its origin is | certainly not windmills. | | We need the windmills to fight the decline of the | forests, you know. And to fight mass extinction. We need | the windmills to avert the demise of many species. | Including our own. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | 1. Yes, I know the rules here. | | 2. Yes. | | 3. No, I'm saying that forest is being removed for | windmills. You are assuming that I'm having some dumb | argument. This is what I see where I live. Windmills in a | national park with more trees removed for service roads. | But please, continue educating. | jona-f wrote: | Afaik regional buses are included in this ticket. I do not | know any villages that don't even have those at least once a | day. | ChuckNorris89 wrote: | _> They trains will be super crowded this summer_ | | In Austria that's already a problem. Due to overcrowding, | they're kicking people with valid tickets but no seat | reservations off the trains telling them to get the next one. | FabHK wrote: | > The German government did that to compensate for rising | gasoline prices | | In particular, the government reduced the taxes on gasoline due | to the high gasoline prices, a purely populist insanity in | these times of climate crisis. Then they remembered that they | were elected on a pro-environment platform, and concluded that | they also had to support those using public transport, and this | was the result. | bombcar wrote: | "Nobody uses the trains because they're all super crowded" | reminds me of the quote ascribed to Yogi Berra, "Nobody goes | there! It's too crowded!" | MandieD wrote: | It will be an absolute relief to the elderly/near-elderly poor, | for starters. | | Like the woman I saw in the grocery store a few weeks ago on | the verge of tears because the cheapest cooking oil available | was 6 EUR/750ml bottle organic canola oil, and that's still | often the case. | | Inflation in Germany is every bit as bad as it is in the US, so | this is also a bit of a welfare payment to all the people who | take public transit anyway because they can't afford to drive. | | I'm 100% for this, by the way; it's an excellent use of my tax | Euros. It will probably make the U-Bahn less pleasant for me, | but that's ok. | hit8run wrote: | The idea behind it is to keep the idiots commuting just to sit | down in the wage cage 9000. It's for three months only btw and | just a trick to improve acceptance of the new German Poverty | caused by very bad political decisions. | paganel wrote: | Hopefully this measure will persist even when (and if) inflation | goes back to "normal" levels back again, imo heavily subsidised | public transport is the way to go if we want to reduce car use. | | Asking people for a lot more money in order to decrease the | regular use of their cars (either through higher gas prices or | forcing them to purchase relatively expensive newer EVs) is | really not fair if you don't offer something in return. | seu wrote: | For comparison, in Berlin the monthly ticket for the A-B zones | (does not reach the airport) costs EUR86, and a 4-ticket pack | EUR9.40. A EUR9 monthly ticket is an insane bargain, even if you | only plan on using public transport within the city. | | (source: https://www.bvg.de/de/tickets-und-tarife) | hansel_der wrote: | might even be cheap enough to make them fare dodgers reconsider | mahesh_rm wrote: | I can't seem to find information on whether it is possible to | purchase the ticket as a non German citizen. | rostigerpudel wrote: | Yes, anyone can purchase it. | | However, contrary to what is said multiple times in this | thread, it is NOT transferable. You have to put your name on it | and have some form of ID with you. | | https://www.rnd.de/politik/9-euro-ticket-ab-wann-erhaeltlich... | | Google Translate: https://www-rnd- | de.translate.goog/politik/9-euro-ticket-ab-w... | morelisp wrote: | Yes it is. | b3lvedere wrote: | Awesome! I might do some holiday travel :) | tauchunfall wrote: | >People who use local/regional transport will be able to buy it | anywhere in Germany via channels such as bahn.de and DB | Navigator. It will also be available from DB Reisezentrum | (travel centre) staff and ticket machines at stations. | | Ticket machines can be used without need to identify. | kuschku wrote: | Buying the 9 euro ticket is possible anonymously with cash at | any train station, so yeah, you should be able to. | curiousfab wrote: | I couldn't imagine why not. You just to to a ticket machine and | buy it, no need for a passport or anything. Enjoy - Sylt is | waiting for you, and you'll be there along with a million like- | minded people! | GuB-42 wrote: | It is still a good question, because there are often special | conditions to these kinds of offer. | | For example, in Paris, some "all zones" tickets are only | available to residents (pass Navigo). The Japanese "Japan | Rail Pass" is only available to tourists, and the "Interrail" | pass is complicated: you have to reside in Europe but you can | only use it in your own country for a single round trip. | Bayart wrote: | > I couldn't imagine why not. | | The single market. Refusing to sell to other EU citizens is | very illegal. | GuB-42 wrote: | Not illegal as far as I know. | | These are almost certainly subsidized tickets, financed | with taxpayer money, it is common to restrict the sales to | those who pay taxes in the covered area. And I don't see | how it could be illegal, it is like forcing Germany to | provide health care for the French and vice versa. | Bayart wrote: | > it is like forcing Germany to provide health care for | the French and vice versa | | That's literally how it works [1]. EU citizens are | treated the same as local citizens in every country. | | [1]: https://www.schengenvisainfo.com/europe-travel- | insurance/ehi... | [deleted] | p_l wrote: | AFAIK the legal way to limit subsidized tickets is that | the specific "membership" required to get the subsidized | fare is available to all EU citizens - for example in | Warsaw we can get lower fare based holographic stamp | available from the city _on the basis of paying taxes in | the city_ - i.e. it doesn 't matter what passport you | hold, it matters that your tax residency is in Warsaw. | | And healthcare operates by your local health system | reimbursing the system in country you were visiting - you | need to have _European Health Insurance Card_ on you, | from your healthcare provider, which helps route the | payments appropriately. | RGamma wrote: | Pack the Schultenbrau! Sylt, it's on! | riidom wrote: | Invade bavaria instead. As "thank you" for their threat of | blocking the ticket :) | [deleted] | biafra wrote: | I am 100% sure anyone can buy it. And I am almost equally sure, | anyone using it will not get fined. | _Microft wrote: | The tickets aren't personalized (some regular monthly passes | for public transport are/were though), so you should be fine. | Since they aren't personalized and there is no way to check who | the owner actually is, I would even expect them to be | transferable. | | Edit: looks like I was wrong -> see replies. You can also | search for "9-Euro-Ticket ubertragbar" (ubertragbar = | transferable) yourself to get a number of different German | sources for that. | germanier wrote: | This ticket is personalized. | dmurray wrote: | Normally DB day tickets, even bought at the ticket machine, | are not transferable. You have to write your name on the back | - in theory, before the first time you encounter a ticket | controller - and be prepared to produce ID matching the name. | _ph_ wrote: | Honestly, this is the first time I ever hear of this, and I | almost go back to steam engine trains :p | himlion wrote: | Yes, it would be a violation of EU law to restrict it. | mrunkel wrote: | No it wouldn't. You could say it's only for citizens of EU | member states. | | That's a restriction that wouldn't violate any EU law. | himlion wrote: | Correct, that wouldn't violate it. For German citizens only | would. | Mordisquitos wrote: | Another hypothetical alternative which wouldn't violate EU | law (not that they have any reason of using it) would be to | make the ticket only valid to people who legally reside in | Germany, regardless of their nationality. | chrisseaton wrote: | > I can't seem to find information on whether it is possible to | purchase the ticket as a non German citizen. | | Biggest hurdle will be getting a Germany ticket machine to | accept a regular credit card! | | But otherwise, isn't discriminating based on nationality for | good and services illegal? | Freak_NL wrote: | Credit cards aren't regular in Europe. They accept Maestro | debit cards though, which almost everyone has, and cash. | chrisseaton wrote: | > Credit cards aren't regular in Europe. | | Pretty sure it's just Germany being pig-headed about it for | some reason. Everywhere else in Europe is perfectly happy | to accept a credit card. I do 99.999% of all my spending on | a credit card, like most millennial people or younger, and | the only people in the developed world who this is a | problem for is the Germans. | dabc015f wrote: | > Pretty sure | | Why not at least google some statistics before you lose | yourself in some pig-headed chauvinistic rant about what | in the most charitable interpretation amounts to nothing | at all. | FabHK wrote: | To be fair, I find it absolutely absurd that credit card | companies siphon off 3% or so of all retail purchases, | and then distribute a part of it back to their "most | valuable customers" in the form of miles and cash backs | and similar time-consuming nonsense. It is redistribution | from the poor, those using cash and those not being able | to pay off credit cards in full, to the rich. | | The EU has imposed caps on these interchange fees [1], | which is one reason Europeans are not inundated by junk | mail offering credit cards, and may be a reason that | credit cards are not ubiquitous. Having said that, I find | that I can pay electronically in most places, including | Deutsche Bahn ticket machines (or just buy them in the | app). | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#Europea | n_Union | switch007 wrote: | Come on that's not fair. Don't the Dutch hate credit | cards too? | Freak_NL wrote: | Not hate, just not a system used very much here. Most | people with a credit card have one for online purchases | (I do), but those are a minority. Even that is no longer | really needed with big stores like Steam and Amazon (.de | and .nl) accepting the local IDEAL standard for banking | transfers. | | Paying with a credit card in shops? That's just not done | excepting American tourists, same as in a number of | European countries. It's contactless debit cards mostly. | Building a credit rating by using a credit card is not | part of the system. | freeflight wrote: | _> Pretty sure it 's just Germany being pig-headed about | it for some reason._ | | That pig-headed reason being that Germany went trough two | different repressive regime during the last century. | | Regimes that made plenty of use of large scale | surveillance and data collections [0] to find a lot of | their victims. | | That's why cash still reigns supreme in Germany; It's | anonymous and third parties can't just remotely disable | it by disabling your bank account. | | It's also the reason why Germans value their privacy, at | least used to. | | [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Liste | p_l wrote: | EMV2-compatible debit/credit cards work pretty widely. The | real issue is that some countries have locally-popular | cards that don't work in that scheme (Dutch old Maestro | variant, some german cards, etc.) or have very annoying | compatibility issues (my old "Visa Electron", once very | popular in Poland and which tripped UK card systems like | crazy) and availability of card payments differs across EU | - capping card fees and speeding up transactions thanks to | EMV helped there a lot, but I remember hearing stories of | Italian shops in touristy areas getting card readers... | because of Polish visitors, who were accustomed to wide | availability of cards (last local bastion of cash only was | farmer's market nearby - now every more established stand | has one) | elondaits wrote: | I had no problem paying with a credit card on Bahn.de ticket | machines (White and red). The yellow BVG ones gave me | problems in the past accepting an Argentine card, but it's | likely it'd take it now that it has a chip. | [deleted] | jdhzzz wrote: | Who-hoo, let's all go to the summer long super-spreader event. | jona-f wrote: | Covid is currently not a big issue in Germany. Even so | restrictions are lifted and most people don't care at all | anymore about protection, the numbers are going down. | Bigpet wrote: | Numbers are still significantly higher than Winter 2020/21. | So with lessening restrictions this winter is poised to set | another record (for infections at least, deaths might not be | as high as last year). People don't care, true. But that's | about feeling, not about numbers or facts. | foepys wrote: | Hospitals have next to no cases in my region. 500/100.000 | people tested positive over the last 7 days with probably | times 3 more infected due to no mandatory testing. Only a | combined 2 people (both over 80) are in the 5 hospitals | with only one being intubated. That's nothing, really. | alecco wrote: | Populism. This will make the country consume _more_ energy. There | 's a crisis and the solution is saving as much energy as | possible. And help companies not go bankrupt. But that doesn't | sell... | tauchunfall wrote: | It will consume more energy, when they need more trains or | train cars. Excluding the energy needed for devices and in the | restaurant on board. | | edit: clearified a sentence. | iknownothow wrote: | Sources for claims? Genuinely curious. | mbg721 wrote: | When is there not a crisis? If you're running a train anyway, | the marginal cost of attaching a couple more cars for the extra | demand seems pretty small. | sascha_sl wrote: | Not even that. Most lines are already at maximum capacity, | and the number of cars is usually dependent on the shortest | platform on the line already. | | We take this so seriously, any stop, even unplanned, where | the doors might open aside from absolute emergencies must be | on a platform of sufficient length. | poooogles wrote: | >Not even that. Most lines are already at maximum capacity, | and the number of cars is usually dependent on the shortest | platform on the line already. | | Here in the UK we run trains that are longer than platforms | quite frequently. I'm talking about 9 car trains stopping | at 2 car platforms here as well, not 9 car trains where the | front and rear doors of the first and last carriage don't | open. | bloak wrote: | In the UK it's quite normal, I think, for them to tell | people who want to get off at stop X that they have to be | in carriages Y-Z because the platform isn't long enough for | them to open the doors of other carriages. There seems to | be a Wikipedia page on the general topic: | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_door_operation | ("Selective Door Operation enables trains to call at a | station where the platform is shorter than the train.") | | It's my understanding that the capacity of the UK train | network is mostly limited by the granularity of the | signalling. | mbg721 wrote: | That's one of the situations where the UK seems like a | halfway-honorary US state, in a "Hold my damn beer-- | you're all right!" sort of way. | sascha_sl wrote: | A lot of regional lines are already at max capacity in terms of | rolling stock and track capacity. This will incentivise less | car use for journeys where direct connections are available. | | It will also give access to public transport to those in | extreme poverty who have no other means of mobility, whom | Germany has been prosecuting as criminals and putting in jail | when their fines add up enough. Speeding and parking offenses | are civil offenses. Public transport without a ticket? Felony. | macco wrote: | If people use the train instead of their cars, it will save | energy by a lot. Trains are the most efficient form of | transportation, cars the least efficient. | ryukafalz wrote: | Bicycles are the most efficient form of transportation if | we're talking energy use, but yes, trains beat out cars by a | lot. :) | freemint wrote: | Absolutetly not since the fuel (human food) is horribly CO2 | intensive to produce. | Aldipower wrote: | The more fitness you gain, the more effective you are in | your energy utilization. Sportive people need less | energy! Hard, but true. | ryukafalz wrote: | You're still going to eat no matter how you travel | though! That's non-negotiable regardless of mode. | | (Also, e-bikes exist too, if you're really worried that | people exercising might eat a little bit more.) | kuschku wrote: | It'll move energy use from highly inefficient personal vehicles | burning gasoline to highly efficient trains using mostly | renewable electricity, during the summer where more than enough | electricity is available. | k8sToGo wrote: | Still plenty of diesel run train engines in Germany. | | Also coal is still being burnt. So I don't think it is mostly | renewable. | kuschku wrote: | In both of these cases, the energy per person-kilometer of | transportation is orders of magnitudes lower than with an | ICE car. So the energy usage would still go _down_ | april_22 wrote: | I think that the Deutsche Bahn runs 100% on clean energy. | sneusse wrote: | https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln | | 40% ~ 400MW of this coal plant go directly to DB. They | argue that it's only used for freight and not for public | transport but meh - a useless differentiation IMO. | iggldiggl wrote: | If this was really about saving energy, they wouldn't also | simultaneously lower gas taxes during the same period as | well. | kuschku wrote: | As is common in coalition governments, the 9-Euro-Ticket is | a pet project of the greens to save energy and save people | money, while the gas taxes are a pet project of the | neoliberals to save people money :) | I_am_tiberius wrote: | I know DB is owned by the state but I'm anyway interested in | whether the difference to the original price is subsidized by the | state. Or if it's just a special offer that allows them to cover | expenses. | germanier wrote: | The federal state will pay 2.5 billion euro to the 16 states | which in turn are responsible to compensate operators (or | whoever actually receives the fare for the journey - this might | be someone else) for the lost revenue. | [deleted] | Pete-Codes wrote: | Giggly - may have to re-think summer plans | throwaway4good wrote: | Denmark is doing a similar thing ... | b3lvedere wrote: | Soo, i could travel throughout Germany and Denmark for quite | cheap? | MandieD wrote: | If you're not in a hurry - it is _not_ valid for the high- | speed (ICE) and mid-speed (IC) trains in Germany. | sva_ wrote: | In Germany, only in regional (slow) traffic (the RE only goes | between 100 and max 200 kmh) | fiber wrote: | Kind of, but you'll have to take the scenic route (long | distance trains IC/EC/ICE are not included). | vaylian wrote: | Interesting. Do you have a link with more info? | throwaway4good wrote: | https://www.dsb.dk/kampagner/rejsepass/ | legulere wrote: | So like 40EUR for 8 consecutive days. That greatly reduces | usefulness if you just want to travel to one spot and back. | Reason077 wrote: | I wish they would restore stopover functionality on the | international booking site (https://www.international-bahn.de/). | I remember back when you could book a London to Berlin fare (for | example) with Eurostar included, with stopovers up to 48 hours | along the way. Amazing value for tourists - often you could visit | multiple Belgian/German cities for not much more than what the | Eurostar fare would cost alone. | | The standard bahn.de site still allows stopovers, but since the | pandemic you can no longer book Eurostar segments through it. Sad | face. | russianGuy83829 wrote: | they should rather subsidize heat pumps to replace aging gas | heating systems prevalent in the 1960s homes here. Would help to | reduce energy dependency on russia | partiallypro wrote: | I assume this doesn't apply to urban rails like the MVV in | Munich, etc. Has to be DB operated. | locallost wrote: | For comparison, the federal government is dead bent on building | additional 4.1km of highway through Berlin that is estimated to | cost over 500 million. And the critics say it will balloon to | billions since the estimate is 10 years old anyway. | | So basically millions of people will ride the train for three | months for almost free, and the cost will be in the same ball | park as 4km of one highway. | throwaway307423 wrote: | Tenoke wrote: | >1. In July and August, pretty much nobody[1] works in Europe | | >unused capacity | | What? The Sbahn I would take to the office in Summer 2019 was | absolutely packed at peak times when people go to and from | work. | | Also you didn't include that '[1]' reference. Complaining about | downvotes is a faux pas. All the hostility and unnecessary | mentions of Tesla didn't help either. | | Edit: Editing to replace the comment with yet another complaint | about downvotes isn't a great look either. | dougmwne wrote: | I was entertained, but you didn't exactly add much to the | conversation. I hope you typed this from your Tesla touchscreen | doing 190 on the Autobahn. | yccs27 wrote: | Some context is given here: https://www.dw.com/en/germany- | introduces-9-ticket-to-offset-... | | The ticket is part of a support package signed off by the German | parliament. The will pay approximately EUR2.5 billion for the | ticket offer, as a response to rising energy prices and the | resulting high costs of individual mobility. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | In the meantime I just paid 200% more for heating oil than it | cost me one year ago. And I cannot use this public transport | offer. But I am contributing to it with my taxes. | seoaeu wrote: | In other words, your transportation patterns don't let you | reduce your oil use, so you're doing your part by paying | slightly higher taxes to benefit those who can? That doesn't | seem like a bad thing | rad_gruchalski wrote: | You mean I'm partially funding their cheap transportation? | Where is the money for these cheap tickets coming from? | | But your comment kinda makes sense. It's not really worth | trying much in Germany. The more one tries, the more one | becomes the source of funding for others while not really | getting any personal gratification or gain. | wreath wrote: | You're exactly right. The German system is setup so that | you make use of it only if you are on average or below | average income. Anything more is a diminishing return. | This is for pension, maternal/paternal leave, health | insurance etc. The reasoning being that "so we have more | equal society". Yes equal but there simply is no | incentive to progress without being penalized. The lucky | ones are those with "old money" or those who prefer to | rely on the system instead of themselves. | seoaeu wrote: | You're proposing cutting government support for the poor | so that they'll try harder to escape poverty? Since I'm | pretty sure there's already plenty of incentives to not | living in poverty | MauranKilom wrote: | > The more one tries, the more one becomes the source of | funding for others while not really getting any personal | gratification or gain. | | It's unfortunate that you can't derive any gratification | or gain from your more-than-half of the extra money you | make when trying more. But it probably won't help to | blame it on less wealthy people commuting to work. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | I'm not blaming anybody. I am simply saying that it's an | advantage which isn't universal. | seoaeu wrote: | I could say the same about being wealthy enough not to | have to rely on public transportation | widerporst wrote: | How do you travel and commute? By car? If so, millions of | Germans who don't own a care are funding your means of | transport. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | I will keep that in mind next time I am staring at the | rear of a diesel bus while stuck in traffic. | widerporst wrote: | I know you're being facetious, but yes. Public transport | is cheaper per person per kilometer than cars. Gasoline | and motor vehicle taxes are very low in comparison to the | cost of road maintenance and environmental and societal | effects of individual transport, so you're indeed | profiting off of tax money. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | To which I'm also contributing by driving myself. Those | roads aren't built for my pleasure of driving to the | office. They also serve crucial role in supply chains. | | In fact, those buses are on exactly on those same roads. | The existence of those roads facilities convenient public | transportation. | akie wrote: | These 2.5 billion euros is almost nothing for a country | the size of Germany. I mean, it's 0.1% of the total | budget (EUR1762.4 billion last year). It's nothing. Are | you really getting all huffy & puffy about paying for a | scheme that provides transportation to poorer people and | helps the environment? And are you the same about all | other tiny expenses, or is it just this one in | particular. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | No, I just said that I paid twice as much as last year | for the heating oil and my tax obligations are increasing | and this doesn't benefit everyone. It turned into this | discussion. | foepys wrote: | Your 30 cent gas discount is funded by all the people not | owning cars. Which costs 500 million Euros _more_ than | the 9EUR ticket by the way. Be grateful for that and stop | huffing and puffing all over the comment section with | snide comments on how the world is unfair to you. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | Like that is helping me with heating oil. And mind you, | not only me. Everyone renting places, owning places, | offices heated with oil will get hit by that. I do not | see how a discount on transport for three months is going | to help those people. | | I also have a mother in Germany who I pay the rent for. | She's a pensioner with a minimal amount of money. I am | very much looking to Nebenkostenabrechnung next year for | heating. | ajsnigrutin wrote: | In other words, there's a program in place to help people | with high prices, that he has to pay into, but doesn't get | anything from it, while still being affected by high | prices, that he might not be able to afford. | locallost wrote: | I live in Germany and I also have to pay for the | construction of toll free highways and other very | expensive car infrastructure. The tax on gas was reduced | for the same months in the sommer which is on its own | totally ridiculous, but it will also cost over a billion | a month. I don't drive so I have nothing to gain from any | of that -- but you don't get help from others if you | don't help others, so you don't pick and choose what you | pay with your taxes. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | But you do consume stuff transported to your neighborhood | by trucks and cars. Maybe you use public transport? That | consumes gasoline/diesel and requires infrastructure. Or | do you live on home grown food? How's the post at your | door every morning? Ambulances? Police? Fire service? | Electricians? Packets from Amazon or other MediaMarkt? | | I don't believe you do not benefit. | dubswithus wrote: | Unfortunately, it's going to be really hard for my wife to get a | schengen visa. The appointments are already full. | tosh wrote: | Imagine something like this for the whole EU. | bullen wrote: | Interrail? | freemint wrote: | Are there cross country but regional rail lines? | Mordisquitos wrote: | Yes, there are! For example, I have travelled between | Strasbourg and Basel (Switzerland) on a regional train, as | well as between Milan and Nice, and between Nice and | Barcelona (changing trains at the Spanish border due to the | change of rail gauge). There's also a regional line | connecting Barcelona and Puigcerda (a town in the Spanish | Pyrenees) which at certain times continues its service a | further ~5km and terminates in Latour-de-Carol, a tiny | village on the French side which is served by French regional | services. | 2000UltraDeluxe wrote: | There are also trains between Denmark and Sweden, and I'd | be surprised if there's not similar things going on in the | Benelux area. | Mordisquitos wrote: | True. In fact, that reminded me that I have also taken | regional trains between Copenhagen and Malmo. | sdevonoes wrote: | Why don't they make this for the whole year? | _Microft wrote: | It is meant to temporarily ease the burden of risen energy | prices. (Car users are going to get a lower tax on gas soon.) | | A quarter of a year might be enough already to find out how | much demand for low cost public transport there actually is. I | consider it an useful experiment at this point. | _0ffh wrote: | I'm sure the private bus operators, who usually are the only | cheap option to travel in Germany, are just thrilled by this | additional market distortion. | versk wrote: | on one hand, free travel for millions of citizens, on the | other, higher profitability for a handful private bus | operators. | | Its surprising to me that someone would even consider bringing | this up as a valid counter argument. Interesting to see how | deeply Neoliberalism has seeped into western culture. | _0ffh wrote: | What does a temporary reprieve help if it threatens to | destroy the outlook in long term? That strikes me as a | uniquely short sighted pov. I am not surprised though, given | your usage of the word "neoliberal" in that way. I am | certainly not a "neoliberal", because that's just a soft form | of socialism. I am a laissez faire capitalist. | [deleted] | FabHK wrote: | Private long distance bus operators are complaining, indeed. | They were looking forward to this summer to finally make some | revenue after two years of reduced demand due to the pandemic, | and then this measure torpedoes their business. | | See for example this [in German] | | https://www.busnetz.de/9-euro-ticket-bdo-warnt-vor-negativen... | goodpoint wrote: | > additional market distortion | | Are they also thrilled by "additional market distortions" like | subsidized oil import and processing and road infrastructure? | | Or should we remove all tax-funded infrastructure investment | and go back to the middle ages? | _0ffh wrote: | With more than 50% of gas prices going into taxes, are you | seriously suggesting oil is a subsidised commodity in | Germany? | kuschku wrote: | There's only one left, all the others went bankrupt, and that | one (FlixBus) only offers long-distance journeys, while this | ticket only applies to regional trains. | _0ffh wrote: | Firstly, long distance is misleading, I do not need to travel | the whole length of a route. I can hop into a bus and hop out | again at any of the next few bigger cities along the route. | In my experience, that's what most people seem to do. | | Secondly, the 9EUR-Ticket is valid in all of Germany, so you | could travel the length and width of the country if you | wanted to. You'd just have to change trains a lot. | kuschku wrote: | Both of those are true, but that market distortion isn't | nearly as large as you made it sound, and considering the | upsides for society even the absolute worst case of driving | one company into bankruptcy would definitely be worth it. | _0ffh wrote: | That would mean for a short term advantage I'd loose my | ability to travel cheaply in the future. I don't think | that it's worth the price. | | Apart from the fact that I'm opposed for principled | reasons. If we want to make people's life easier, we | should cut down on taxes, not engage in more deficit | spending. Especially as the economy is headed for hard | times anyway, for exactly that kind of reasons. | freemint wrote: | You might be confusing regional bus with long distance bus | travel or ride for hire bus companies which will also be | impacted. | kuschku wrote: | Which private regional bus companies or ride for hire bus | companies are supposed to exist in Germany? I'm 26, but | I've never heard or seen of any such company besides the | long-distance travel with FlixBus (and formerly PostBus, | InterCityBus, etc) | | The bus companies which operate official lines for | Verkehrsverbunde will get paid the same as always, they're | not affected by the 9-Euro-Ticket. | rostigerpudel wrote: | Did you really never go somewhere on a rented bus when | you were in school? You can rent a bus with driver eg. | for the company picnic or other touristic activities. | | However, I fail to see how that business, which usually | involves a time constraint and direct point-to-point | travels, would be impacted by this kind of ticket. | kuschku wrote: | Not really, we always used the city busses. I know that | business exists, but I don't know any private bus | business that'd be affected by this ticket (except, as | mentioned, FlixBus) | riidom wrote: | They are. If you can squeeze an english translation out of this | somehow, the article considers some potential problems: | | https://www.spiegel.de/auto/neun-euro-ticket-verkehrsbetrieb... | Toboe wrote: | For Automatic translations involving German it usualy is a | good idea to check https://www.deepl.com/ | amarant wrote: | This is awesome! For comparison, a single fare ticket from the | Stockholm suburb I live in to city Central costs about EUR8.70. 9 | euros for a whole month seems like a dream! | lom wrote: | for 3 months* | freeflight wrote: | It's 9EUR per month and the ticket will be available for 3 | months. | Havoc wrote: | Wild - that gets me barely a days worth of tube travel in london | (6.5 EUR a day) | kilotaras wrote: | Yeah, UKs train tickets are ridiculous if you compare it to | rest of Europe. | | And that's not even case of UK just being generally more | expensive, e.g. cheapest StAlbans - London (~25 km) yearly pass | costs around PS4k. About a 1000 pounds more than Switzerland GA | travelcard which covers basically any form of public transport | in Switzerland. | jonatron wrote: | Ebbsfleet International - London possibly beats that in cost | per mile. PS5272 or PS6056 with London travelcard for about | 20 miles / 32km. | Shacklz wrote: | As a Swiss GA holder - UK public transport is all privately | owned, right? | | The joys of free market efficiency in "public" transportation | - maximum efficiency for the owners/shareholders, minimum | efficiency for the people. | | The Swiss SBB is also again and again under assault to be | fully privatized, luckily so far this hasn't happened yet, | and I hope it never will... | Symbiote wrote: | The public transport politicians use (London Underground, | London buses) is publically owned. | pmyteh wrote: | That's complicated: | | * Buses (outside London): yes. Private and (mostly) | deregulated. | | * Buses (inside London): kinda. Private, but _heavily_ | regulated (fares, routes, everything) | | * Trains (outside London): both. The infrastructure is now | public, after the company it was sold to became insolvent | and got essentially renationalised by stealth. The | companies running the trains are mostly heavily regulated | private (some fares, routes, and other things are fixed by | their franchise contracts, some fares are flexible). A few | companies are 'open access' (private without franchise) and | only their routes/timetables are fixed, they can do their | own thing with fares and rolling stock. A few places (such | as long-distance trains on the East Coast mainline) are run | by a subsidiary of the state directly. | | * Trains (inside London, including the Tube): | Infrastructure also public (some run by Network Rail, the | national organisation, some by Transport for London). Some | services (e.g. the Tube) run directly by TfL, some | franchised as nationally. | | * [Edit: Eurostar runs (lightly regulated) services to | France and Belgium via the Channel Tunnel and sets its own | fares] | | The main difference from other countries (except for the | insane web of contracts and inter-organisational | dependencies) is that the policy of the UK Government is to | put the cost of public transport as much as possible on its | users rather than subsidising from general taxation. We've | had above-inflation rises in the regulated fares nearly | every year since privatisation in 1994, for example. | dx034 wrote: | It's not different in Germany outside of theses three months. A | day ticket in most cities cost 5-10EUR. That's why this ticket | will be so appealing, 2-4 trips are enough to make it worth for | the whole month. | dgellow wrote: | Hamburg Sbahn/Ubahn are the same price, ~6.50EUR for the daily | ticket. The 9EUR ticket is a no-brainer! | pph wrote: | The whole day ticket actually costs 8.20EUR, the after 9am | ticket 6.90EUR (for the zones AB / city area) | | If you're commuting and have monthly ticket it will cost | 93.70EUR (AB), though you might get around with a cheaper | ticket if you're living in the center (zone 000). | Reason077 wrote: | Daily fare cap is now PS7.70 (EUR9.10) in London, and that's | just for Zones 1-2. PS14.10 if you want to go out to Zone 6. | waffleiron wrote: | A 24 hour ticket in Berlin for local public transport is | 8,80EUR, two singles would also make 6 EUR | dagw wrote: | To be fair that is what it costs in Germany as well under | normal circumstances. A day ticket for central Hamburg is about | 8 EUR a day. | | And even that is cheap compared compared to Oslo and Stockholm | where it costs 12-13 EUR a day. On the whole the London | Underground is quite reasonably priced compared to many major | European cities. | sva_ wrote: | Im really curious to what extend this will affect how full/busy | regional transit will be. | | I also wonder what happens to the people who control tickets | fulltime. Their job seems pretty pointless when almost everyone | has the ticket. | bowsamic wrote: | It is already at tipping point of fullness without this | sva_ wrote: | Depends on location | bowsamic wrote: | Here in Northern Germany it's pretty terrible | trumpablehump wrote: | Are you referring to one specific connection? Two? Five? | A significant fraction? | bowsamic wrote: | 3.5 times 4 | SomeBoolshit wrote: | Likely extremely busy - at least on the inside - because | there's essentially no wiggle room in the form of extra | vehicles or personnel. | _ph_ wrote: | If the trains get full enough, you don't even have to pay the | 9 euros as no one can control your tickets :p | unjustified wrote: | These are going to be wild chaos days. | | https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/chaosta... | k8sToGo wrote: | This is why we can't have nice things. | kappuchino wrote: | For anyone wondering why 9EUR? Not 10EUR or 15EUR or ... - its | consistent with 101 consumer psychology. | | First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. _Free_ would | suggest for some "not worth it". Not you, most likely, but this | is why some free offers are not taken (seriously). If you want to | see what free does, look for the Luxemburg experient: | https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/tickets/free-transport/ | | Second: Higher price point would make a difference for less | subsidy payments for the state, but the psychology is "not even | 10 bucks". I know that some will argue that 10 Euros will be hard | for low income/poor/out of the system people - but again, this is | seen as an experiment and a simple message. The data from the | usage will help to understand how one can/might change public | transportation on a grand scale. | | Third: Its during the summer holidays. People with children in | school have to book vacation during that time and so the traffic | volume in every year before was less than usual on average. In | reverse, a lot of people are on the autobahn and the high speed | trains on the first and last days of each school holiday, which | are different in each federal state. | krrrh wrote: | One interesting thing about the Berlin metro system (which is | covered by this pass) is that it is one of the few metro | transit systems that is nearly or fully supported through | ticket fees. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, | but it was something people talked about when I lived there. | SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: | Sweden does something similar, they offer unlimited regional | rail passes for 1-2 month period during the summer - theirs are | quite a bit more expensive than this though. I think closer to | 100-150 euro for 2 months if I remember correctly. | felurx wrote: | I think most federal states in Germany have regional tickets | for students for the summer vacations. It's probably going to | vary a good bit, but here in BW it's 25~30EUR for the ~1.5 | months. | rad_gruchalski wrote: | > First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. | | ,,The state" doesn't have its ,,own money". It is subsided by | the taxpayer. | bromuro wrote: | And where does the taxpayer money come from? :) The state (or | in this case the european central bank) owns and distribuites | the money, then the tax payers give it back. | [deleted] | rad_gruchalski wrote: | ECB does not issue funds to individual countries. It does | so only to stabilise the economy which is moving funds from | one place to another. Eventually, by creating debt. | | But on point. ECB manufactures banknotes. As in, it prints | them and hands over to individual countries. ECB is owned | by central banks of all 27 countries. | | https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell- | me... | | Taxpayers money comes from the work they execute. For | example, when I do a contract for someone, I get paid for | the service I did. If I don't do the work, I don't get paid | and "the state" doesn't give me anything. Furthermore, if I | do a lot of work in a year and the next year I have a | misfortune of falling ill and can't sustain working, I'm | screwed because "the state" wants its share in case of | future profits, and just takes it from my account leaving | me with a hole. "The state" doesn't care. | | I remember such a conversation I had once with a | representative of "the state": "you don't have our money?", | to which my immediate thought was "yeah, because we were | sitting nights together trying delivering those projects". | kappuchino wrote: | Not a helpful comment. (And you should know.) The state is | funded by taxes and other income. Germans elected | representatives to decide/vote on issues like the 9euro | ticket. You can try ad nauseam to redirect by adding | complexity, but this was supposed to highlight that the | difference is been paid for so that there is compensation the | loss for regional public transport companies/structures. At | the end, we are all atoms miraculously clustred together, | somehow self aware and writing comments to each other. (Now | go ahead, add some complexity and redirection again /s) | Aperocky wrote: | > It is subsided by the taxpayer. | | That used to be completely true, but seeing the US government | consistently spending 150% of its revenue every year make me | doubt that. Money printer and price go brr | | At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new | drone missiles. | freeflight wrote: | _> At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny | new drone missiles._ | | Germany is actually getting both, train tickets and armed | drones [0] | | [0] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-germany- | buys-140-... | bowsamic wrote: | I'm extremely not excited about how insanely rammed the public | transportation is going to be for the next three months | | Already here in Hamburg the busses are not at all empty! | dx034 wrote: | If there's such an uptick in demand it would show that price | was what kept people from using public transport. In that case | I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure to make travel more | affordable. | | So far, many claimed that a lack of availability was the reason | public transport wasn't used more. I guess the next three | months are a good way to validate that. | bowsamic wrote: | I don't think that would show that. It would show that some | people don't want to make the investment for a monthly ticket | if they aren't sure that they will use it. Now everyone will | use the public transport at all times, without thinking about | it. Even if the price for a monthly ticket was half its | current price it still wouldn't be a no brainer to get one | iggldiggl wrote: | A few years ago they already did some smaller-scale | experiments in a few cities regarding fares and service | offerings and the conclusion was clearly that better service | was more effective in attracting additional passengers. | | Also according to https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck- | gratis-oepnv/was-bring..., while some smaller cities who have | experimented with free public transport have seen substantial | increases in passenger numbers (but still often only a | limited number of conversions from car drivers), the biggest | city that tried this so far (Tallinn) only saw an increase in | passenger numbers of 8 %. In the recent case of Luxembourg, | unfortunately the effects of Covid make it rather difficult | to draw any valid conclusions. | | While I am not opposed to some moderate fare reductions, it | should be kept in mind that in Germany, the average farebox | recovery ration for local and regional public transport | before Covid was around 75 %. Making public transport | completely free would therefore mean _quadrupling_ operating | subsidies - and if through some miracle politics was really | committed to spend that much more and for the long term, I 'd | much rather see the majority of that amount being spend on | better services. | sascha_sl wrote: | And I can't wait for the usual politicians from FDP and Union | to draw the conclusion that free or cheaper public transport | will forever be unfeasible, not that we need to invest more | into the rail network. | bowsamic wrote: | Here in Hamburg it's really the busses that get overwhelmed. | The S-Bahn and U-Bahn are rarely overly full compared to the | busses. | sascha_sl wrote: | I'm from the south of Hamburg. The lines served by Metronom | are probably the most tightly scheduled around. They don't | even have time to stop at the terminus most of the time, so | they carry delays forward throughout the entire day. The | reason no S-Bahn goes far south is also that Dostos can | still carry more people despite the slow | acceleration/breaking. | Ekaros wrote: | Hmm, so social distancing is truly gone and they don't fear this | action massively spreading the COVID virus? | tut-urut-utut wrote: | I guess the German health minister and quite a bit of regional | health ministers would be thrilled if the numbers of Covid-19 | cases increase. Then they can try again to push that mandatory | vaccination that failed last time in parliament only due to | interpersonal ego issues. | | They already ordered a few hundreds of millions of vaccines. | _ph_ wrote: | FFP2 masks are still mandatory and it isn't as if the regular | trains were not crowed before. | Tenoke wrote: | FFP2 mask are still mandatory on public transport (at least in | Berlin) but generally nobody is concerned anymore, and even | less so for the Summer. | netsharc wrote: | Feels like the European governments' (I generalize...) thinking | is, the vaccine is available, it's good enough, and Omicron is | "not that bad" anyway, so, if you don't want to get vaccinated, | it's on you, but let's get on with our lives... | avianlyric wrote: | The EU has a 78% vaccination rate and a 52% booster rate. | Mask usage in public places is generally very high. The EU | never turned vaccination and masks into divisive political | and cultural issue. | | All of this compares very favourable to the US where | vaccination is 65% and boosters are 31%. Plus vaccination, | mask usage and lockdowns became deeply decisive topics, | substantially reducing the effectiveness of all of them. In | the end it's place the US in bad spot for resolving the the | pandemic quickly. | Scarblac wrote: | It's summer, everybody who wants to has three or even four | vaccinations, most people have already had it on top of that, | it's safe to say that Covid doesn't spread massively here at | the moment. | | Maybe another wave with a new variant or in autumn, but it'll | most likely be mild as omicron is and there is so much | resistance built up now. | | So for all practical purposes, Covid is over at the moment. | RGamma wrote: | For comparison: The equivalent, non-subsidised "Quer durchs | Land"-Ticket costs 42EUR for one person per day (70EUR for 5 | people per day) -- https://www.bahn.de/angebot/regio/qdl | lispm wrote: | That ticket is not equivalent. That ticket is only for Deutsche | Bahn and similar. | | OTOH, the 9-Euro-Ticket is for all (!) local transport (incl. | bus, ferry, ...) and regional trains. That means here in | Hamburg I can use all bus, underground train and ferry | connections. It's also all month, 24hours/day. | Freak_NL wrote: | There are also the cheaper Landestickets which offer the same, | but limited to one (or two) Bundesland and usually starting | from EUR25. Those offer good value for tourists exploring a | region too (in the absence of this EUR9 ticket). | freeflight wrote: | Wow, that has gotten expensive. I still remember when the | similar "Wochenendticket" cost like 20EUR and would even allow | to bring along some extra people, tho that was like 20 years | ago. | franciscop wrote: | When it gets crowded in Tokyo trains you are literally pushed | against each other, back to front people against people, | specially bad in summer where the aircon cannot keep up. That's | only at 9am normally though, and so I do not consider jobs that | make me be in the office at that time (9:30~10 is an order of | magnitude better). WFH has been a blessing to Tokyo. | | So it was funny when I visited my sister in a rural town in | England, and there was a festival so we took the bus to get | there. It was obvious the bus was more crowded than usual, and | people were grumpy, but from my point of view it was almost | empty; people were within an arm's distance from each other, | which for the locals probably used to less than half the people | that was very crowded. | | I wonder if the same will happen on the trains in Germany. Japan | is used to this though, and they have powerful ventilation and | aircon systems to alleviate the situation in summer. | april_22 wrote: | People in Germany are typically not very contact friendly and | since COVID it got way worse. People here rather stand than sit | next to a stranger, sometimes even across. The trains will be | beyond crowded this summer (especially the ones going to the | sea), so it will be interesting to watch how people will react. | I think though the ticket will mainly be used by younger people | which are typically more open to this. | [deleted] | paganel wrote: | If the recent street scenes in Frankfurt are anything to go | by I'd say people will be just fine, as long as there will be | something to celebrate/look forward to :) (either a fantastic | football win, like in Frankfurt, or waiting to get to the | seaside, like in your example). | wongarsu wrote: | There are long distance trains like the RE (or ICE, which is | not covered by this ticket) which are designed around everyone | being seated, and there are commuter trains like the S-Bahn | which are designed to have enough seating space for normal | hours and lots of standing space for rush hour. The former are | very uncomfortable when overfilled, the latter are designed | around it in terms of ventilation, number of doors etc. | | I've been in a couple of people-shoving-level crowded commuter | trains when traveling to popular consumer trade fairs, and it | was ok. Most people took it as part of the experience. | | The biggest issue will be people trying to cross the country, | packing 40 year old REs beyond their limit in the hottest time | of year. | Tenoke wrote: | The more busy Sbahn lines (e.g. Ring Bahn) absolutely did get | crowded enough that you couldnt even always get in pre-covid | at peak times, and I suspect it will be even worse in the | next 3 months. | goodpoint wrote: | Don't you know that there are seats on long-distance trains? | | Unless people start sitting on each other's lap the aircon | capacity is not going to be exceeded. | franciscop wrote: | This article seems to be discussing local mass-passenger | trains going from town to town in Germany, so I assumed it | was trains with seats + passengers standing. Is that not the | case for the purpose of this article? | Symbiote wrote: | On these trains you expect a seat outside rush hour. | | It will be a less comfortable seat than a long distance | train. | germanier wrote: | In German long-distance trains, seat reservations are not | mandatory and capacity is planed while taking into account | that some passengers might not get a seat. Most regional | trains (which is where this ticket is valid) don't even offer | seat reservations. | fho wrote: | > they have powerful ventilation and aircon systems | | ... well ... the ICEs AC is known to fail regularly at elevated | temperatures :-) | kuschku wrote: | Well, they were designed to survive everything except an | every-100-years summer (36degC sustained outdoor | temperatures) back in the 80s, which now happens to be every | summer. | | Even the trains ordered in 2000 were designed for an | every-100-years summer (40degC sustained outdoor | temperatures) which now some regions are hitting every year | as well. | | The issue isn't the ACs, the real issue is climate change ;) | namibj wrote: | But per Carnot, maintaining a fixed temperature | differential against a fixed thermal resistance is cheaper | (requires less work) at a higher temperature | (1/(1-(Tcold/Thot)) is the carnot-limited "coefficient of | performance" for a heat pump). So theoretically they should | be able to maintain the design differential even at higher | outdoor temperatures, causing indoor temperatures to raise | from ~21degC to 26degC comparing the "still works at | 35degC" and "40degC happens regular in $current_year". | MandieD wrote: | Very important caveat for all of you who are thinking, "woo hoo, | no need to buy that EuRail pass! Or to buy an expensive ICE | ticket!" | | These tickets are good for all "Nah- und Regionalverkehr," | explicitly excluding ICE, IC, EC (international) and long- | distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zurich) | | If the train number begins with RE or RB, you're good, but of | course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along | the way. | | This is for the benefit of people who live here and are | struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, not the kind of people who | blithely paid 60 EUR to take the ICE. There does not appear to be | any residency requirement, but remember, you're not the target | market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with | fuel prices...) | steven_pack wrote: | Did this 20 years ago, it was called Schoeneswochenende | Fahrkarte "Good weekend" ticket. You could get all over the | country, but real slow. I met loads of people and got invited | to people's homes, because they didn't typically see an Aussie | backpacker on a local train. Great times, go do it. | nick_meister wrote: | Yes! I went from Stuttgart to Berlin using the | Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte like 20 year ago, it took some | time but since we were a group of friends, it was fun | actually :) Ahh.. good memories | not2b wrote: | Yes, did that also. I live in California, but at the time my | company had a group in Aachen that I worked with and I | visited about four times a year. I often played tourist on | the weekend and took trains all over the Rhineland. I used | the cheap weekend ticket several times. But I usually didn't | go that far, given my time constraints. | macleginn wrote: | One does not need a car to enjoy this. I live in a suburb of a | big city and have to cross two zones to get to work. However, | the yearly pass does not make sense for me because I cycle to | the office half of the time and work from home on some days, so | I'm quite happy that for three months my monthly commute will | cost the same as a single round-trip ticket. | DeathArrow wrote: | >This is for the benefit of people who live here and are | struggling with 2 EUR/liter | | If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous for | my Eastern European country. | | I know we should support the war and sanctions and all those | nice things, but some poor people depend on transportation for | their living. If it costs too much, they might not be able to | work. Already surges in food prices and utilities prices made | life very hard for the most unfortunate of my countrymen. | snovv_crash wrote: | Germany is a rich country with poor people. | freeflight wrote: | Easy fix, just don't count the poor people [0] | | [0] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente- | armutsbe... | ruune wrote: | Article is about the government, consisting of CDU and | SPD at the time (2017), removing important parts of their | report on poverty. Affected were passages about the | growing low-wage sector, wage inequality and inequality | of wealth overall, as well as reports on how poverty | affects political influence and the growth of the | economy. It appears as if the government had a disregard | about the social and democratic implecations of poverty. | The previous government of CDU and FDP did something | similar in 2012 and was criticized for it by the SPD | DeathArrow wrote: | I'd argue that poor people in poor countries are even | poorer, although being poor is not a nice contest to have. | usr1106 wrote: | >>This is for the benefit of people who live here and are | struggling with 2 EUR/liter | | > If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous | for my Eastern European country. | | Germans are always complaining although they are amongst the | richest in Europe. In Finland it's 2,50 EUR/liter (somewhat | less in the very south) and at least IT salaries are mostly | lower. | | What I did not see mentioned here that gas(US)/petrol(UK) | will also be temporarily subsidized (by tax reduction) by the | same law package as this 9 EUR ticket. | | (German living in Finland.) | maigret wrote: | Car is probably not the right solution for all those people | then. Even I wish I could reduce my dependency on cars. | tinus_hn wrote: | Germany has since forever had the Schones Wochenende ticket | which is a similar deal that can be used during the weekend. No | need to be a resident or whatever. This is just a similar | ticket that can be used during the summer holidays. | | It's very nice because as long as you don't mind it taking a | lot of time you can take the train on holidays for very little | money. | dathinab wrote: | > struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, | | Yes, exactly. | | The main benefits are in context of in and around city travel. | Like e.g. a regular in-city ticket (area A,B not C) in Berlin | cost 86EUR/month (but there are many ways to get it cheaper). | Now for this 3 month it's 9EUR per month and covers all areas | and you can even use it to get to day trip locations close to | Berlin (like the "Spreewalt"). | | So it's really a grate deal for locals. | | But if you want to travel longer distances IC/ICE are still the | choice to go (if you can afford it), like Berlin->Kiel with | IC/ICE is ~3.5h switching trains 1 time but with only using | RB/RE it's >6h with switching 5 times. | itronitron wrote: | I am thankful that fuel prices are high because it makes the | cost of my regular car maintenance seem remarkably inexpensive. | unjustified wrote: | > This is for the benefit of people who live here and are | struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel | | It's also for people normally using public transport. | | There's a city in northern Germany where a ticket for one day | public transportation costs nearly 9EUR. | johannes1234321 wrote: | Somewhat off topic, but still: | | > long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zurich) | | Zurich is too deep in Switzerland to be covered anyways. | (Salzburg, Kufstein, Basel Bad Bf, etc. however are in | Austria/Switzerland but part of German rail rates and included | in 9EUR tickets) | | And that DB bus doesn't exist anymore since the new electrified | railway line to Lindau was opened two years ago, as Munucih- | Zurich got way faster by train. (I guess Flixbus still offers | it but Flix isn't part of 9EUR either) | ptspts wrote: | From Zurich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes | instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it | way faster. | | By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 | minutes late. | johannes1234321 wrote: | That was the integration into the Swiss train schedule. | | They improved the line (electrification which allows better | trains, moving tran station in Lindau from the island with | old town to the shore etc.) in the first year they went | from 4h30 to 4h. Where the trains were standing for about | half an hour at St. Magrethen at the Austrian-Swiss border. | In 2021 they improved signalling and adjusted schedules and | got rid of that half an hour wait, so it's now at 3h35. | 2143 wrote: | (I haven't yet had the good fortune of visiting Europe). | | I can see why you said the train takes 221 minutes. | | However, "225 minutes" for bus? I know y'all are known for | punctuality, but are buses in Switzerland/Germany that | precise?! | | Also, is it customary to tell such durations in minutes, as | opposed to something like "4 hour 45 minutes" or "4 and | 3-quarter hours"? | | Where I'm at, nothing runs on time unfortunately. Over here | I sometimes feel arrival times of trains should just say | "morning" instead of showing an actual time like 8:20 am. | [deleted] | rootsandstones wrote: | In 2021 91.9 percent of the trains in Switzerland were on | time (tolerance is 3 minutes) | | Source: | | https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zw | eit... | 2143 wrote: | What about buses? Are they also super-punctual? | grp wrote: | In cities, there are many bus lanes to bypass traffic. | And they circulate several times per hour, 6 or more. | | Even if sometimes they are not punctual, the density | saves you and you rarely think about it. | johannes1234321 wrote: | Not only are there lanes to bypass traffic, almost more | important is that the traffic lights are controlled to | prioritize the busses. Thus if a bus comes the traffic | lights turn and hold green so that the cars in front of | the bus can clear the crossing for the bus. | | And there are dense schedules, so that if one bus is | delayed to some problem the next one is close by, thus | gap is little. | jyounker wrote: | Yes. All jokes about Swiss punctuality are true. | | I say this as someone who lived in Zurich for two years. | metacritic12 wrote: | Thank you for the disclaimer of the speed. Useful for travelers | to note the time difference! | | Yet there is no need to guilt people into it being "German | only". The ticket is priced on the slow trains so it already | selects for people who care more about money than time. Anyone | who chooses a 9 Euro, 4-hour train over a dozens of Euro 1.5 | hour train is already not the "upper class". | MandieD wrote: | Hmmm, didn't realize it was coming off as "German only" - I | wanted people to realize that this was designed for the | benefit of less-wealthy residents of Germany, not the | convenience of tourists, but that there's nothing stopping | anyone from using it. | | Since it's not obvious, I'm not German, merely a permanent | resident (US citizen). | roystonvassey wrote: | Given how notoriously unreliable even the IC and ICEs have | gotten over the last few years ( i rarely travel but the three | times I tried, the train was either substantially delayed or | worse, canceled) , this is really a good deal. | Scarblac wrote: | Our Dutch Scouts of age 15-17 also plan their own camps and do | so on a shoestring budget, and it turns out that yes you can | get from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic with all your | camping gear using only like fifteen different German regional | trains :-) | Toutouxc wrote: | Related: We're a Czech couple, currently planning our | vacation in the Netherlands, and we too are on a very tight | budget. I wanted so bad to get there by train and spend the | week there riding Dutch trains all over the place, but man, | the train journey there and back is just as long as a car | trip (~10-12 hours) and costs at least twice as much. Looks | like we'll be taking our 50 MPG car instead and since it will | be there with us, also using it to get around the country. | Sorry about the pollution. | AndyMcConachie wrote: | Have you considered long distance buses from something like | Flixbus? I live in Rotterdam and see them coming into the | central station from all over Europe. | notagoodidea wrote: | Any travel by Flixbus longer than 6 - 8h is really | painful imho, they are not really long-distance bus. They | are nice for cheap big city hopping. Of course a lot of | people do use them for longer trips but honestly, I don't | know anyone that arrive from a long distance bus rested | tbh also. | tasuki wrote: | I'm Czech. When I lived in Amsterdam, my sister came to | visit by Flixbus. She's used to all kinds of travel, but | boy was she destroyed by that journey... | kzrdude wrote: | Some people can sleep on such buses. I for sure can't. So | I always prefer to go by bus over daytime (wasting a day) | instead of the night (ruining both the night and the next | day). | pheelicks wrote: | Take the night train via Regensburg (book via cd.cz) and | arrive rested. Goes every Thursday | tasuki wrote: | Night trains are great! Do you have to transfer in | Regensburg? There used to be a direct Prague-Amsterdam | night train going through Berlin. I met some weird people | on it, great times :) | belter wrote: | Now you know why so many still use the car in the | Netherlands. | | "Dutch public transport is the most expensive in Europe": | https://www.iamexpat.nl/expat-info/dutch-expat-news/dutch- | pu... | gattilorenz wrote: | > Dutch public transport is the most expensive in Europe" | | Yes. On the other hand, the comparison in frequency, | punctuality and cleanliness between the cheap Italian | regional trains and the average Dutch ones clearly | favors, and by a large margin, The Netherlands. This | might have an impact on the costs :) | BlargMcLarg wrote: | Don't think anyone disputes that. What they will say is | how Tokyo still one-ups any major city in The Netherlands | at a fraction of the price. | | GP is still very much right that The Netherlands, while | being _better_ , isn't _good enough_ yet for most people | to get rid of cars. | | >cleanliness | | Eh.. they certainly aren't _clean_ here. | simlan wrote: | The secret sauce is density and a dire need to get this | right or congest that city beyond believe. But yes they | do a good job. | rjsw wrote: | > Dutch public transport is the most expensive in Europe | | Only because the UK is no longer in the EU. | belter wrote: | "Transport in the Netherlands is 35% more expensive than | the European average, putting it top of the ranking, | above Denmark and the UK, broadcaster RTL said. The | figures were released in mid December and relate to 2017. | | https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/01/dutch-transport- | servic... | NicoJuicy wrote: | Prague - Amsterdam by bus | | 13:30 hours - 120 EUR | | Look up Flixbus. It's slow, but cheap. | Reason077 wrote: | You could also buy this EUR9 ticket, go to a Czech border | town, and take DB trains all the way to the Netherlands. | | For example, you could do Decin (Czech) to Glanerbrug | (Netherlands) in 12.5 hours with only 7 changes, all on | RB/RE and S-Bahn trains. | | Of course, that's still going to be a long journey, but | you can break it up anywhere you want and stay at cheap | hotels in random German towns along the way that you | otherwise would never have considered visiting! | nixass wrote: | To spend 13.5hrs in Flixbus, dear god.. | virtualritz wrote: | I regularly take long distance flights. | | FlixBus seats, when reclined, are on par with economy | seats in any airline I used. But FlixBus seats have | considerable more legroom. | | Also the bus takes breaks on journeys that last for that | many hours. | | Even some of the direct FlixBuses Berlin-Hamburg (3.5hs) | take a 5min break at a petrol station somewhere in the | middle of the journey. | tawm wrote: | Definitely take a shower right before departure. Your ass | will thank you. | siva7 wrote: | 13.5 hours in a flixbus could be considered torture | Toutouxc wrote: | Somehow that didn't occur to me. It's much cheaper than a | train, but it's also a bit slower than a car and it costs | roughly as much as the fuel (no wear and tear though). So | a bit cheaper overall. | | Buuut... I was on a school trip to the UK once where I | spent 13 hours on a bus and I remember hating every | second of it. Well, we'll consider it :) | RektBoy wrote: | Scarblac wrote: | In the Netherlands, almost all train stations have | bicycles for rent for 4.15 euro per day. You have one in | minutes (uses the same card as paying for the train | does). And there are bicycle paths everywhere. No need to | take a taxi after taking a train. | sdoering wrote: | You lost me at "EU green-madness". It could have | otherwise been a valid pov but this definitely changed | the territory for me. | owenversteeg wrote: | You may be surprised to know that this is actually | something people have thought about; turns out you would | need extremely low utilization of the train, plus a very | long journey at each end by car, plus one of the more | inefficient train routes, for it to lose to the car or | the plane. High speed trains are generally the least | efficient in CO2/passenger km, so if you're looking to | put this together then I would recommend France's | excellent analysis of their carbon output on their | routes. | | As one example, the Paris-Geneva TGV Lyria is 3.5 kg co2e | per person per trip on an average utilization train. [0] | Driving is 149 kg co2e per vehicle; average occupancy is | 1.12 to 1.6 people per car but let's be generous to your | idea and say we have a full average Swiss family of 2.3 | people along for the ride. So driving is 64.7 kg co2e per | person. It's a 5.5 hour drive, so let's be very favorable | to the car again and say they have a 1 hour taxi ride at | each destination. You're now at a total of 23.2kg taxi + | 3.5kg train = 26.7kg total, or half that of driving; as | you can see even a 10x capacity reduction in the train | would still make the train more efficient. It's | remarkably hard to beat a train with anything other than | a bus, and you'll need a fairly efficient bus and a | fairly inefficient train for that. | | [0] https://www.tgv-lyria.com/sites/default/files/inline- | files/t... | master-lincoln wrote: | The train will go independently of utilization so no | matter how few seats are occupied, using a car instead | will lead to more emissions (noise, particles from tires, | exhaust gases incl. CO2). Why do you think taking a taxi | to/from a train station makes the whole trip take more | emissions than taking a car for the whole ride? | | Which other factors would need to be counted in? I | honestly can not imagine a scenario where using a car is | better for the environment than using a train... | | > Please don't push this EU green-madness. | | Please make an argument that your position should not be | considered madness. | | I am myself not taking a train very often, but that is | because it's often more expensive than using my car, less | flexible and not as comfortable (mostly because I don't | feel comfortable around strangers). | april_22 wrote: | Especially for traveling across Germany, this ticket isn't | quite useful, however I feel like it is marketed as "free | traveling across Germany for a month" which isn't really the | case. Am wondering how everything will play out next couple | of months. | dathinab wrote: | But if you travel across Germany you still likely want to | use public transportation at the place where you come | from/go to. Especially in inner cities using car can be a | problem, parking can be very limited and/or very expensive. | The ticket is cheaper then a 4x-rabat-bundle of "one way | single trip" tickets in Berlin and Berlin is by far not the | most expensive city wrt. local public transportation. | | So even then it's a good deal. | | The "traveling across Germany" advertisement is less about | "you want to get to place B as far as possible" but more | about "you want to travel and see a lot of places | eventually ending up at place B" something the DB believes | students like to do (if you look at other ads or thinks | like the "Quer durchs Land" ticket. | | Anyway the ticket is mainly for people which use (or maybe | now have to use) public transportation for daily usage | (e.g. to/from work). | | I.e. the people mostly profiting from it are the people | which don't have a lot of money. Which is grate as they are | also the people hardest hit by the increased costs of more | or less everything. | rob74 wrote: | Well, you _can_ travel across Germany if you don 't mind | changing trains several times. And the "free traveling | across Germany" means that _one_ ticket is valid for _all_ | regional trains and _all_ public transport in all Germany | (as opposed to e.g. a ticket bought in Munich only being | valid in the Munich region), which is quite a good offer | anyway... | pflenker wrote: | It's not uncommon to travel through Germany using only the | regional trains. There are several tickets tailored to | this, like the "Quer durch's Land Ticket", which is valid | for a full day. | | I, for one, used to travel a lot through Germany using only | the Wochenendticket, which is the predecessor of the "Quer | durch's Land" - Ticket and was only valid on Saturday or | Sunday. | kuschku wrote: | DB always had weekend or summer tickets that were heavily | discounted and only allowed regional trains. Especially | young adults and teenagers use those every year, they're | perfect if you've got more time than money. | Someone wrote: | If you're not only doing it for getting from A to B but | also for the journey and have time, this can be a great | deal. | | Even if you really want to get to B, it's more adventurous | and cheaper than taking a direct train. | | I can easily see teenagers or pensioners use this to | backpack through Germany for a month. Even if you don't | know whether you'll like it, it's cheap enough to give it a | try. | master-lincoln wrote: | > "free traveling across Germany for a month" | | It's 3 months | jeroen wrote: | No, it's 1 month (in a 3 month period): | | > For 9 euros, you can travel throughout Germany on | local/regional trains for a whole month in June, July or | August. | kingofpandora wrote: | Pro-tip: buy three tickets! | a2800276 wrote: | You can buy one each month, though. Even of you just use | it for metropolitan transit, it's super cheap. My monthly | pass (reduced because it only valid after 9 am so | commuters have to pay more) costs 75 EUR. A single ticket | ist 2.80. This is a good deal in almost any scenario | where you take and applicable train. | FabHK wrote: | > so commuters have to pay more | | or start later... | tuukkah wrote: | From the linked page: | | > _The 9-Euro-Ticket is available in the period from 1 | June 2022 to 31 August 2022._ | | > _It is valid for one calendar month, from 00:00 on the | 1st until 24:00 on the 30th /31st._ | jstummbillig wrote: | > If the train number begins with RE or RB, you're good, but of | course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village | along the way. | | Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip | the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow | ones, comparatively. | | Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin | options: | | - By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20 | | - Regional Trains (the ones you can use with 9-eur-ticket): | 4h10, including 1-3 train changes depending on connection | | - All trains: 1h50 with no change | | Given that going by car will be considerably more expensive | than a regional ticket (even the none-9-eur version) I would | say that +1h might be a reasonable trade-off for a lot of | people. | kuschku wrote: | Actually, the Hamburg-Berlin IRE should be covered by this | ticket as well, which requires no changes at all. | germanier wrote: | That train isn't running since 2020 and last December they | have announced that won't be coming back for the | foreseeable future. | kuschku wrote: | Really? Oh no :( I never got a chance to take it, from | what I heard it was a fun experience. | usr1106 wrote: | IRE trains are extremely rare. They have never been a | regular product, but results of local political bargaining | after the popular IR trains were discontinued ages ago. | april_22 wrote: | There is a RE from Hamburg to Berlin? | kuschku wrote: | There used to be an IRE, which stands for inter-regio- | express. But apparently it was discontinued during covid. | end0r wrote: | No, RE stands for 'Regional Express'. There is RE between | Hamburg and Bargteheide for example, but Berlin is too | far away. REs are rather for commuters from nearby towns. | dathinab wrote: | No you have to switch trains at least once. | | Also the travel takes ~4h15m (RE->RE) instead of ~1h50m | (ICE). | | If your traveling at a time where the RE is not over | crowded and you can spend the time well it's okay. If | not, especially if the train is overcrowded in parts of | the travel and it's really hot it's shit. | virtualritz wrote: | There is also FlixTrain for e.g. Hamburg--Berlin (or vice | versa) which is demand-priced. | | And includes a reserved seat. | | I went for 4.99EUR last month - twice (taking early morning | trains). | IMTDb wrote: | This is assuming that your trip starts and stops exactly next | to the train station and that there is a non-delayed train | available precisely at the right time. In practice that's not | the case and those time add up _quickly_. | | Car trip will look like: 1. Travel from start | to location (3:20) 2. Find parking (0:5) 3. Walk | from parking to location (0:10) | | Total time of 3:35 | | Your train trip will look like: 1. Go from | start to train station (0:20) 2. Wait for train (0:10) | 3. Train to Berlin (1:50) 4. Train station to location | (0:20) 5. Wait at location because there was no better | train (1:00) | | Total time of 3:40. | | It stil might be worth it to use the train, as you can | work/read in the train which you can't do in a car. | | But for the train to be working it needs planets to be | aligned: start location must be within reasonable distance to | train station; end location must be within reasonable | distance to train station; train travel speed is | significantly faster than cars; train schedule is aligned | with desired arrival time. If _any_ of these conditions are | not met, the train option does not work | jupp0r wrote: | You are making the assumption that it's one person | traveling. If I imagine me traveling with my family, then | the tradeoffs would look quite different: | | 1. There's only one driver in the car, so all other | passengers could still work/read during the drive. | | 2. The cost is split. With three kids and two parents, the | cost would be 45 EUR vs 50 EUR traveling with a somewhat | fuel efficient car with an internal combustion engine. This | is only fuel price and deprecation of the car is not | accounted for and would be more. | | 3. The stress of switching trains multiple times with small | kids, putting clothes on in the cold, making sure they | don't bump into people, etc can totally negate any "you | don't have to navigate traffic" benefits. | | 4. You usually don't travel from main railway station in | city A to main railway station in city B. Getting to your | actual destination can also be a slow and complicated | affair with public transportation, especially in | conjunction with 5. | | 5. Luggage can be problematic. If you are traveling with | children, moving multiple heavy suitcases from one train to | another while simultaneously taking care of kids can be a | nightmare. | coffeeblack wrote: | That's what happens when ideological truth and real world | truth collide. | inferiorhuman wrote: | As someone who generally prefers public transit to | driving (especially in a foreign country - a lot will | depend on _where_ you 're traveling. I usually travel | solo but think in general it would scale pretty well. Of | course if your kids are poorly behaved then it'll be more | of a challenge. | | I think having some familiarity with the infrastructure | can go a long way into making the trip easier. Knowing | where platforms are, which stations are easier to | transfer at, etc. | | 2 - Don't forget road tolls, parking, and surprise | maintenance. | | 3 - The most consistent "pain point" I've seen with | transferring is simply walking from platform to platform. | I can only think of a handful of stations that I'd | actually consider difficult (e.g. BART's Millbrae and | Madrid's Atocha station). | | 4 - Again, parking. In most big cities you're not going | to roll right up to your destination and park. | | 5 - My experience has been it's as difficult as you make | it. Hell I saw someone bring a refrigerator on Muni. Some | places like Japan have low cost courier services that | entirely negate the need to bring luggage with you. Just | drop it off with the courier at the airport and have it | sent to the hotel or nearest 7-11. In other places you'll | find luggage racks or areas on the trains. Alternatively, | pack less stuff. If you're traveling by car and need to | use a rooftop box don't forget the hefty fuel consumption | penalty. | smlacy wrote: | I'm not sure what "Wait at location because there was no | better train" means? | | Are you massuming a 3h40m trip for a specific time-based | appointment? I think the use case of this kind of train is | more similar to a flight with one or more nights at | destination, so that the specific arrival time is not that | important. | ivan_gammel wrote: | Let's say you have an appointment at location 15 minutes | away from train station at 9:00 and your train arrives at | 7:45. You will have to wait for 1 hour and probably spend | this time unproductively and maybe even at extra cost | (e.g. you choose to get a cup of coffee and a sandwich in | a restaurant nearby). | rurban wrote: | If I have an appointment, I'll rather take the train, be | rested and have enough time in the train to prepare for | the meeting. all the trains have wifi and power. | | In Germany the trains are also faster than cars on the | Autobahn, even if I theoretically could drive 180km/h. | All my travels from Dresden to Berlin, Leipzig or | Frankfurt are faster by train than by car. ICE only. | | Now with this offer, the slow RE trains only, it's slower | than by car, but still more attractive. Just if I have a | meeting far outside a big town, and bad connections (say | the bus only goes every 30min) and I have to walk 10min, | I'll take the car. For my next travel to the Leipzig | Kanupark I'll take the car, but all other business and | leisure trips are by train. For the last 3 years already. | LosWochosWeek wrote: | Yeah, if you plan your appointment at a place 300km away | willy nilly without checking the train schedule _and_ if | you plan your car drive in a way that you dont plan for | any congestions leaving Hamburg, on the Autobahn, | entering Berlin (good luck!), then yeah: The car is more | expensive, more tiring, and slower. But get this: Instead | of having an hour you can spend at your destination to | your liking, you get to use that extra hour driving your | car! Congratulations! | | Sorry but that has to be the most contrived and | ridicilous statement I've ever read. And this is coming | from someone -- me -- who owns two cars, lives in Berlin | and practically never uses public transportation. | nottorp wrote: | I believe the OP who started this is not familiar with | public transport travel. | ivan_gammel wrote: | In many cases you are absolutely right, the appointment | times can be adjusted according to train schedule, | destinations are nice places where you can find something | to do in between etc. Public transportation in Germany in | most cases is better than cars (I do not even have | driving license for that reason - never needed it). | Still, the calculation logic is right: when you travel | somewhere to be there at certain time, you need to | include some buffers in your planning, both for trains | and for cars. Every 4th train in Germany arrives with | delays and not every appointment can be planned for your | convenience. | usr1106 wrote: | > even at extra cost (e.g. you choose to get a cup of | coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant nearby). | | That's the pessimist's view. The optimist wanders around | and randomly finds a place they would never have found | otherwise. I mostly do the first. Sometimes I find | something truly interesting. Sometimes not, but I don't | think the unproductivity you mention has harmed me. (Yes, | occasionally I absolutely have to hack something, so I | search the first place where I can use my laptop. But I | try to avoid that in all but the most familiar cities.) | cjrp wrote: | If I was driving I'd aim to arrive pretty early too | (random traffic happens). | IMTDb wrote: | > I think the use case of this kind of train is more | similar to a flight with one or more nights at | destination, so that the specific arrival time is not | that important. | | OP was explicitly comparing car and trains, not flight | and trains. | | If that's the case, then we are more in the context of a | "city trip", and Hamburg -> Berlin might not be the most | representative case. Something along the line of Hamburg | -> Rome is more accurate as people usually like more | change of scenery. Flight from Hamburg to Rome is 2:20 | and train is 19 hours. Even accounting for airport wait | time, the difference is ridiculous. | | The issue for passenger transport with rails is that it's | not good for small distances as cars have the advantage | because of the added convince/flexibility, and for long | distances, flight is better due to speed. | | For freight, however, train is _amazing_ as these extra | hours don 't matter too much and the reduction in | emissions is massive. The issue is that there aren't that | many dedicated cargo flights. Most cargo revenue come | from transporting freight in the holds of passenger jets. | So moving cargo from flights to trains does not lead to a | direct reduction in CO2 emission since those planes are | going to fly anyway. | gnatolf wrote: | OTOH, you make it seem like it's super easy to find | (free?) parking anywhere near your destination, I'd guess | the unknowns about that even out with the blanket | assumption of '1 hour to get wherever you wanted to | really be'. | SoftTalker wrote: | > Most cargo revenue come from transporting freight in | the holds of passenger jets. | | Is this really true? DHL, FedEx, and UPS (and Amazon?) | all operate their own freight aircraft. There are also | contract freight operators. Most major airports have an | entire area that is exclusively for freight operations. | | Yes some freight does go in the holds of passenger jets, | but is it "most" or even close? | inferiorhuman wrote: | Yes, and during the pandemic when passenger traffic | cratered passenger airlines started putting additional | cargo in the passenger cabin. China started cracking down | on that recently though (unsure why). Freight is | generally far more profitable than passengers. | tyrfing wrote: | Roughly half of air freight is carried on passenger | planes. | | https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-10/air-freight- | prices.ht... | oneplane wrote: | I don't think anyone living in a country with reasonable | public transport and uses it actually thinks that that is | how it works. | | I get the feeling that there might be a whole lot of "it | sucks in my country so you probably have a bad experience | too" replies here (not yours as it's quite a clear | illustration of details people might miss), and I would | almost immediately assume it'll be mostly people from the | US who are car-bound for their transport needs. | | The idea that you can life a nice and productive life and | go places as you please without dring a car is very foreign | to some people. Even the idea of switching it up and having | some work commute by bike or bus seems like a 'poor people | thing' to some people. It's weird. | Reason077 wrote: | > _" It stil might be worth it to use the train, as you can | work/read in the train which you can't do in a car."_ | | Also, at EUR9 for a ticket that lasts a month, you're going | to save an awful lot of money compared to taking the car. | dathinab wrote: | Yes I mean a 4-bundle of "single one direction" tickets | in Berlin (limited to inside of Berlin, not even | including the Airport) costs 9.40... | | A Uber/Taxi also easily costs more then 9EUR even for | short distances. | consp wrote: | You should add at least one 15 min car stop. After an hour | or two you are not focused anymore. | Beltiras wrote: | Finding parking is hilariously underestimated for any metro | area I've been to. | andi999 wrote: | Surrender and find the cheapest parkhaus before you go. | Pamar wrote: | I, too, have some questions about your 1:00 waiting due to | _" no better train being available"_ | | I am familiar only with Italian and German trains (i.e. use | these regularly, but occasionally I also used trains in/to | Austria, Luxembourg, Hungary). | | You seem to think that in order to go to Berlin by train | someone living, say, in Rostock, first goes to the station | then looks when the next available train departs. | | In reality you can just use apps on your phone to get not | only a timetable of departures but also find out how long | it will take for you to get to the station using public | transportation. | | Example: this Sunday I go visit friends near Hamburg. I | have booked a 7:08am train already (with iPhone) and on | Sunday morning, depending when I am ready, I can walk to | the station (25 mins) or look what bus to take and at what | time from the nearest bus stop (5 mins from home). | codefreeordie wrote: | The parent's point is that if you actually wanted to get | there at any time other than exactly when the 7:08a train | arrives, say because you have an appointment at a set | time, then you're going to end up having a wait somewhere | along your journey because the train wasn't on your ideal | schedule. | | For example, if that train arrives at 10:08a, say, and | the next train is the 9:09a which arrives at 12:09a, and | you had an 11:00a appointment, you're going to wait 45 | minutes at your destination because you couldn't arrive | closer to the target time. | logifail wrote: | > The parent's point is that if you actually wanted to | get there at any time other than exactly when the 7:08a | train arrives, say because you have an appointment at a | set time, then you're going to end up having a wait | somewhere along your journey because the train wasn't on | your ideal schedule. | | If you're travelling a significant distance by car for an | appointment at a fixed time, don't you have to allow | extra time for traffic? | | (Depending on just how much traffic there might be) if | the roads are "normal" you might well end up arriving at | the destination 30 mins or even 45 mins early? | codefreeordie wrote: | Yeah, if I was going far, I'd allow extra time, for sure. | | I don't actually live in Germany, so I don't really know | how frequent these trains run. | | I have really only one example, where I missed a train | from Frankfurt to Bingen, and had to pay a fortune for a | cab ride because the next train was 3h later and I'd miss | my planned day. | | But if that's a common frequency, the train can work out | to be inconvenient, because you will have only a very few | times you can plan on without building in lots of | waiting. | | If you're going a far distance with an hourly service, | it's probably convenient enough for most things, provided | you never miss a train. | Pamar wrote: | While if you use a car you are at the mercy of | "baustelle" (roadworks) and constantly risk to have | slowdowns (e.g entering a major city at critical times). | | Until we have Star Trek teleports no single method of | travel is "absolutely best". But dismissing trains | altogether because they do not run at your own | convenience looks a bit of a strawman to me. | | I do not own s car anymore, but when it is really the | best option I rent one. But I also check first if a bus | or train gives me reasonable guarantees to reach my | destination in time (if they do, they are also way | cheaper, especially since COVID, at least here). | anonyfox wrote: | Also remember we're talking Autobahn here! Gmaps assumes | upto 130kp/h... depending on your car and driving style you | could drive 200kp/h++ (at least partially when there's no | speed limit) | | -> I'd challenge the 3:20h driving time, would probably | more like 2:30h in ideal conditions | jupp0r wrote: | The ability to do that will be highly traffic dependent. | In practice, driving that fast when possible doesn't | shave more than a few minutes time off the overall travel | duration from my own experience. | jansan wrote: | Of course, as with all train connections, you have to add the | time to get to/from the station and some buffer. | lucioperca wrote: | As usual in big cities you need to add the time for walking | to your car and for finding a parking space in the end. | newaccount74 wrote: | And add 30 minutes that you are stuck in downtown traffic | because your meeting starts at an inconvenient time. | | I can't speak for all of Europe, but here in Austria | trains, trams, and subways are way more predictable than | taking the car. Sure, sometimes there are delays, but 99% | of the time you get to your destination on schedule. When | you drive you always have the risk of random delays due | to traffic. | usr1106 wrote: | Deutsche Bahn is very far from 99% punctuality. | Statistics were published only recently and they pointed | down once again. But to be fair going by car is hardly | better, you can get stuck more or less unexpectedly in | most somewhat busy places. | newaccount74 wrote: | I can't really talk about DB, I rarely take the ICE. | | But I also want to point out that I didn't say that | public transit is 99% on time, I said I get to my | destination on time 99% of the time. Often when a | train/tram/subway is late I can just take a different one | and still get to my destination on time. | | If there is a delay on a long journey, I usually know | hours in advance, and I can let people know I'm going to | be late. But it's a very rare occurrence in my | experience. | ivan_gammel wrote: | This week I had two business trips on ICE trains. It was | exactly like in statistics (only 75% trains come on | time), one of them delayed by 20 minutes just before | departure due to "unauthorized people on the tracks". | This was the 3rd incident with DB during my travels this | year (before that I had my connection train from | Frankfurt cancelled while I was on the 2 hour long flight | there). | | One of the delays that I experienced with DB couple years | ago was related to a complete change of the train route | that happened after departure (!). Some unlucky | passengers had to leave at the next station and check how | they can get to their destinations at Reisezentrum. | Travel time was increased by 1 hour for me. | misja111 wrote: | > There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but | remember, you're not the target market for this (unless you | live here and are struggling with fuel prices...) | | I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Do you mean that non | Germans should refrain from buying these tickets? | MandieD wrote: | I'm trying to say that although anyone is free to buy them, | they're not designed for city-to-city tourist convenience or | even as a good substitute for the IC/ICE product for long- | distance, car-comparable-speed travel. | | They're for making short, local trips more affordable in a | country that has a lot of people struggling with fuel and | inflation, and for encouraging drivers to consider transit | instead more often, and long-distance trips to the sea shore | and mountains are a nice side benefit that is a pleasant | thing to discuss when we all feel like there's a shortage of | pleasant things to discuss. | | That they'll make local transit uncomplicated for visitors | (no trying to work out where to buy a given city's tickets, | or exactly which fare you need for a particular subway ride!) | is also a nice incidental, and I, a taxpayer here, will be | happy to see tourists using them, but that's not why the | Bundestag is spending 2.5 billion EUR on this. | generationP wrote: | It's also for the benefit of hikers, sightseers and whoever | else needs places that aren't served by the IC/EC/ICE network. | I have a BahnCard 50 (a subscription that halves the price of | each trip) and yet it would have saved me over 100EUR last | summer. Note that some of the local bus associations aren't | particularly cheap; it's not just the trains. | | My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up | with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon... | hutzlibu wrote: | "My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put | up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon..." | | My train ticket inspector vents to everyone how they do not. | (they get the heat) | | I think it will work out, but will be very crowded at times. | Or rather, even more crowded. They are already bad at scaling | up or down, at a sunny sunday for example. Also this is, | because they have allmost nothing to scale up. This is a long | term investment. | User23 wrote: | This is still a screaming deal. It's been a while, but this is | like getting multiple Monatskarten for for single Tageskarte | prices. | germanier wrote: | > If the train number begins with RE or RB, you're good | | A few days ago Deutsche Bahn has started to label some trains | with an RE number (e.g. running Norddeich-Bremen or Stuttgart- | Singen) with "9-Euro-ticket not valid". | _Microft wrote: | There are Norddeich-Bremen connections with a remark that the | 9-Euro-Ticket is not valid but these connections include a | section/leg with an Intercity train (IC). The ticket is not | valid for Intercity trains in general. | | There are other connections between these two places without | having to go on an Intercity and these do not show the | message. | germanier wrote: | These trains do have an RE number though, they show up when | searching "local trains only" on the route planner (in that | case the IC number will even only be visible after | expanding details), and all other regional train tickets | are accepted on those trains. This will confuse lots of | people. | Tomte wrote: | The RE from Stuttgart to Singen (I used to ride that train | regularly and did so recently again) has been co-labeled "IC" | for some time now, even though the rolling stock is | distinctly RE. | | It has been confusing even before the 9 Euro ticket. | thesimon wrote: | > even though the rolling stock is distinctly RE | | It is painted in white and the floor is carpeted, making it | a IC train. | Tomte wrote: | Oh, maybe it was broken and I got a substitute when I | took it a few months ago. Thanks, that's new to me! | rob74 wrote: | _[citation needed]_... I 'm not putting it above DB to do | that, but that _really_ sounds like more trouble than it 's | worth: endless hassle with passengers who think that the | ticket is valid in _all regional trains_ (which has been | repeated endlessly in the media for the last month, and also | on the page we are commenting on), need to adapt the route | planner to exclude these trains (an option "only regional | trains" is already available) etc. etc. | germanier wrote: | Just search for any Norddeich-Bremen connection in the | affected three months on the DB route planner with "only | local transport" ticked and you will see the label on every | second train. Well, after clicking "Show more information" | and carefully reading the grey on white text. | | Edit: I tried in English and the warning didn't show up... | Hopefully this link works as an example: https://reiseausku | nft.bahn.de/bin/traininfo.exe/en/45678/209... | fabioborellini wrote: | It seems that both IC train number and RE line number | appear for these kinds of trains, so for savvy passengers | it is possible to recognise such connections. Allowing | local travel in selected IC trains is pretty interesting, | though. | rob74 wrote: | Ok, that's apparently a special case, that's an Intercity | train (as can be seen from the "Operator: DB Fernverkehr | AG" on the page above) that can _usually_ also be used | with regional tickets, but DB apparently decided that | doesn 't apply to the 9 EUR ticket. The trains are | painted in DB's "long distance" livery, but I'm not sure | how many passengers would interpret that as a clue that | the 9 EUR ticket may not be valid... | | Paywalled article in German: | https://www.nwzonline.de/plus-wirtschaft/9-euro-ticket- | gilt-... | germanier wrote: | This is actually a pretty common model nowadays, as it | saves the commissioning authorities quite some money | compared to running actual local trains. See | https://www.bahn.de/service/individuelle- | reise/bahn_und_fahr... for an overview. | | People are used to use a regional ticket with those | trains, and they show an "RE" number. This will likely | lead to loads of discussions on the train if they will | follow through with that. | Aeolun wrote: | That seems to defeat the point. Any idea why they'd do that? | germanier wrote: | These are all[0] long-distance trains that due to an | agreement with the local transit commissioning authority | accept regional train tickets and therefore got assigned an | RE train number (some even added some stops due to such an | agreement). | | [0]: I know of one exception, though it looks like an | honest mistake. | butterlesstoast wrote: | For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters | to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment. | mbg721 wrote: | Out of curiosity, for people who live in small towns/villages | in Germany, how much driving is expected on a typical day? | Most Americans commute about half an hour, twice a day, | right? | hibbelig wrote: | I live in a small city and work in a nearby larger city.deg | The distance is 45km and it takes me about 45mins to drive | the car, door to door. | | Public transport is pretty good on this connection, but | overall it takes me 75-90 mins, because I need to change | twice and there are wait times. | | deg Well, I'm working from home now... | | I used to live in a different, larger, city, and worked on | the opposite side of the same city. Distance 13km. Driving | commute 30 mins (middle of the night) to 45 mins (rush | hour) each way. Public transport 90 mins... | soco wrote: | Not German, I live in a Swiss village and drive zero km a | day. But I spend almost an hour/leg in public transport | traveling door-to-door to the office when I go there (well, | before covid much more often). I can also work in the train | most of the time - 45 minutes of said hour - so that it | counts as work time too. So, no reason to drive at all. I | only take the car at weekends for doing shopping or doing | some visits, even then not always. | mbg721 wrote: | The reason I ask is that there's a stereotype that | German-speaking Europeans especially all go everywhere | with hyper-efficient trains that come every three minutes | and are only a little bit less on-time than the ones in | Japan, and that can't actually be true out in the | countryside. | rsynnott wrote: | I mean, I think that most people understand that rural | villages rarely have metro service; I don't think anyone | was claiming that. | soco wrote: | And yet, it is true. Not everywhere trains obviously, but | you'll have bus links to every dump - at least 5-6 a day | and the closer you get to civilization the more often (up | to every half an hour or whenever you have the train to | the nearby station). They do come within a few minutes of | schedule, no legend here - sometimes they even come a bit | earlier and sometimes also wait hehe. Edit: my village | has trains to the main city every half an hour and I can | walk 10 minutes to the station or take a bus if the | weather is nasty. | mbg721 wrote: | I'm from a medium-sized city on the US midwest, so my | experience is that bus drivers sometimes decide "Fuck it, | I'm not coming today," on a route where the schedule says | they should be there every 30 minutes. I think most | Americans outside of large cities have a similar | experience. I was really struck going on vacation to San | Francisco how together the bus schedule was, compared to | how "meh" laid-back the city institutions I interacted | with were about everything else. | jyounker wrote: | > I was really struck going on vacation to San Francisco | how together the bus schedule was, | | Wow. Things must have improved incredibly in the last ten | years. | mbg721 wrote: | Granted, I was trying to go up Grant in Chinatown, but | you clearly haven't tried a crosstown bus in Cincinnati. | Scooby Doo would have an easier time making a cake. | archi42 wrote: | Anecdata: A lot of people I know take about 20m (suburb to | a major city) or about 30m (rural countryside), one way. My | dad drives ~1h because in the country side he doesn't find | a job in his area of expertise (now that we kids have left, | they think about selling the house and moving to a better | location). | | Better data: | https://de.statista.com/infografik/13644/laenge-von- | arbeitsw... Can't find how to change the language, even | though it's an international page. The graph shows minutes | per single way. The pie diagram seems to be a popular vote | on "maximum acceptable time". | tyingq wrote: | The report seems to be sourced from here, which has more | detail: https://www.stepstone.de/ueber- | stepstone/press/mobilitaetsre... | Tomte wrote: | If you're living in the surrounding area of a larger city | where you're working, I'd say half an hour to an hour is | normal/average. With traffic jams sometimes double that. | User23 wrote: | I've lived in a village in Germany and I never drove. The | village center and Strassenbahn stop were a five minute | walk from my apartment. And that tiny little village had | more independent butchers and bakers than most large | American cities. It also had everything else you might need | day to day. So the only real reason to take the train | besides entertainment was commuting. Depending on where you | worked that would be about 10-30 minutes one way by | transit. | nani8ot wrote: | I live in a village 15km from the next big city (33th in | terms of population). If I take the bus it'll take 40min | because they take the longest route and stop at every | little village with multiple stops each. The next town is | 5km from my village and about the same from the city and | the train takes 7-13min, depending on whether it's an RB or | RE (they have more stops). Both train and bus arrive on a | 30 min schedule from roughly 05:00 to 01:00. | | Edit: As a student I pay 90EUR for a "semester ticket" once | every 6 months. | pavlov wrote: | Your math is off by 50%. | | A gallon is 3.785 litres, and the euro is roughly $1.05. | | So 2 euros per litre = one gallon costs $8. | arghwhat wrote: | *US liquid gallon | | A US liquid gallon is defined as 3.785411784 liters, the US | dry gallon is 4.40488377086 liters, while the imperial | gallon is 4.54609 liters. And that's just the currently | used definitions... | | If I ask Google for "1 gallon in liters", it assumes | Imperial gallons which would account for a good chunk of | the error. | oh_sigh wrote: | To be fair, even google gets this wrong sometimes - "1 | gallon in gallons" = 1.2: | | https://www.google.com/search?q=1+gallon+in+gallons | fabioborellini wrote: | This seems to be localised, for me it highlights 3,78 | litres | butterlesstoast wrote: | Thank you for the correction. I should have done my math a | bit better. I do appreciate this community for calling out | incorrect data. One of the very few communities left that | call errors out in a thought out way. | kmonsen wrote: | It's above $6/gallon here in the bar area even for the | cheapest gas so the prices are not that different. | User23 wrote: | This is partly because California law requires special | gas that not all refineries produce. | mastax wrote: | For reference gas in the USA costs between $5.60 (mostly in | California) and $3.60 per gallon. (According to | GasBuddy.com) | april_22 wrote: | Yes it is extremely expensive. However I don't think most | people who have a car will use it. The trains will be | extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you | will probably have to change a couple of times. I think | people will just prefer using their car instead of having to | stand in crowded trains for hours. | gspr wrote: | > The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any | notable destination you will probably have to change a | couple of times. | | That's not true at all. There's lots of direct service to | notable destinations. It's rather if you want to go to _un- | notable_ destinations (which is of course something that | people do a lot in their daily lives) that you can expect | to have to transfer. | Escapado wrote: | When I was still in school about a decade ago an exchange | student from the US was flabbergasted at our gas prices when | she found out that the signs at the gas station would display | the prices in EUR/l and not EUR/gallon. Quick googling shows | that EUR/$ was 1.45 around that time and gas prices were | around 1.42EUR/l which would be a little over 2.06$/l or | 7.79$/gallon. At the time the gas prices in the US was | 2.79$/gallon. | jgehrcke wrote: | The login system of the Bahn app amd website is experiencing | issues right now -- wonder if it has to do with HN peak traffic, | hm :). | MarkusWandel wrote: | This is fantastic. Despite the warnings to not count on it, these | local trains generally will transport your bicycle. So you can go | for a bike ride some distance from your home location (or from | your home location and return by train if you don't feel like | riding back). Practically for free. | mariusor wrote: | When you take your bicycle on public transport usually you | require a special ticket for it. | lispm wrote: | Keep in mind that this is the website from Deutsche Bahn, which | operates a lot of trains, regional trains and local trains. But | not every public transport is from Deutsche Bahn. The 9-Euro- | Ticket is valid for all public local transport, too - not just | for the Deutsche Bahn. | | The ticket is for local transport operators, too. One can also | buy the ticket there. A subscription ticket will be automatically | converted. One can for example buy it at the local | Verkehrsverbund (transit district), which here serves in Hamburg | several million people with all kinds of regional trains, city | trains, underground trains, busses, ferries, ... | | Thus one can use all (!!!) local and regional public transport | for 9 Euro for a month, 24 hours a day, for all of Germany, for | all public transport operators. The is done for three months, | each month costs 9 Euro. | wafriedemann wrote: | Socialism is COOL | mvexel wrote: | Very cool. Reminds me of the "Wochenende-ticket" DB sold in the | 90s. It was something like 30DM and was good for travel on all | regional DB trains for up to 5 people. | | I used it with a group of friends to travel to Berlin from The | Netherlands in 1993. I was a bit of a rail geek (still am, I | guess) and had purchased a "Kursbuch" on a previous trip to | Germany. This was a 2000 or so page, 3 pound book that contained | all the timetables for all German trains. We pored over the | timetables for hours to find an optimal route from the closest | German border station to Berlin. I remember it being relatively | few trains, something like Bad Bentheim - Osnabrueck - Bielefeld | - Kassel - Dessau (!) - Berlin. It was a fun trip, lots of people | were traveling long distance on local trains and Berlin attracted | very...interesting people at that time. | | After arriving in Berlin we sold our ticket, which was still good | for another day, for 15DM. | flobosg wrote: | DB was still selling those tickets (as Schones-Wochenende- | Ticket) until 2019. | mvexel wrote: | I think that was what it was actually called back then too! | Interesting that it's lived on all that time. | Escapado wrote: | I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been | a cool move. - Less/no expensive accounting - Less/no personnel | for checking tickets - Less/no personnel for prosecuting people | who don't have tickets - Less/no ticket vending machines (and all | the maintenance that comes with it) - Less traffic on the roads | since you can't beat "free" and hence less emissions (at least in | hamburg trains operate on green energy) and less wear on the | roads (might be offset by the wear on trains and busses) - Fully | non-discriminant with respect to income | | I have no idea if that would work for inter-city transport but | for inner-city transport the HVV for example (the public | transportation network responsible for hamburg and surrounding | areas) sells 30 million tickets a year and I wonder how much it | truly costs them to do that with all the relevant factors | mentioned above. | the8472 wrote: | A token price (9EUR/m is cheaper than even subsidized region- | specific tickets for students or the elderly) likely has some | benefits such as making it easy to count interest based on | sales. It might also make the inrush a bit more manageable. | aloe_falsa wrote: | At least in Berlin, they tried to introduce a free ticket. It | failed due to organizational reasons: https://www.berliner- | zeitung.de/open-mind/scheitert-jetzt-au... | jacobr1 wrote: | > I have no idea if that would work for inter-city transport | | With inner-city transport, while free would undoubtedly have | some marginal impact (and more over time as residential and | commute patterns shift) there probably wouldn't be large shifts | in use. | | I suspect for inter-city, you would actually see significantly | increased usage, which could outweigh all the benefits cited. | soco wrote: | Increased usage outweighing the benefits...?? I'm confused by | the wording, do you mean that in a good or a bad way? | MauranKilom wrote: | Probably commenting on local transit networks being | generally at capacity during rush hour, which this would | not improve. | | For example, in Munich, there is a ~10% cheaper version of | the monthly ticket that is only valid after 9 AM. This kind | of incentive shaping falls flat. | | (That is not to say I object to the new ticket, to be | clear.) | hhlevnjak2 wrote: | Perhaps it would work in DE, but it can create wrong | incentives. | | Here in Croatia, we had "free" public transport in some places | for i.e. students travelling to school. But the price was still | paid for by the cities/government to service operators. Which | led to inflated prices for the service because there's always a | way for the operator and some officials to collude together for | extra profit. And the increases weren't transparent until at | some point the tickets were no longer "free", and suddenly | their cost was way over what it was before it became "free". | soco wrote: | Corruption always finds a way, with or without free | transport. What I mean, that cannot be a reason to not | provide some service, because also the paid transport is | getting (or can be) corrupted I suppose, just like everything | else. | FabHK wrote: | > Corruption always finds a way, with or without free | transport. | | Indeed. I've taken the train in Romania with a Romanian | friend. The ticket for both of us would have been X$, say, | but she talked to the conductor and paid him 1/3 X$ in cash | to "look the other way" and ignore us. Conductor pocketed | that, we traveled cheaper, and the company lost the | revenue. | FabHK wrote: | > - Less/no expensive accounting | | Not quite. Many people (eg commuters) have monthly train | passes, almost all students have a "Semesterticket" (university | enrolment is about 350 EUR every half year, but that includes | all public transport in the region). | | Now, the 9-Euro-Ticket is cheaper than those options, so out of | fairness the holders of all those tickets are getting a refund | of 3 months worth of their pass minus 3x9=27 EUR, which is a | huge administrative burden for the public transport providers | and universities. That substantial burden would not have been | reduced by having the ticket for free. | VGltZUNvbnN1 wrote: | I am going to need a citation for the substantial burden | everything I read is that they are annoyed but its easy to | do. | FabHK wrote: | Could well be that the complaining is exaggerated, but | there is definitely complaining. | | > "Theoretically, all students would need to be reimbursed | or credited 79.98 EUR each," says [speaker of Bochum | University] Dessaul. An enormous administrative effort, | because almost 43,000 young people study there. | | > The AStA (student council) [of Duisburg-Essen University] | would have to initiate 40,000 bank transfers [for the | refunds]. "This would be an incredible effort, especially | given the limited number of people we have in treasury, | finance, and on the board, that would be extremely | difficult to manage and would probably also take | considerable time" | | https://www.businessinsider.de/politik/deutschland/trotz- | ber... | Escapado wrote: | You are right, however if it would have been made free and | kept free indefinitely this would have been a one-time cost. | iggldiggl wrote: | Farebox recovery ratios in Germany before Covid were around | 75 %, so abolishing all fares would mean _quadrupling_ the | budget for operating subsidies [1]. While I am not opposed | to some moderate fare reductions, you could pay for quite a | large bit of service improvements with that amount of money | instead, and I believe that would be rather more effective | in increasing passenger numbers (and especially in getting | car drivers to switch). | | [1] Some of the big cities are actually even closer to | break-even as far as day-to-day operating costs are | concerned, so in those cases the budget would have to be | increased by an even larger factor in percentage terms. | thebean11 wrote: | > Farebox recovery ratios in Germany before Covid were | around 75 %, so abolishing all fares would mean | quadrupling the budget for operating subsidies | | You aren't taking into account the money saved from | eliminating all the infrastructure needed for collecting | and enforcing the fares like OP mentioned.. | | Unless farebox recovery ratio already subtracts the money | spent to collect fares? That's not my understanding | though. | iggldiggl wrote: | You're right, eliminating the infrastructure for fares | would save some amount of money, but I'd be surprised if | it was really that much of a substantial fraction | compared with the actual operation of the vehicles. | thebean11 wrote: | I think it's significant, there must be tons of full time | employees who are checking tickets, selling tickets, | doing maintenance on machines, administering subsidized | fare programs etc. I don't think it's 25% or anything, | but I wouldn't be surprised it it was in the double | digits. | | Aside from that, though, it's not as if the money not | collected in fares is lost. That's money that people get | to keep. It's a direct economic benefit to people using | transit, and a smaller indirect benefit to everyone else. | Archelaos wrote: | > I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have | been a cool move. | | Here in Germany, there were many voices in favour of making the | ticket completely free. What I heard about the reason for not | doing so is that the government wanted to easily measure the | actual demand in different regions for such a "free" ticket. So | the price is low enough that anybody who wants to ride | practically "for free" is buying it, but so high that most | people who do not really use it won't buy it. | | I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be replaced | by real free rides in the future. And the results of the test | period could help determine how the costs should finally be | shared between the different regions and local governments. | johannes1234321 wrote: | I think the reason is that actually it wasn't meant to be | germany-wide. The initial idea was 9EUR per public transport | network, but they quickly figured out that this will lead to | many problems, as some areas have huge networks, others have | many small networks and this would be one really complicated. | But by then the 9EUR message was out of the box and making it | Germany-wide on a single ticket was the only way forward. | | Consequence of late night negotiations on top level of the | federal government, without involving respective experts from | states, who are running public transport. ("Wait, we're | subsidizing fuel, so we should subsidize public transport as | well! Any quick idea?") | cbmuser wrote: | We had cities with free public transport in Germany. | | One example was the city of Templin in Brandenburg. | | The project was eventually abandoned because lots of people | were just riding the busses out of boredom and busses were | permanently full with costs exploding for the city. | | See: https://www.manager- | magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/nahverkeh... | trompetenaccoun wrote: | First thing I thought of even though I never heard of this | example: It's a terrible idea if you think about it with an | economic mind. There are very few scenarios where making | things "free" can actually provide a long term benefit for | the public. The reason Communist economies don't work isn't | because there's not enough wealth in society to guarantee a | modest income for everyone. It's because once you take the | incentives away people behave differently than they would | normally. In the case of a guaranteed workplace with no | profit sharing for example you get rampant corruption at | the top and workers who don't see the point in doing their | job properly because they neither get rewarded for working | hard nor can they get fired. So they just show up and do | the bare minimum. | Archelaos wrote: | > there's not enough wealth in society to guarantee a | modest income for everyone | | One should notice that there a no Communist economies | anymore in Europe for more than 30 years. Democratic | wellfare states provide in my opinion the best balance | between individual incentives and social responsibility. | | I would argue that a lot of state-managed sectors in | various European countries work a lot better than in the | US (health care, higher education, correction, ...). One | has to look into the details to see what works better in | which sector. | | Extent and details are, of course, something that needs | to be permanently evaluated. But in general there is | enough wealth produced each year to provide everyone with | an at least modest standard of living. However, the | differences between the countries are still very large: | GDP per capita in the EU is aprox. EUR 32.000, ranging | from Luxemburg's EUR 114,000 to Bulgaria's EUR 10,000. | the_only_human wrote: | China. | pph wrote: | (This may be an aside, but I want to add this) | | While it is true that there is quite a difference in GDP | per capita between different EU countries, please | consider that Luxembourg has a very particular standing | and as an outlier is not representative of the | "wealthier" EU members. Most of those are in the range of | 40k-50k, with only three above this: 114,370 Luxembourg | 83,990 Ireland 57,140 Denmark | | See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European | _Union | potatoz2 wrote: | There are many free goods people don't seem to (usually) | overconsume. | | Primary school is free, libraries are free, parks are | free, etc. To know whether public transportation is more | like free libraries or more like free parking, you have | to run the experiment. | dorgo wrote: | What is the difference to normal paid tickets? Once the | ticket is paid I can ride busses out of boredom the whole | day. | wreath wrote: | No you cant because the ticket is scoped with time and/or | destination/direction | bombcar wrote: | Many places offer a "one day" transit pass that lets you | ride anywhere you want, for that day. | | Random example, MTS: https://www.sdmts.com/fares/fare- | chart - the 1-day pass is priced just above a round-trip | ticket cost. | johnday wrote: | It seems like an almost-free, unlimited-use ticket would | suffer the same way. | johannes1234321 wrote: | Well, they can distinguish homeless people without ticket | from others. And therefore throw some homeless out (until | people realize that is happening and donate tickets ....) | Aperocky wrote: | Speaking only for myself, my laziness is really the only | reason that I've not been doing whatever things I could | be doing. And that has been consistent throughout changes | in my economic situation. | black_puppydog wrote: | Nothing you said was factually wrong, but the last sentence | makes it sound like "bored bums" were the reason it was | abandoned. Here's the relevant part from the article you | linked: | | > And not every trip seems to have been truly necessary for | the passengers. "On rainy days the kids would take the bus | out of boredom" says Templin's mayor Detlef Tabbert (Die | Linke ["The Left" political party]) to manager-magazin.de. | Groups of men with a crate of beer were also not uncommon. | "If something is for free, it will be used - whether it | makes sense or not", says [marketing responsible of the | local transit provider][marketing responsible of the local | transit provider] Pohlan | | In the end they went back to paid tickets, but charged | 44EUR for an annual ticket that can even be transferred | between people as needed. That still leaves them | subsidizing public transit, but that's a political decision | based on what the alternatives would be: pollution, road | infrastructure (another form of subsidy), better quality of | life, ... | | A decision that, as you might be able to tell, I personally | happen to strongly agree with. | | Edit: forgot to paste the translated paragraph :P | Aperocky wrote: | > easily measure the actual demand in different regions | | A ticket for $0 would have done it. | | Still have to book for it, and probably should have rate | limits like other pseudo free services (Google don't charge | you for search, etc). | aqwsde wrote: | Sebb767 wrote: | But you don't take away cars or impose a speed limit. You | simply provide an alternative option. In fact, emptier | streets will make every driver happy. | Semaphor wrote: | Do you have any kind of source for this? I heard of | complaints regarding this ticket already, I do not see this | coming back, let alone for free. | Archelaos wrote: | For example, last month in an interview of Deutschlandfunk | the German Minister of Transport, Volker Wissing | (Liberals), said (my translation): | | "We now have a one-time promotion that represents a field | trial. At the end, we can analyse the data and know exactly | what we need to improve in order to get people to switch to | public transport."[1] | | [1] Original: "Wir haben jetzt eine einmalige Aktion, die | einen Feldversuch darstellt. Wir konnen dann am Ende auch | die Daten analysieren und wissen genau, was mussen wir | verbessern, um Menschen auf den OPNV umsteigen zu lassen." | -- https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/verkehrsminister-zum- | neun-eur... (in German) | pwdisswordfish0 wrote: | >I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be | replaced by real free rides in the future. | | What's your confidence level here? Because if you can make me | believe that the ticket is effectively a vote for | ticketless/free OPNV I will buy them for everyone I know. | stavros wrote: | What's the difference between this and completely free | rides? AFAIK, making it "almost free" is usually | preferable, as it prevents some abuse ("it's free so I'll | take it even when I don't really need it", which depletes | the resource), while still making it effectively free. | LosWochosWeek wrote: | We've also seen the opposite being true. In Germany, | oddly enough. It was called "Praxisgebuhr" and it was a | 10EUR fee that you had to pay _once_ per quarter year (if | you went to a doctor in that quarter). Turns out, once | people paid the 10EUR they got into a all-you-can-eat | frenzy and visited more doctors than they normally would | have done, because "well, I paid for it, so might as | well take advantage of it". | stavros wrote: | That's not so much the opposite, but I agree. If it were | 5EUR per visit, you'd probably see a lot less of this. | oneplane wrote: | We have a system where you're going to pay about 350 per | year for those little things if you use them. Going into | a frenzy using all of that is just going to waste your | own time as it takes quite some effort to use up that 350 | already. | | Then again, regardless of the rules and processes we | make, there will always be people misusing/abusing it. | pwdisswordfish0 wrote: | The point is, it's rodonculous. | wongarsu wrote: | If the ticket is a success (both in number of tickets sold | and in people taking transit instead of the car) I'd expect | the program to be continued. The exact implementation will | be subject to much debate, but once you have a cheap | monthly nationwide ticket established it's much easier to | talk about the costs and benefits of actually charging for | it. | Archelaos wrote: | There is support for this idea across MPs of multiple | parties, from Conservatives, Liberals, Greens and | Labour/Left. It appears to be a comparatively cheap measure | to reduce CO2 footprint (I am not an expert here, though, | so this might be incorrect, but one hears this argument a | lot) and at the same time an easy measure to improve | mobility for the poor. (Thousands of people went to jail in | Germany every year because they repeatedly travelled | without a ticket and could not or prefered not to pay the | panalty fee.) So the zeitgeist is very much in favour of | it, and ecological topics (in the wider sense) are becoming | more and more important for people's decission what party | to vote for. So what initially were niche topics of the | Greens are becoming increasingly popular and more so, when | they coincide with goals of other parties, such as social | policy ideas from Labour/Left and the trade unions or the | administrative simplifications ideas of the Liberals. Note | also that Germany is already heavily subsidising its local | puplic transport, with the effect that everyone pays taxes | for tickets that only a minority uses.[1] | | [1] At a moment's notice, I could only find old estimates | from 2008 that amount to 25 billion Euros per year (more | than 300 Euros per inhabitant per year) for local and | regional transport (not including long distance transport) | as of which only 9 billion Euros (35%) were paid directly | from tickets or similar. This means 16 billion (65%) were | already payed by the public (aprox. 200 Euro per inhabitant | per year) -- see: https://www.zukunft-mobilitaet.net/wp- | content/uploads/2013/0... (in German). | aqwsde wrote: | Show me a _single_ MP from CDU or CSU in favor of free | regional transport. | Archelaos wrote: | Even Bavaria's CSU/Free Voters government voted for the | ticket in the Bundesrat today. | iggldiggl wrote: | Maybe that number includes grants for capital expenses | (building new routes and stations, step-free remodelling, | public transport priority, etc.) as well? According to | https://www.vdv.de/vdv-statistik-2019.pdfx#page=35, for | day-to-day operations farebox recovery ratios are rather | around 75 %. | | Edit: Looking at your link, it seems the difference might | be accounted for to some extent because the 75 %-figure - | might possibly not include heavy rail | | - like I said definitively doesn't include grants for | major capital projects and only looks at day-to-day | operating expenses | | - is looking at things from the perspective of the local | transport operators, respectively counties/cities that | mostly are directly responsible for financing any | shortfalls, so the compensation payments for the | state-/federal-level mandated fare reductions for pupils | and handicapped people are included as part of the | regular farebox income | dav_Oz wrote: | I guess one could argue that it is technically "free" for | personal use, as tap water is (1 cubic meter (1000 litres) in | the Netherlands is about net cost .87EUR [0]) if one is not | trying to abuse it for a agricultural hobby, a private swimming | hall etc. than it actually gets expensive very quick; in the | case of a unregistered pipe break (incentivizing inspections) | extraordinarily so. | | The "price" is for ensuring fair use (on such a big | scale)/registering the influx; yes, 1EUR could also do the | trick but in the case of DB AG we are talking about an highly | over-bureaucratized ... so one order of magnitude higher and | you arrive at the current pricing. | | [0]https://www.waternet.nl/en/veelgestelde-vragen/tap- | water/wha... | javajosh wrote: | Heck even if you're just going to move around a single City at a | time this is a great deal. Ubahn and Sbahn tix are quite pricey a | la carte! | qwertox wrote: | I think it's great, but honestly, placing it at 15EUR would have | made only a little difference to the consumer, who is already | getting a lot for the value, and helped the railway operators a | good deal. As a compromise the age of kids who can travel | together with their parents for free could have been raised from | 6 to 8 years. | dmurray wrote: | Isn't the taxpayer paying the shortfall, rather than the | "railway operators"? | _ph_ wrote: | Right, it is tax-funded. | | Don't ask me how exactly they assign the tax money to the | train companies, but probably they get a fixed amount per | ticket sold, which would be another reason why it is | important to "sell" those tickets. | phh wrote: | Uh this offer is paid by the railway operators, not by the | government? | chmod775 wrote: | No. It's paid for by the government and expected to cost | around 2.5 billion EUR. | | It's part of this: https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Con | tent/DE/Standardar... | phh wrote: | Thanks. Then I don't understand commenter's "helped the | railway operators a good deal" | archi42 wrote: | This is a matter of perspective. The ticket is not aimed solely | at people with median income of a tech worker (or the typical | HN crowd), but help out the general populace as a whole. | Including those who can not even afford a car. | | Now I think when the times comes (3 month from now) for the | program to run out, we might see discussions about continuing | it at a price that makes it a more sustainable, permanent | offer. But that's my opinion speaking (I wouldn't even mind if | it was mandatory like back when I was attending university, as | long as it is affordable for people with low to lowest | incomes). | Tenoke wrote: | > more sustainable, permanent offer | | Seems pretty unlikely that they'll be able to after a 3 month | period of operating at a loss (for the government) and likely | having more issues due to increased usage. | archi42 wrote: | My crystal ball is broken. I think there is a good chance | that what you say will happen. But collecting the data in | this nation-wide experiment is already quite useful when | deciding on future policy. Until now it was always "we | believe" or "this doesn't fit our agenda" or "this is | socialism". Plus, if it is sufficiently popular and if the | obstacles can be identified and overcome, then why not? If | the new administration wants to reconnect with the people | then employing some positive populism is quite nice. | | //edit: As I said, I didn't mind paying for the mandatory | students ticket (most universities have that), even when I | eventually stopped using. I'm in the "make public | transportation free" camp, and think this is a good step in | that direction; even if we end up with "affordable for all" | instead of "free". But as I said, that's opinion, not | knowledge. | _ph_ wrote: | It is a political decision, whether the government wants to | pay the costs out of the federal budget. If the government | is serious about CO2 reduction and also shifting commute | traffic from cars to public transport, this might be an | surprisingly cheap option. As the high energy costs also | mean increased tax revenue, it might not even be a large | load for the budget (and compared to many other things, | spending like EUR10B/year on public transport isn't really | much anyway). | Shadonototra wrote: | > I think it's great, but honestly, placing it at 15EUR would | have made only a little difference | | The ticket exist to relieve citizens due to rising energy costs | | What a nice idea to double the price! i suggest to triple it, | so they can make even more profits! | | Wait, i suggest aligning it to the cost of a similar travel | with a car! | | Are you american by chance? | | https://www.stoag.de/en/dialog/neuigkeiten/detail/9-euro-tic... | | > We support the idea of the traffic light coalition to | temporarily relieve not only drivers, but also the millions of | public transport commuters in their mobility costs. It is a | clear signal for local public transport as an efficient, | climate-friendly and already inexpensive alternative to the | car. The industry is working on a technical and entrepreneurial | solution in the interests of passengers. The ticket is to be | launched nationwide on June 1st. | qwertox wrote: | As an example, the 1-month-ticket for Stuttgart for two zones | is 92,20EUR [0]. | | For those affected by inflation, the reduction from 90 to | 15EUR would already be noticeable, the additional 6EUR would | be neglectible to the consumer in comparison to the already | offered discount (not to mention that these new tickets can | be used in the entire country). | | And those who will now leave their car in the garage will | probably be saving even more. At least in my case it was | always cheaper to use public transport to go to the city, at | least if I also considered the parking cost. This for a 1-day | ticket, which already costs a bit over 6EUR. | | [0] https://www.vvs.de/tickets/zeittickets-abo- | polygo/monatstick... | drakonka wrote: | Why? Presumably they took into account their own financial | situation when setting this price. Why would you want an | organization to try and claw a few _more_ euros out of | people when they've already agreed on 9EUR? I guess I just | don't understand where you're coming from in terms of the | purpose of this suggestion. | wwwwasmistake wrote: | Maybe this time it's because of rising energy cost, but I | remember there was very same deal for short time, little more | than 10 years ago when I was visiting there. If one feels | adventurous, I can highly recommend buying this ticket. | mtmail wrote: | > Are you american by chance? | | That was unneccessary. _Microft shared several German news | articles in the past. | _Microft wrote: | I don't think that the message was addressed at me but I | agree that it was unnecessarily personal. You inferred my | nationality correctly btw ;) | GavinMcG wrote: | I'm an American who has lived in Germany, and it didn't | seem like a personal attack to me. It's a reasonable | thing to wonder when someone espouses a profits-first | view in response to a social program. | _Microft wrote: | OK, I hadn't considered that. Thanks for the perspective! | darrenf wrote: | Surely the question was aimed at @qwertox, not @_Microft? | Tenoke wrote: | >What a nice idea to double the price! i suggest to triple | it, so they can make even more profits! | | Pretty sure they wouldn't be making any profit at 15e or 27e | either. | tut-urut-utut wrote: | > Wait, i suggest aligning it to the cost of a similar travel | with a car! | | I would wish they actually align their normal prices with a | car. | | It's absurd that it's cheaper for two people to travel from | Karlsruhe to Frankfurt by car, than to take an ICE train. And | that applies to almost any train connection inside a Germany. | | No wonder people like their cars here. | lbriner wrote: | Same in the UK although unfortunately, the per-person cost | is roughly linear on the railway and not in a car that will | only need slightly more fuel per extra person. | | I guess the only way round this is that the per-person cost | should be so much cheaper on the train that a car only | makes sense with, say, 4 passengers. | | The thing is, most people already own the car so they don't | consider tax/servicing as part of the cost of travel | whereas on a train, this is all added to the ticket and the | servicing is pretty extreme on the railways. | freeflight wrote: | The secret is to order your ticket ahead of the travel and | not to go for flex tickets, that way it's possible to get a | massive discount and even travel first class ICE very | affordably. | | For example, Nurnberg - Berlin can cost up to 127EUR for | second class ticket, if you buy the ticket the same day you | need it. | | Buy the ticket, for the same connection, 2 weeks in | advance, and suddenly its only 39,90EUR for second class | and 53,90EUR for first class. | WA wrote: | Exactly the opposite. It should've been 0EUR, because then you: | | * don't have to sell tickets at all | | * don't have to check tickets in trains and reduce costs | | The overhead of selling tickets with the new price points might | actually eat up all what's left of profits. | k__ wrote: | How much does checking tickets cost? | sokoloff wrote: | As a rule of thumb: anytime you see a human doing a manual | task, it's expensive. | fridek wrote: | Germany has about 1000 railway locomotives operating 40k | runs a day. A conductor job pays on average 50kEUR/yr. Most | trains I've seen have more than one conductor, and you need | to plan for weekends, shifts, time off, etc. but the lower | bound should be easy to agree on 50MEUR/yr or 12.5MEUR for | the duration of the program? Then there is the entire infra | to sell tickets online, in machines and in person. | | At the same time there are about 2 million rail customers a | day, so the 9EUR ticket will bring 18MEUR. I'd say they | probably break even. | | Math is fun, but the entire point is a bit moot. Germany is | a civilised country and if you laid off the entire staff | for three summer months with no pay, the union would eat | you for breakfast. | dagw wrote: | Most trains still need conductors even if they're not | checking tickets. Having them check tickets when they're | already there won't cost anything extra. | Tenoke wrote: | >Most trains I've seen have more than one conductor | | At least in Berlin which this covers most | trains/buses/trams have 0 people checking and there's a | few people going on random ones to occasionally check so | the ratio here is probably 1 worker to 50+ vehicles. | albertgoeswoof wrote: | You don't actually check any tickets, you just pretend that | tickets will be checked at random, regularly. Put up signs | to with heavy fines & travel bans for breaking the rules, | run some fake newspaper stories of heavy enforcement etc. | Make it socially embarrassing not to pay etc etc | mikepurvis wrote: | I'd also be curious for actual numbers, but certainly on | the commuter GO Train in Ontario, it's basically a 3-4 | person staffing arrangement, with one person at the back, | one in the middle in the accessible coach, and 1-2 in the | locomotive. Adding someone whose job it is to roam up and | down the train checking tickets adds 25% to the personnel | cost, which is why most fares aren't checked. | | But quite apart from the person and their ticket-scanner, | there's also the whole _infrastructure_ associated with | fare taking-- fare-free advocates argue that if you get rid | of the machines and websites and apps, and all the | associated upkeep, it ends up being a wash. Of course this | only counts if you 're getting rid of _all_ fares rather | than doing a one-off summer special. | slightwinder wrote: | Often, not even that much, as the check is just one of many | jobs the personal has to execute. The other jobs won't | disappear just because they might not check now. | kuschku wrote: | This ticket only applies to regional trains. Regional | trains usually have a staff of 1 (sitting in the | locomotive, driving the train). Tickets are checked by | random patrols, which don't actually cost that much (in | each given train at a given time you'll have a chance of | encountering them every few weeks at most). | fxtentacle wrote: | Can't do that for psychological reasons. | | A free Android app attracts the worst kind of people and | insults hurled at you on support channels. A $0.99 price is | enough to make most support emails friendly instead. | rdl wrote: | 0 EUR 2nd class (presumably fairly crowded) and ~market | priced 1st (and potentially a car or two of 2nd at normal 2nd | fares) might be an interesting experiment. | anaisbetts wrote: | They still have to check tickets in trains because this only | applies to one class of train, and they already are paying | people to check tickets and can't/shouldn't fire them all for | three months only to bring them all back | Tenoke wrote: | A lot of trains this covers don't even have first class so | they can save on those but I'm not convinced the savigns | are all that big. | mrunkel wrote: | What trains would that be? Street cars and busses are the | only ones I can think of that don't have first class. | Everything from the S-Bahn and "up" has a first class car | or section. | Tenoke wrote: | In berlin neither the Sbahn nor the Ubahn has first | class. The express trains (RE7, RB14, FEX) to the airport | don't either as far as I remember and I don't see one | when I check[0]. Similar for many other cities I believe, | so I'd wager most travelers the 9e ticket is covering | will be on vehicles that don't have first class anyway. | | 0. https://flughafenexpress.deutschebahn.com/fex- | en/Tickets-and... | kuschku wrote: | That heavily depends on your local Verkehrsverbund, many | Verkehrsverbunde do not have any first class in S, RB or | RE. | dx034 wrote: | Ticket checks are incredibly rare in most cities already, | Germans tend to buy tickets because it's illegal not to, not | because it's more economical given the fine you pay without | one. | | And selling tickets will be an extremely minor overhead, | probably <5% including re-programming machines. | slightwinder wrote: | It's also an experiment. They need to know how people react | and change their behavior with this cheap ticket. And they | still need to check tickets anyway. And the price also serves | as a kind of barrier to animate people to at least thing a | moment, whether they really need the ticket and can "waste" | the monety for it. | captainmuon wrote: | Officially, it is not free in order to gauge demand. | | Personally, I think there is an ideological and pedagogical | element. They don't want people to get used to the idea that | something like free transportation is possible. | | I heard an interesting talk a couple of years ago about | university tuition fees. Germany has fairly low fees compared | to other countries. At some universities it is more like a | token fee, a couple hundred EUR per year. Many students get | living expenses paid from the state anyway (BAFOG). It is | silly to then pay back some of that immediately. But the | thesis of the talk was that the tuition fees were introduced | for educational reasons, not to cover the actual cost of | teaching. Students were supposed think of themselves as | customers, and of education as a good. And they could back | this with quotes from neoliberal think tanks. As the FDP | (free market 'liberals') is in the coalition, I'm sure one | precondition was that the ticket couldn't be free. | bmicraft wrote: | A couple hundred per year? I'm sitting here in Vienna | complaining about paying 20,70EUR per semester | april_22 wrote: | Students in Berlin meanwhile have to pay 200EUR for the | public transport ticket alone. | dagw wrote: | _don 't have to sell tickets at all_ | | The infrastructure for selling tickets is already in place, | the marginal cost of selling one extra ticket type is | essentially zero, | | _don 't have to check tickets in trains and reduce costs_ | | Assuming you have to have at least one person working on the | train anyway, for safety reasons if nothing else, having them | also check tickets doesn't cost extra. | kuschku wrote: | > Assuming you have to have at least one person working on | the train anyway, for safety reasons if nothing else, | having them also check tickets doesn't cost extra. | | That's actually wrong, regional trains (where this ticket | applies) usually have only the Lokfuhrer driving the train, | but no additional staff. Checking tickets is done purely by | patrols checking trains randomly. | BoppreH wrote: | > Assuming you have to have at least one person working on | the train anyway, for safety reasons if nothing else, | having them also check tickets doesn't cost extra. | | The trains are made of multiple cars without connecting | doors, and the driver sits inside a locked cockpit. Tickets | are currently checked by personnel that randomly patrol the | trains, which are the only staff that passengers see. | | It's actually rare to have your ticket checked, but the | fine is ~10x the price of the ticket, so it's still worth | buying one. | amin wrote: | In Luxembourg, all public transport is free for everyone. I was | just there, and as a tourist, it saved me a lot of hassle not | needing to figure out where and how to buy which ticket. Jump hop | on any train, bus or tram :). | | And yes, I understand why this wouldn't work well in other | countries. | sonar_un wrote: | I was there last winter and the free transport was just | incredible. Especially for a tourist. On top of all of the | busses and trams being super new and clean, it was a dream. | swarnie wrote: | While interesting, it doesn't seem like a fair comparison. | | Luxembourg has more tax evading corporations registered than | actual people. I'm sure i can make a public transport system | work well for free given those conditions. | xenago wrote: | This is a really good initiative! I wish the Canadian government | would encourage more efficient transport instead of cars. | The-Bus wrote: | This is a great idea for the US as well, if only we had a | significant mass transit infrastructure that this could apply | to. | pflenker wrote: | Traveling through Germany with regional trains was one of my | favorite pastimes back in the 90s, but the prices have increased | dramatically: The "Wochenendticket, which was valid either on | Saturday or Sunday, started in 1995 costing around 11 EUR | (inflation-adjusted), and ended costing 40 EUR in 2016 (also | inflation-adjusted). | | I am happy that they are experimenting with bringing it back. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-20 23:00 UTC)