[HN Gopher] Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket
___________________________________________________________________
Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket
Author : marban
Score : 199 points
Date : 2023-05-01 09:59 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
| lispm wrote:
| Nice features here in Hamburg:
|
| Subscription tickets for Hamburg which cost more than 49EUR are
| now automatically reduced to 49EUR and are changed to a
| Deutschlandticket.
|
| Employer subsidized Deutschlandtickets can be reduced upto 50%
| for the employee.
|
| Kids from low-income families get the Deutschlandticket for free.
|
| Students can upgrade their public transport ticket for monthly 18
| Euros...
|
| School children pay 19 Euros monthly for the Deutschlandticket.
|
| :-)
| ipaddr wrote:
| No senior discounts? How are older people viewed in Germany?
| yarg wrote:
| At that price point, does it even matter?
| wheels wrote:
| I've been confused in the last couple of threads related to
| this topic how responses like yours exist. Trying to be
| constructive, I'm going to float a theory: you live in
| Silicon Valley and that doesn't seem like much money?
|
| For a German pensioner, in many cases, this would represent
| more than 5% of post-rent living costs. For my girlfriend,
| a manager of a team of 16 people (in non-tech in Germany)
| it's more than 5% of her post-taxes, post-rent income.
|
| EUR49/month _is not_ trivial for a lot of working or
| retired Germans. GDP per capita in Germany is EUR46k /year,
| and after taxes and insurance (and rent! and that _more
| than half of Germans that make less than that_ ),
| EUR49/month is not a pittance.
|
| These tickets are generally aimed at working class Germans,
| which often make 10-20% of a normal Silicon Valley salary.
| yarg wrote:
| > I'm going to float a theory: you live in Silicon Valley
| and that doesn't seem like much money?
|
| I'm a suicidal burn out trying to drag my mind back from
| oblivion, I sure as shit am not on silicon valley money.
|
| Also:
|
| > Please respond to the strongest plausible
| interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one
| that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
|
| Your argument's a straw man, regardless of the fact that
| you're "trying to be constructive".
|
| (And to be honest, the way you prefaced that statement
| had the feeling of "no offence, but...", it's a poor
| rhetorical practice.)
|
| Germany has a long history of charging things at damned
| near administrative costs, 5% on transport just isn't a
| lot of money.
|
| And also, 5% of "post-rent living costs"?
|
| What's the percentage of overall income? Half of that? So
| low that your argument holds very little water.
| lispm wrote:
| The tickets for seniors were more expensive than 49EUR. They
| all have been reduced to 49EUR.
|
| People with low-income (incl. seniors with low income) have a
| reduced price.
| apnew wrote:
| When I was in HH, I loved the monthly pass offered by my
| employer (65EUR/month); the ability to travel longer distances
| over S-Bahn and taking +1 with you was killer/super-smart
| feature IMO. Miss those in states sorely.
|
| I wish most, if not all, of the world adopts the german style
| public transport system.
| bitL wrote:
| While in Germany last summer, I used the 9 EUR ticket and
| regional trains to go from Frankfurt to Bavarian Alps. The trains
| were packed, one could not move there and it felt more like being
| in India than in Germany. I am wondering if that's going to be a
| norm in the future.
| konschubert wrote:
| No, not going to be the norm. Because
|
| a) 49 >> 9
|
| b) the 9 Euro ticket was a one-time novelty
| ragebol wrote:
| And Frankfurt -> Alps is not regional transport, but inter-
| city at least. So faster option would have been ICE and going
| 250km/h. More expensive though, for sure. And a seat
| reservation for a few euros.
| bitL wrote:
| 150 EUR vs 9 EUR and one still had to use slow regional
| trains once reaching Ulm so it was not that much different
| time-wise to justify much higher cost. Regional Express
| trains I used from Frankfurt to Ulm are also pretty fast
| (not ICE level, but not much time lost either).
| bitL wrote:
| 49 >> 9 but 49 << monthly ticket at any regional
| transportation company so one could assume most people will
| own it and trains will be packed again.
| golol wrote:
| It is a good thing if people actually fill up the trains and
| get value out of them. While empty trains are comfortable, they
| are an inefficiency. The 9EUR ticket showed that people would
| really like to be more mobile 'if they could afford it. Making
| this possible creates value for society.
| willio58 wrote:
| As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries
| and their public transport (among other things _cough_ health
| care _cough_ gun control).
|
| It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is
| one state at a time, and even then you see projects like
| California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and
| overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile
| those who live in red or purple states will just be left behind
| as always because of how intensely politics has carved a divide
| between people and led to so many unfounded lies being propagated
| to their citizens.
|
| All that to say, good on Germany. Now U.S., get your shit
| together.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| And here I am wondering how I-5 in CA or I-75 in Atlanta having
| more lanes in one direction than most states have going in both
| directions even in their busiest of areas is blue states
| getting it or red states not getting it.
|
| Also, tying in gun control or enforced Medicare-for-all is a
| good way of convincing people who are on the edge of public
| transit to not support you politically if they are a package
| deal, which right now it appears to be.
| asdff wrote:
| This is a little bit hyperbole. I-5 through LA county is
| mostly 4-ish lanes and even chokes down to 2 lanes wide in
| boyle heights by downtown LA. Its just as wide much of podunk
| I-75 that serves Toledo, Ohio, with a population of 270k that
| declines by the year. If anything given the population
| density, the freeways in socal are underbuilt compared to
| cities out east from there who seem to have just as sprawling
| interchanges and number of lanes despite what is sometimes an
| order of magnitude difference in population.
| water554 wrote:
| I'm not jealous about gun control. Because if somebody breaks
| into my house, I can protect my family myself instead of
| calling 911 and waiting for them to never show up. Have fun
| waiting for the police, I hope nothing bad ever happens to you.
| asdff wrote:
| I doubt you'd have the drop in this sort of situation if it
| were to play out, not to mention you just guaranteed the
| situation will progress violently.
| willio58 wrote:
| https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-
| guns-m...
|
| https://www.rand.org/research/gun-
| policy/analysis/essays/199...
|
| To be honest, I don't really care if you have a pistol or a
| shotgun even. I don't want assault rifles to be easily
| accessible by people who want to murder children, LTBTQ
| people, or whoever else is deemed each week to deserve a mass
| murder.
|
| I say ban all guns, or at least the guns that are designed to
| murder mass amounts of people.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Evil will always exist. You can't take evil out of
| humanity. Many places thought they could and never
| succeeded (e.g. communism thought they could somehow
| overrule mankind's tendency towards greed)
|
| Removing guns from good people will only ensure good people
| will be attacked by evil people, whether inside or outside
| of your desired utopia.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| As soon as we give up our over-sized personal income and pay
| more taxes we'll be able to have more public infrastructure.
|
| The issue seems to be people don't like the idea of only
| keeping 50% (or less) of their income + making 50% less to
| begin with. Most people that work at big tech get their big
| salaries because the companies profit in data-mining ways that
| would be more regulated in Europe.
| danhor wrote:
| While the US is investing less in transit than other
| countries, the projects themselves are silly expensive
| compared to other countries. For how little transit is used
| in the US, it's amazing how much (relative) funding there is.
|
| To get the US towards building much more transit (and other
| infrastructure) there are many hurdles, but one of the main
| ones is building useful things for non-obscene amounts of
| money.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| yeah, that goes back to us paying people more than other
| countries. People in the US make a killing managing
| projects, working in the office, etc... not to mention the
| huge amounts the C-Suite as salary and bonuses for their
| leadership on these projects.
| danhor wrote:
| At least according to some, this isn't the (only) cause:
| https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2023/0
| 4/t... People get paid similar to other countries, but
| the whole structure is much less productive. There are
| also many other issues.
| willio58 wrote:
| I totally agree, I say TAX ME MORE.
|
| The thing is though, it's not even most higher-salaried tech
| workers that we need to tax heavier. We need to tax the rich.
| When I say the rich I don't mean people making 300k/yr. I
| mean people making a million or more per year. We need to
| massively increase the marginal tax rate at around $3 million
| to around 90%. This was how it was as recently as the 80's,
| and repealing those taxes has led to an increase in wealth
| inequality this country has never seen.
| narcindin wrote:
| When blue states show me a viable public transportation network
| for a reasonable cost I will support them in my red state.
|
| Consider the CA high speed rail a PoC for the nation. Would you
| endorse copying that model? Is Chicago increasing its
| ridership/coverage (honest question).
| willio58 wrote:
| Honestly, I couldn't tell you. I think the U.S. so far has
| failed horribly on this front. My note about blue states was
| simply that they are the only ones pushing for public
| transport like this. But will we ever see CA high-speed rail
| that's cheap and useful? I'm not sure.
|
| It's obvious that the real cost of things like highspeed rail
| come from environmental regulation and cost of land purchases
| from existing land owners. European & Asian countries have
| obviously figured out a way to streamline this process. They
| have more lax environmental restrictions and acquire land
| either through force or by never allowing people to purchase
| land outright (in the case of China I believe). I don't know
| if we want to go that far, but at a certain point we have to
| do something because riding around on congested aging
| highways everywhere is not the answer.
| generationP wrote:
| "Pushing for" is not a strategy. What I'm seeing in various
| blue US cities here is public transport falling into disuse
| in 2020, turning into a homeless encampment (often with the
| concomitant violence and theft) in 2021, and still not
| recovering in 2023. Philadelphia's SEPTA is still (2022) at
| half the 2019 ridership. It doesn't help that some lines
| got almost cancelled in 2020 (reduced to just a few trains
| per day), which likely caused a bunch of people to buy cars
| and not look back.
| snvzz wrote:
| Public, thus paid by everybody through taxes.
|
| Yet, for some reason, it can only be taken advantage of by people
| who can afford to pay the ticket.
|
| Nevermind the fact having the ticket system in the first place
| does cost money.
| nologic01 wrote:
| Rare piece of good news. Not so much the particulars (projects
| might fail for any number of reasons) but the indication that
| there is appetite for systemic change.
| zenlot wrote:
| Welcome to UK, where 40-55mins trains from neighbouring cities to
| London costs 50-110PS for a return journey and 6k+ for a yearly
| ticket. We apologize for a delay in your journey, this is due to
| staff shortage.
| pjmlp wrote:
| We also have our share of delays.
|
| It is so bad, that there are excuse generator websites with
| what the DB usually uses, or people that collect them.
|
| http://privatundfun.siteboard.org/t78f2005-Ausreden-Katalog-...
| bleep_bloop wrote:
| Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.
| lakomen wrote:
| Well, the problem is, especially in Germany. If someone is a
| "Beamter" which can't be fired, has low income, there's no
| motivation to make a good job.
|
| It took me 3 months to get a Bescheinigung uber
| Daueraufenthalt" .
|
| In theory, yes, transportation as well as communication should
| be owned by the public and available for free. A state that has
| 100 billion for buying weapons can afford that too.
|
| Buy Germany has deteriorated into a corrupt state and it still
| has a system endemic Nazi problem.
| Escapado wrote:
| I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are
| still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you
| look in certain german states.
|
| But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and
| the people working there are entirely complacent with the
| state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or
| need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait
| more than two months to get an appointment to be able to
| formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church
| tax. When I went there the woman took my ID, started typing
| all my credentials into some interface of some government
| software for 10 minutes and then I could go. I don't even
| remember saying or hearing anything but "Hello", "ID Please"
| and "Bye".
|
| Why can I not do that online with my ID? Why did she have to
| type in all my information and not get that from some other
| government body? Why is she even typing it at all of it's all
| on the ID and that could be scanned as they are entirely
| standardized. What did I wait for two months for?
|
| When I talk to people who work for the government they tell
| me it's just the process and they simply don't question it.
| Sometimes some complain but there is little or nothing to be
| gained. And I think herein lies a bigger part of the problem.
| The structure does not reward or incentivise improvement.
|
| And so I would argue the problem is not one of being publicly
| or privately owned but about the structures that provide
| incentive to offer good service. And if there is none -
| regardless of the ownership model - then most likely it will
| fall flat. When you have privately owned monopolies you see a
| similar effect - they don't need to improve affairs, they
| just need to stay in power.
| beebeepka wrote:
| > I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment
| to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid
| paying church tax.
|
| Learning something new every day. How does it work. When
| and how does one get signed up for this lovely tax
| eska wrote:
| You automatically get signed up for it if your parents
| were in the church and paid tax. You have to pay a fee to
| get out of it and keep your paper document forever in
| case the government forgets you don't owe that tax for 20
| years past
| lispm wrote:
| The church does not want you to leave, so they want to make
| it difficult. The government also has no interest to make
| that easier.
|
| It has very little to do with bureaucracy. It's about
| supporting the large churches.
|
| In some regions there is a lot of additional (social)
| pressure to prevent people from leaving the church.
| helge9210 wrote:
| > Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she
| even typing it at all
|
| Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will
| she do?
|
| If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people
| doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this
| evil, since people are losing their means of earning
| salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since
| they have guaranteed employment.
|
| [Edit: typo]
| nforgerit wrote:
| German speaking here. Keeping people busy with bullsh*t
| jobs just for the sake of keeping them busy is not a good
| investment, not financially nor for the sanity of the
| people themselves.
|
| In fact, in Germany you can see that it leads to
| government paralysis everywhere. In contrast, they should
| free "Staatsbeamte" from those stupid jobs and encourage
| them to start thinking themselves instead of blindly
| executing top-down commands. No jobs lost, but talent
| attracted. This eventually leads to operational
| excellence. The current state of affairs is overly
| defensive and reactionary.
| helge9210 wrote:
| I live and work in Germany for almost two years now.
|
| I witnessed at least two panic attacks caused by the
| implementation of your suggestion to "encourage them to
| start thinking themselves instead of blindly executing
| top-down commands".
| meghan_rain wrote:
| elaborate?
| [deleted]
| atq2119 wrote:
| By this point, there can't be too many "Beamte" left in
| Germany's railway and public transit systems. After all,
| nobody there has received that status since the 90s.
| ivan_gammel wrote:
| Ownership is no more than a collection of rights on what to do
| with the owned asset that is recognized by society. Regulate
| more and there won't be much difference between private and
| public property, so ownership is less relevant than financial
| and incentive framework around public transportation system.
| dahwolf wrote:
| Probably, although people would read too much into the word
| "owned" in that case. It's still going to be operated and
| supplied by private companies.
| odiroot wrote:
| How is it controversial? It many countries this a normal thing.
| Even in strongly capitalist UK a good few municipalities own
| their bus system.
| cromka wrote:
| [flagged]
| rnk wrote:
| Haha - at the same time many libertarians / conservatives
| want there to be no infrastructure owned by the public!
| Another way we are at war with ourselves in the good old
| semi-public private USA.
| Demonto wrote:
| How is your comment connected to publicly owned local
| transport?
| tfourb wrote:
| Because public transport _is_ owned by the public (or
| publicly owned entities) in many places outside the US. In
| Europe, it is the norm, not the exception, as is the case
| in many other places that have some sort of socialism
| /social democratic history.
| konschubert wrote:
| It's also owned by the public in most places of the US?
| How do you think the MTA or BART is financed?
| kelnos wrote:
| Huh? How is the idea that public transit should be publicly
| owned Americentric? A stereotypical/caricatured Americentric
| take on that would be to privatize everything.
| neximo64 wrote:
| Because its publicly owned in most places publicly (Japan,
| China, Europe , Australia, Russia, India, South East Asia,
| Africa... It seemingly is only the US & Canada where it
| isn't
|
| So bringing it up is very American since the comment
| doesn't work anywhere else.
| werlrndkis wrote:
| [dead]
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| They were at one point, but capitalism said everything needs to
| make a profit.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The pyramid scheme grinds to an halt, if it does not.
| Everything goto join the MLM scheme, or those running the
| whole affair get a existential crisis.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Central banking and social security are the MLM schemes.
| Free markets, if we had them, would rebalance that kind of
| thing.
| govolckurself wrote:
| [dead]
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| Sure, but completely unrestricted _free markets_ would
| also reintroduce slavery etc. to the modern world.
|
| Free markets are great at reducing inefficiencies in a
| world in which no participant decides to coordinate with
| other participants for profit. which obviously doesn't
| work, just like communism doesnt work at societal scales.
| wunderland wrote:
| Not controversial in the handful of countries where public
| transportation is efficient and ubiquitous. Americans are fed
| constant propaganda about how publicly owned anything isn't
| possible, sold to them by the very people whose profits rely on
| this being true.
| tfourb wrote:
| It technically is in many places around Germany: The national
| railway infrastructure is owned by a government-owned entity,
| as is the main railway company. Many municipal public transport
| systems are also owned directly by the municipalities
| themselves, although there are also some semi-privatized
| systems and the national railway company also owns shares of
| municipal public transport systems in many major cities.
|
| Still, public ownership itself is not really sufficient to
| guarantee great public transport. In Germany, prevailing
| opinion is that public transport should break even or cost the
| public purse as little as possible. The effect is that many
| communities especially in rural and urban marginalized places
| are underserved by public transport and many smaller cities
| have been disconnected from the railway grid.
|
| In my view public transport should be both owned by the public
| and viewed as a true public good: similarly to basic education,
| healthcare, electricity and clean water, every citizen should
| have access to a decent level of service, no matter how cost
| efficient it would be.
| wheels wrote:
| My inclination to agree that public transit should mostly be
| a nationalized utility. But some experience in rural areas
| leads me to a counterargument that I don't have a good answer
| for:
|
| Should people that live in urban spaces massively subsidize
| people that choose to live in rural areas for no economically
| useful reason? Like, some tech bros decide they don't want
| neighbors and want to live 20 km from everything. Should the
| city folk subsidize their preferences? Maybe it should be
| recouped in local taxes? Should that be covered by
| agricultural tax breaks?
|
| Mostly I think public transit should be a public service. But
| I don't think it's a given that rich people's preferences
| should be subsidized just because they want to live in remote
| or suburban areas.
| okr wrote:
| I agree. And to finance it, everyone should serve a year of
| their life for public services like that. So it does not look
| like, that we want public goods, but someone else but not me
| has to do the work. The tax burden is already so high.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > And to finance it, everyone should serve a year of their
| life for public services like that.
|
| To people who argue like this, I often argued in the past
| that if I were to contribute on an open source project for
| one year instead, this would do a lot more good for the
| public welfare.
| okr wrote:
| As far as i can see it, we need muscle power, that is not
| well paid, as it does not scale well. Less software.
| Software is just fine.
| throwaway60607 wrote:
| I am a person, not your muscle.
| konschubert wrote:
| > everyone should serve a year of their life
|
| Why not just spend a year's worth of taxes on it?
|
| Much more efficient than training a million teenagers to
| drive the bus every year...
| qwytw wrote:
| > The tax burden is already so high
|
| It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease
| worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of
| their life for public services'.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> It will only get higher if we try to intentionally
| decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a
| year of their life for public services'._
|
| That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well.
| The healthcare and social service systems would not be
| able to function without the mandatory and voluntary
| unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they
| hit off for university.
|
| What worker productivity do you think society is loosing
| out on here? We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not
| experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their
| well paying jobs.
|
| The labor they provide and experience they earn in the
| social system is far more valuable to society than the
| taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time
| job waiting tables in a restaurant or flipping burgers at
| McDs instead.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Do you have some links / google keywords about the
| teenagers working in healthcare/social services in
| Austria?
| panick21_ wrote:
| If you are interested in the Swiss system:
|
| https://www.ch.ch/en/safety-and-justice/military-service-
| and...
|
| If you want to see open positions for the system you can
| see here (not in English):
|
| https://www.ezivi.admin.ch/ivy/faces/instances/eZIVI/Publ
| ikB...
|
| You can search for different keywords to find open
| positions. For me personally I worked in:
|
| - Hospital as a Programmer (they made position for me)
|
| - In another hospital as Technician (hanging up stuff,
| changing light-bulls, assessing damage, configuring doors
| and so on)
|
| - Old people home, I worked for in technical service,
| including garden work.
|
| - Old people home, I also worked as a cleaner, mostly
| windows, floors and so on.
|
| In the hospital you can also work as a bed mover for
| example. You can work directly in old people care and
| things.
|
| In general there are 100s of position, some position are
| even going with international aid organization to other
| countries. A friend of mine did his in archeology
| departments digging up old stuff. Another friends simply
| did farm work with a mountain farmer, that's the easiest
| to get (he in fact simply was to lazy to get a job so
| they assigned him to a farmer).
| eska wrote:
| It seems like you do not realize that the 30 year olds
| who don't flip burgers and make more than minimum age
| were once those 19 year olds whose career you've delayed
| by 1 year.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| It's the system the democratic voters have voted to keep.
| eska wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
|
| Is this even something people voted on directly or is it
| just one point among many in each party's total stance to
| vote for?
| buran77 wrote:
| > The healthcare and social service systems would not be
| able to function without the mandatory and voluntary
| unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they
| hit off for university.
|
| Interesting take. Is there any supporting official
| position on this or just personal opinion?
|
| If true I find it very scary that a country's health and
| social services systems would crumble were it not for the
| 3 months per year the teenagers of the country
| contribute. How do these systems handle the rest of the 9
| months every year when the teenagers are unavailable on
| account of being in school. Why would a healthy society
| operate at the very limit of crashing down because the
| natality dropped or parents/teenagers start refusing to
| provide this service?
|
| Now I've dealt with _a lot_ of trainees in my life. All
| university graduates, including with PhDs. They all take
| weeks to months full time on the job until they 're ready
| to do anything productive in the simplest of jobs. I
| can't imagine teenagers being or becoming anywhere near
| productive enough in 3 months per year (with 9 month
| breaks) to support a country's healthcare system from
| collapsing. And that's not even touching on the topic
| that you're forcing children to give up what's probably
| the last carefree time of their lives to do a job they
| may not want and are definitely not prepared to do.
| konschubert wrote:
| That's a false dichotomy.
|
| It's not: Do we get a million teenagers or not?
|
| There is a third option:
|
| Let those teenagers join the workforce, use the revenue
| from the increased societal productivity to hire more
| professional workers in the health care system.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Is there any supporting official position on this or
| just personal opinion?_
|
| The government figures and claims are supporting this
| opinion. In fact, it's been the government's opinion, not
| mine. I'm just quoting it.
|
| _> If true I find it very scary that a country's health
| and social service systems would crumble were it not for
| the 3 months per year the teenagers of the country
| contribut_
|
| 9 months not 3, and yes, that's socialized care for you
| and an aging population when you have too many people in
| need of care, and too little contributions into the
| system since the economy has stagnated post 2008 and
| taxes are already high enough and no more money can be
| obtained this way. And it's not just healthcare work, but
| all social services like kindergartens, retirement homes,
| refugees homes, etc. that make use of 9 months of teenage
| labor.
|
| _> I can 't imagine teenagers being or becoming anywhere
| near productive enough in 3 months per year_
|
| You don't need too long training to be qualified to drive
| an ambulance or perform CPR. At least not here. Teenagers
| are quite smart and quick learners if you treat them
| well.
|
| _> you're forcing children to give up what's probably
| the last carefree time of their lives to do a job they
| may not want and are definitely not prepared to do._
|
| The military service is forced nation-wide (a system kept
| through democratic vote), while doing social public civil
| work is the alternative choice if you feel the military
| is not for you.
|
| And the children get paid for it, and for many it's the
| camaraderie and opportunity to meet other young people
| from other parts of the country/city and make life long
| friends or meet future spouses while learning useful
| social and life skills and feeling a sense of self worth
| for contributing to society, especially in the context of
| the west having a loneliness and depression epidemic
| among teens. It's also an opportunity for silver spoon
| kids of privilege families to get to interact with the
| lower classes of society and soo how others live, through
| this kind of work.
|
| You're making it sounds like they're prisoners for life,
| but they're still free to go binge drinking and care free
| sex in the south of Spain after.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > You don't need too long training to be qualified to
| drive an ambulance or perform CPR. At least not here.
| Teenagers are quite smart and quick learners if you treat
| them well.
|
| What? I did civil service in Switzerland and while there
| are some jobs that require CPR courses to be done before
| hand, in non is it actually expected that you need it
| regularly. And for absolutely sure will they not let 18
| year old drive ambulances, that's utterly insane.
|
| Can you show me prove that in Austria they let 18 year
| old civil service people drive ambulances? Because I know
| for a fact this is not happening in Switzerland.
| buran77 wrote:
| > The government figures and claims are supporting this
| opinion. In fact, it's been the government's opinion, not
| mine. I'm just quoting it.
|
| I believe you but since you're passing this on then
| you/they must also have more than some words in support.
| When critical systems would collapse were it not for
| teenagers being asked to work a job it calls into
| question both the competence of the leadership to lead
| and of the people to choose them. There's a reason most
| countries don't do this beyond basic apprenticeships on
| limited scale. What happens if this year teenagers start
| looking more towards the military following events like
| the war in Ukraine, do those civil services come tumbling
| down? You and the government make this sound like a
| country being driven at the edge of collapse.
|
| > You don't need too long training to be qualified to
| drive an ambulance or perform CPR.
|
| Right? Who could be more qualified to operate a critical
| emergency vehicle or bring someone back to life than a
| person who until yesterday wasn't allowed even to vote.
| What a thing to say...
|
| > The military service is forced nation-wide
|
| Mandatory military conscription is an act of desperation
| in the face of potential national annihilation. Most
| countries abolished it and even the ones who kept it
| start at 18. Is the Austrian civil service conscription
| an equally desperate move? Or an attempt to raise a
| "working generation" from as young an age as possible
| while giving those kids the alternatives "this or the
| military"?
|
| > and for many it's the camaraderie and opportunity to
| meet other young people from other parts of the
| country/city and make life long friends or meet future
| spouses.
|
| Sure, except literally not because they'd get the very
| same by going to school or university. They don't need to
| be forced into a job they don't want because the country
| will fail otherwise unless it's the only way they'd do
| it. The only incontestable reason is because it's
| mandatory, everything else is rationalizing and looking
| for a silver lining.
| qwytw wrote:
| > Mandatory military conscription is an act of
| desperation in the face of potential national
| annihilation
|
| Most neutral European countries like Switzerland, Norway,
| Sweden, Finland and Austria have maintained it to one
| degree or another. I don't think it's generally viewed as
| 'an act of desperation' by most people in those countries
| or even that unpopular.
| buran77 wrote:
| Agreed but but that's exactly the point. Sweden and
| Finland have Russia even pushing them out of neutrality
| and towards NATO. Switzerland is a big repository of
| mostly illegal fortunes from all over the world and has
| to stay neutral to maintain this status, so it makes
| sense to extend its own defensive capabilities as much as
| it can. In Norway it's debatable, the obligativity is not
| enforced. You also have Greece where the conflict with
| Turkey drives mandatory conscription.
|
| For these countries mandatory military service is very
| much an act of desperation. Maybe the word doesn't ring
| the right note in people's heads but it's accurate. If
| avoiding scenarios like in Ukraine doesn't call for
| desperate decisions I don't know what does.
|
| But discussing the popularity is moot. The people of
| those countries understand the _necessity_ driven by
| external factors. They chose neutrality, not their
| neighbors, so they have to compromise somewhere out of
| practical need and the desperation of the alternative.
| This being said you can only assess the popularity of
| something when it becomes a free choice rather than
| obligation.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> you can only assess the popularity of something when
| it becomes a free choice rather than obligation._
|
| Democratic elections and referendums have assessed this
| and the majority of the population has voted in favor of
| this system. For better or worse, that's democracy for
| ya'.
| buran77 wrote:
| Not sure it's so simple. Most of the voting population is
| past the age where this affects them and people (I must
| admit I fall in that trap quite often) have the mentality
| that "it was done to me and look how well I turned out,
| so I'll do it to them". The _only_ way to see if people
| want it is to give them the choice _when the time comes_.
|
| > the population has voted
|
| But as you said earlier, it's the same population and
| elected leaders who let critical systems and services
| degrade to the point where they would stop working
| without forcing children to work. Even agreeing this
| doesn't put the people in a bad light decision-wise, in
| this position it's no longer a choice but a necessity.
| Hence my incessant question whether the government's
| statement that "services will fail without child work" is
| supported by some study or it's just a scare tactic to
| get people to vote a certain way.
|
| Yes, democracy is about getting the people's vote of
| confidence. How you earn that confidence is outside the
| democratic process and could be as simple as "feed them
| BS".
| panick21_ wrote:
| I can only say from the Swiss perspective, critical
| system and service are not degraded and the system would
| work perfectly fine without a few 10000 civil service
| works. And I don't think this is true for Austria either.
|
| > Yes, democracy is about getting the people's vote of
| confidence. How you earn that confidence is outside the
| democratic process and could be as simple as "feed them
| BS".
|
| In Switzerland getting people vote is about much more
| then confidence as we vote regularly on actual issues,
| not just on people or parties. And because its
| Concordance system all parties share a certain amount of
| confidence form the population.
|
| The political discussion about mandatory military
| services are certainly happening and have been for a very
| long time. Generally, in a conservative society you need
| to have a really convincing reason to change something,
| and in Switzerland at least nobody has come up with a
| great alternative that convinces many people so the
| system stays as it it.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I believe you but since you're passing this on then
| you/they must also have more than some words in support._
|
| I am not supporting this, I only said it's how it works
| here.
|
| _> Right? Who could be more qualified to operate a
| critical emergency vehicle or bring someone back to life
| than a person who until yesterday wasn't allowed even to
| vote._
|
| And yet at their age they seem qualified enough for the
| US to send them to war in the Middle East or give them
| access to TOP-SECRET military intelligence[1] before
| they're even allowed to drink beer. You're needlessly
| discrediting youths for a cheap shot at an argument.
| Those people who barely got to vote, as you call them,
| are functioning members of society, who were vetted
| beforehand and given 3+ months of full time training and
| supervision by licensed and more experienced personnel
| before they get to perform CPR. Also, CPR isn't that
| difficult or risky, especially when you don't live in a
| society of ambulance chasing lawyers where everyone sues
| everyone for the slightest inconvenience.
|
| _> What a thing to say..._
|
| I'm not saying this, the facts are. Austrian healthcare
| and social system, with all its flaws, does a far better
| job serving the majority of the population, especially
| the poor and the vulnerable, than the American one does.
| But let's not get into that right now.
|
| _> Sure, except literally not because they'd get the
| very same by going to school or university._
|
| They go to school and university anyway except with
| social work there's no grades or exams you need to study
| for making the time served there less stressful and more
| focused on the social and practical experience. Plus it's
| a more diverse setting than university where you mostly
| meet people with shared domains and interests as you.
|
| _> Mandatory military conscription is an act of
| desperation in the face of potential national
| annihilation._
|
| You're false again. I don't support mandatory
| conscription but it's how neutral non-NATO EU nations get
| to defend their neutrality and provide a detergent
| against aggressors. The military also has plenty of uses
| even in peace times, such as natural disasters and what
| not.
|
| [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/04/27/politics/jack-
| teixeira-de...
| buran77 wrote:
| > I am not supporting this
|
| Ugh, "in support" of the veracity of the statement. _You_
| wrote that "the healthcare and social service systems
| would not be able to function" without the work of
| teenagers. I just wanted to know if you have any solid
| evidence of this. I will assume not, suspect that this is
| the usual political bamboozle people fall for when an
| explanation is needed, and move on.
|
| > And yet at their age they seem qualified enough for the
| US
|
| I'm not sure why you'd bring this into the discussion.
| It's devoid of value as far as whataboutism goes but
| indeed, I agree that it's very wrong in that case too.
| How about this: some of the US also considers child
| marriage and subsequent sexual relations, or hard
| agricultural work legal starting the age of 12. Hitching
| your wagon to the "others do it too" argument can
| backfire.
|
| I'm sure those teenagers are functioning members of
| society but their function isn't to be forced into adult
| jobs at that age. If they want to pursue a career in this
| have them watch and learn, like any other teenager is
| expected in school or university.
|
| > I'm not saying this, the facts are.
|
| Just follow what I'm quoting. You are saying that "You
| don't need too long training to be qualified to drive an
| ambulance or perform CPR". You're being dismissive of an
| entire profession as "a child can do it with a bit of
| training". It's not helping your argument. You actually
| need more than a bit of experience before driving any car
| safely, let alone an emergency vehicle in a critical
| situation. A teenager shouldn't be pushed in this kind of
| job. They have 40-50 years to do exactly that once
| they're just a bit older.
|
| > Austrian healthcare and social system [...] does a far
| better job [...] than the American one does.
|
| That's great. And again I have to say, how does this
| comparison help? When is it ever useful to compare to
| someone not doing a good job? This just says you can do
| worse. Focus on how to do better.
|
| > You're false again.
|
| And yet you go on to confirm that it's how they defend
| against aggressors, an indisputably desperate situation.
| That's _exactly_ what desperation means, doing something
| to prevent /mitigate one of the worst situations a
| country can be in.
|
| Now I sense that you made some assumptions about me,
| given the repeated US references. I'm European, my
| opinion about what the US is doing on internal social
| aspects, or external military/political aspects could be
| better. And I lived and worked in Austria for years many
| eons ago. I hope that helps you put in context what I
| said. Let me boil it down: let children be children; at
| the edge of adulthood let them choose where they go and
| guide them, don't force them, unless there is a desperate
| situation; use your critical thinking and don't believe
| (or worse, promote) the vagaries your government sells
| you when they want something their way.
|
| Anyway, enlightening talk.
| [deleted]
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> You 're being dismissive of an entire profession as "a
| child can do it with a bit of training". It's not helping
| your argument. _
|
| Nobody is being dismissive of anything. I'm just showing
| you proof that 17 year olds can also be professionals in
| that field because what is a professional, but someone
| who received professional levels of training and got
| certified. Guess what? So are those 17-19 year old boys
| and girls to the same standards of much older people.
|
| In fact you're the one being dismissive and ageist
| because you think young people can't be trained to do a
| job just because of their age.
|
| _> A teenager shouldn 't be pushed in this kind of job._
|
| And yet they seem to be doing it just fine. And they are
| not pushed, they can choose for which service they
| volunteer. They can work in kindergartens, but many
| choose emergency services because of the practical life
| skills learned there, camaraderie, and other personal
| reasons.
|
| _> don 't force them, unless there is a desperate
| situation; use your critical thinking and don't believe
| (or worse, promote) the vagaries your government sells
| you when they want something their way._
|
| Nobody is forcing them, and it's not my government as I'm
| not Austrian, and the government doesn't benefit from
| this as the kids don't do work for the government but
| they provide work for their own citizens, neighbors, etc.
|
| It seems strange to outsiders like you and me, but this
| is the path that the Austrian society has democratically
| chosen for its kids and it seems to be working for them.
| Why judge someone else because they're different? School
| kids in Japan also clean their classrooms instead of
| janitors.
| tfourb wrote:
| Germany used to have a very similar system to Austria's
| up until a few years ago. Same deal: do military service
| or "civil service" instead for 9 months. It was in theory
| compulsory for all male 18 year olds, but getting
| disqualified on medical grounds was fairly easy. Still,
| most young men chose to do it and they were an essential
| part of Germany's health care system and many other
| social services (and also eco-conservation).
|
| The system was abolished because compulsory military
| service was not a great fit for the kind of army the
| politicians wanted anymore and cost a lot of money. The
| health care and social sector has faced some struggles as
| a result. While some of the vacancies have been filled by
| a new voluntary service scheme, overall it has
| contributed to a lack of service workers and it has
| increased costs.
|
| I have done civil service and must say it was a fantastic
| time. Basically anyone I know who did it looks back at
| the civil service fondly, as it is much like university
| in terms of the social opportunities, but you get some
| money on the side. Military service on the other hand was
| reportedly much more of mixed bag (as you'd expect, I
| guess).
| this_user wrote:
| > We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced
| workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying
| jobs.
|
| But these people are starting university one year later,
| which means they graduate a year later, which means these
| badly needed, highly qualified workers become available
| to the job market a year later, because they have to
| spend their time doing some menial job that most of them
| have no interest in doing. We used to have this nonsense
| in Germany. Most of the people I know were just goofing
| off, were drunk or high on the job, or were deliberately
| destroying equipment, because nobody wanted to be there.
| areyousure wrote:
| > It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and
| social service systems would not be able to function
| without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work
| of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for
| university.
|
| In case anyone is curious, this appears to refer to the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst_in_Austria
| which is an alternative to conscription in the Austrian
| Armed Forces. Conscription applies to men (but not
| women), and this alternative civil service option is
| chosen by ~40% of these young men.
| panick21_ wrote:
| I have done social service instead of military in
| Switzerland where we have the same system. In fact we
| have to do 1.5 years of before we are 30. I worked in at
| least 5 (old people homes and hospitals) different
| positions. In not a single one of them is it true to say
| the system couldn't function if not for the civil service
| workers.
|
| Simply paying normal people to do that work would be
| perfectly reasonable.
|
| > is far more valuable to society than the taxes they
| would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting
| tables
|
| Yeah but most people don't actually work minimum wage
| jobs. Me as a Software Developer spend 6 month cleaning
| windows. While this was reasonable fun and low stress not
| sure my window cleaning experience has this great benefit
| for society.
|
| > not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from
| their well paying jobs
|
| You start your job one year later and therefore spend 1
| year less doing it before retirement, not sure how this
| is difficult to figure out.
| hannob wrote:
| It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case.
|
| The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems
| with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which
| causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are
| overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport
| association has its own ticketing system, and they really like
| to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step in the
| right direction here, as it is one ticket for most
| (unfortunately with a few exceptions...) local public
| transport.
| redprince wrote:
| > It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the
| case.
|
| Well... sort of, but the incentives are broken. Simplified
| version of what has happened so far: In 1994 the Deutsche
| Bundesbahn was fused with the eastern Reichbahn and converted
| into the Deutsche Bahn AG. The German state is the owner of
| this company but the corporation is run as it were publicly
| traded. Getting it onto the stock market at least in part was
| a goal but the last attempt was scrapped after the 2007
| financial crisis.
|
| The results of privatization were quite destructive though.
| In an attempt to make the Deutsche Bahn AG more profitable,
| cost cutting measures were implemented. The led to a sharp
| decline of rail transport service in rural areas. Furthermore
| expensive railway switches on main lines were dramatically
| reduced in numbers, hampering the ability to route traffic
| around disturbances on a track. The rest of the
| infrastructure is less maintained and more likely to be run
| until it wears out. People have accused the Deutsche Bahn AG
| that they are skimping on maintenance as a cost saving
| measure, because new construction to replace broken
| infrastructure will be paid by the state, but maintenance is
| not and thus cutting into the profits.
|
| The DB AG has been mismanaged for at least 30 years and it
| shows. If I had one wish, I'd really would like to see the DB
| AG aspiring to the punctuality and general quality of service
| offered by the Swiss Federal Railways.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Japanese railway is all privatized and easily beats
| everything they have in Switzerland.
|
| It's not a matter of private vs. public.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Japanese railway don't easily beat everything in
| Switzerland. If you look at rural service Swiss service
| is often just as good or better and more punctual.
|
| Japanese punctuality numbers are inflated because their
| high punctuality of their high speed trains that run on
| dedicated separated infrastructure. In fact, large reason
| that punctuality in Switzerland suffers is because
| international trains that mess up the schedule (looking
| at you Germany).
|
| And unlike Japan Switzerland is also world leading in
| using railway cargo transport, that also has to share the
| same infrastructure.
|
| But in general, its not just about public and private,
| that a simplified vision. Its something for politicians
| to talk about rather then talking about the actual
| details of the system.
|
| While Japan is privately operated, its certainty still
| under public control.
|
| In fact in Switzerland there are quite a few railway
| companies for both cargo and people using the same
| infrastructure. Some of them are semi-private or owned by
| local governments or a mix of other organizations. The
| Semi-Private Post office runs its own trains for example.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability,
| and plenty of lines that are overused. > The 49 euro ticket
| is a step in the right direction here, ...
|
| Errm, you do see the contradiction here, no?
|
| The 49 Euro ticket is actually heavily subsidized which means
| more tax payer money is wasted that could be invested into
| the infrastructure of public transport.
| Demonto wrote:
| It's just stupidity.
|
| It should have no issue at all to align German wide but they
| never did it.
|
| The Munich MVG for example is doing an experiment were you
| can pay by an app from some us company were you just start
| and stop your journey with a button and the app gives you the
| best price.
|
| They could have instead just created some German wide
| software company sponsored by all the local public transport
| agencies and just do it themselves.
|
| It's ridiculousl that modern problems are often not technical
| problems:-(
| tfourb wrote:
| The issue is not the lack of technical expertise. The
| structure of the German public transport system is very
| localized, due to its historical growth. local networks are
| often owned by the municipalities that they are serving,
| the actual busses are sometimes provided by private
| companies on contract, the national railway carrier has
| contracts with state governments and certain local entities
| for specific services, national, state and local
| governments are subsidizing various services, etc.
|
| I completely agree that it is a mess, but it is not really
| easy to solve with so many stakeholders and so many
| (sometimes conflicting but valid) different priorities at
| stake.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > They could have instead just created some German wide
| software company sponsored by all the local public
| transport agencies and just do it themselves.
|
| But that already works with the >>DB Navigator<< app by
| Deutsche Bahn.
|
| You can buy tickets for many local public transport
| companies. No need to download a custom app.
| rippercushions wrote:
| It's hard to overemphasize just how fucked up public
| transport ticketing in Germany is. As a simple example,
| you're a tourist in Cologne for a few days, what's the best
| ticket if you're planning to travel around the city and take
| a day trip to the nearby city of Wuppertal (but across the
| Verkehrsbund boundary, alas) to ride the famous monorail?
| thanatos519 wrote:
| Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be
| funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > Even more: Public transport is a public good which should
| be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without
| cost.
|
| A lot of public transport runs on fossil fuels. Especially,
| since Germany was so >>smart<< to shutdown all nuclear
| reactors so that coal has become the most important source of
| electricity again.
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| Why is it a public good? It only benefits the individuals who
| are travelling. If I take the train to visit my sister, I
| don't see how that is in the public's interest.
| NoZebra120vClip wrote:
| Public transit gets the workers to where they need to go to
| serve you at your Starbucks, your Target, your luxury
| hotels, you name it.
|
| Public transit gets consumers to the mall and other
| shopping areas where they can circulate their hard-earned
| cash in a capitalist economic system.
|
| Public transit gets individual cars off the road, increases
| safety of those roads, and makes everybody's transportation
| more efficient.
| kelnos wrote:
| Most public goods don't benefit everyone equally; that's
| never the case, and that's fine.
|
| My house has never been on fire (knock on wood), but I'm
| perfectly happy that my taxes pay for a fire department. I
| don't often use the park up the street that's currently
| undergoing a massive renovation/rebuild, but I'm happy that
| my taxes are paying for the renovation. I don't drive on
| every single road in the city, but I'm glad my tax dollars
| make it possible for people to get around even in places
| where I don't need to go. I don't have kids (and don't plan
| to), but I'm happy that the taxes I pay go toward educating
| the kids who live here.
|
| Many public transit agencies are run at a loss; I'm
| absolutely fine with my tax dollars making up the
| difference. From there it's just a matter of degree: is it
| fully funded by taxes, or still partially funded by fare
| revenue? I'd be fine with the former, too.
| hannob wrote:
| If you take the train and not the car, you cause a lot less
| externalities.
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| It may be the case that I cause a lot less externalities,
| but I don't think that affects the definition of a public
| good. If I visited my friend by using a motorcycle, I'd
| cause less externalities too, but I don't think
| motorcycles are public goods. Same with scooters, e-bikes
| and normal bikes.
| werlrndkis wrote:
| [dead]
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| > but I don't think that affects the definition of a
| public good
|
| You happen to be misconstruing the two definitions of
| "public good":
|
| > a commodity or service that is provided without profit
| to all members of a society, either by the government or
| a private individual or organization.
|
| > the benefit or well-being of the public.
|
| As such, something can be a "public good" without being
| "a benefit".
|
| [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZ
| oHHbOut...
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| I don't think I'm misconstruing these two definitions,
| because I didn't talk about the definitions you just
| brought up. I also think it is quite clear that I'm
| talking about what the government should or shouldn't
| provide, not what some specific government currently is
| providing.
| wunderland wrote:
| Why should we all pay for roads and bridges? I don't have a
| car. Why should the government pay for hospitals? I'm not
| sick.
| Hasnep wrote:
| By that logic, why is anything a public good? If I drink
| water from a public water fountain why is that in the
| public's interest?
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| > If I drink water from a public water fountain why is
| that in the public's interest?
|
| If there were no fountain, then many people would get
| water bottles and that's too big of a hassle.
|
| Defining a public good is quite hard, and any definition
| will most likely other controversial terms like
| "reasonably" or "foreseeable" in them. However, I think a
| public good is something that can be shared by many
| people in reasonable amounts, and that cannot reasonably
| be attained by the average individual. It is usually
| characterized by its scale.
|
| So for example, you can't build your own park, but you
| can use the public park without blasting your music on
| max volume.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _If there were no fountain, then many people would get
| water bottles and that 's too big of a hassle._
|
| Right, and if there was no public transit, then many more
| people would need to buy and drive cars, and that's not
| great for the public's interest either.
| ben_w wrote:
| Public parks you don't sit in are still public goods;
| public litter bins are still public goods even if you never
| have anything to put into them; public roads are still a
| public good even if you don't own a vehicle.
|
| Likewise, if you want them to be, so is public transport.
|
| Though, here's a question: I don't think I've ever seen
| planes classified as public transport -- is that just my
| observations being weird, or is that a true distinction?
| And if genuine, why?
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| [dead]
| rippercushions wrote:
| People usually distinguish between local and long-
| distance travel, nobody is arguing that bullet trains
| should be free and planes fall into the same category.
|
| The fact that long-distance highways tend to be free
| speaks more to politics than logic, and there are a few
| notable exceptions (eg Japan) where all expressways are
| tolled.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Highways are also tolled in Italy and I think France, its
| not that exceptional.
|
| And in Switzerland for example you just pay a really high
| gas tax that funds the highway, plus you have to pay a
| one time fee and get a sticker, otherwise you are not
| allowed to drive on the highway.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> I don 't think I've ever seen planes classified as
| public transport_
|
| In remote parts of the world, planes absolutely should be
| classified as public transport. Remote towns in Alaska,
| for example, are essentially inaccessible without bush
| planes.
|
| However, planes are expensive to operate on a per-
| passenger basis, and in most places there are cheaper
| ways to facilitate helping people move around, especially
| since most trips from most people are short-distance.
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| >public parks, public litter bins, public roads These
| examples are permanent things, that only need to be
| maintained, and it's easier to just let the government
| handle them instead of letting the individual pay or
| having a subscription model or something alike. Also: all
| the public goods you mentioned cannot be managed by any
| single individual, that's why they are in the public
| hand, but it only goes so far as your activity is in
| "public range". You can't pave your own roads, you can't
| carry a trash can with you wherever you go and you can't
| play football in your house. That's why the government
| gives you roads, parks and trash cans. But: it is not
| allowed to put your house trash into a public bin. Or
| have a barbecue in the public park, or block the roads
| for a protest.
|
| I think using the train is more like using the car. I can
| agree that the tracks are a public good, but actually
| using the train is clearly different from that. Just like
| the government provides me roads, but not with rides.
|
| > I don't think I've ever seen planes classified as
| public transport I guess my framework fits that, because
| while you may need to maintain the air and the airport,
| the individual flights only help the individual person.
| danaris wrote:
| This is a very individualistic and American view of what a
| "public good" should be.
| BasedGroyper99 wrote:
| I'm neither an individualist nor an American. I'm
| actually from Germany and experienced how the 3 months of
| Deutschlandticket affected the people around me.
| josefx wrote:
| Only if you assume a road network of infinite size which
| goods and various services can traverse without any
| interference from private car owners. Which a short look at
| any given city during peak hours should disprove and those
| roads are not free either.
| urbandw311er wrote:
| It's in the public interest because we want you to choose a
| greener more sustainable transport option, such as the
| train.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It depends on the quality of the government and administrators.
| panick21_ wrote:
| That's one of those grand standing issues that many people like
| to focus on. The reality is the is a wild mix of private,
| public and everything in between out there in the world. And
| some system that are increasingly good have combinations of
| everything.
|
| Generally speaking making great announcements about how things
| will be and how an idealized version should look like often
| distracts from making the incremental improvements necessary to
| ever get to this point.
|
| To many time is wasted in politics arguing about fundamental
| principles and almost non about actually improving the
| situation of transit riders. If you have a shitty semi private
| system, just taking public ownership often doesn't improve
| service at all.
|
| Usually there are 10 things that would be easier to do and help
| people more. Once you actually have larger part of the public
| using it, then you have a better argument to make it public.
| timellis-smith wrote:
| Theres a really interesting graph showing rail usage under both
| public and private ownership in GB.
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GB...
|
| I'll let you draw your own conclusions
|
| From this page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| That seems to align with the state of the British economy
| more than anything else.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| [dead]
| HPsquared wrote:
| The infrastructure (railways and stations) is still publicly
| owned under Network Rail. Only the trains themselves are
| privately owned (often by foreign state-owned enterprises,
| funnily enough)
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| Nobody should be drawing any conclusions from a graph like
| that, since it provides no useful information allowing anyone
| to draw any conclusion about anything.
|
| If you do choose to draw a conclusion from this, you're doing
| nothing except reinforcing whatever bias you may already
| have.
| panick21_ wrote:
| There is a big problem with this graph. Its highly
| misleading.
|
| Because in other parts even of Great Britain, like Norther
| Ireland, it was always public and it shows the exact same
| pattern. And many other countries had the same effect too.
|
| It just so happens British Rail happened right at the time
| when the basic understanding of governments in Britain and
| most the world were anti railway and pro building an absurd
| amount of highways.
|
| Lots of the increase in early part of semi privatization
| period in Britain happened and were only possible because of
| investments done by British rail. It very likely that the
| same effect would have happened under British rail. In fact
| the whole system basically operated on many of the same
| principles set up by British rail for quite a while.
|
| In reality the government in the 'private' period still
| determined what prices and schedules were. And the same
| prices and schedules could and would have been done by
| British rail.
|
| Next up, in this private period, Network Rail, they private
| company responsible for infrastructure so mismanaged and the
| infrastructure was about to collapse (they managed this in
| less then 10 years), so it was emergency reacquired by the
| government who then had to do lots of delayed infrastructure
| maintenance at high cost.
|
| Rail nationalization in Britain made no sense. Even the
| people that did it didn't really have a good plan or reason
| why they wanted do it other then privatizing things seemed
| popular with right wing parties. They basically threw
| together a haphazard plan with a bunch of consultants who had
| little knowlage of railways.
|
| > I'll let you draw your own conclusions
|
| Yes feel free, but don't do it based on a single highly
| misleading graph without understanding the context.
|
| If anybody is actually interested in the British railway
| network and history, I would recommend the RailNatter
| podcast.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's certainly possible this was caused by who owned what;
| but I'd just add the decline on the graph begins around the
| UK's pyrrhic victory in WW1 which IMO marked (in tandem with
| Irish independence) the beginning of the decline of the
| British Empire; while the rise at the end is roughly
| congruent with the increasing wealth from exploitation of the
| North Sea gas deposits and (depending how much you accept the
| possibility of noise in the data making it hard to tell
| exactly which year it changed direction) joining the
| precursor to the EU.
| revelio wrote:
| North Sea came on-stream at the start of the 80s. The rise
| in rail traffic clearly starts around the time of
| privatization in ~95 and the huge plunge followed by
| decline starts around the time of nationalization.
|
| Certainly there were other problems: the nationalization
| was downstream of the socialization of the British economy
| between the end of ww2 and Thatcher, and as can be seen
| rail traffic (a general proxy for economic health) is in
| steady decline from then until it rebounds slightly in the
| 80s before taking off again once put in (mostly) private
| hands in the 90s.
|
| The reason the graph seems to run a few years ahead of the
| changes is that actually privatizing and nationalizing
| something on the scale of a national railway takes a few
| years to implement between politicians floating the idea
| and the final handover of power, but the effect on people's
| motivations and incentives begins almost immediately.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| Doesn't really cover a lot of things you'd want to know like
| price, satisfaction, reliability, etc. - all of which, I
| believe, are strongly negative compared with 30 years ago.
| Also doesn't tell you if it's long distance or commuter or
| both - which is an important distinction since many more
| people commute these days.
|
| In summary, it's a meaningless piece of chartjunk [edit: in
| the context of nationalisation vs privatisation, at least.]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _price, satisfaction, reliability_
|
| Do these matter if ridership is falling?
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Do these matter if ridership is falling?
|
| If they're not a proximal cause, no. If they are, yes.
|
| But if ridership is going up even whilst prices are
| offensively high, satisfaction is at an all-time low, and
| reliability is a joke, then you can't assert that
| ridership is going up because of privatisation, it's more
| _despite_ privatisation because people have few other
| options (cf London where driving is slow because of
| congestion, buses are often stuck in the same congestion,
| cycling is still sketchy in some parts, high prices have
| forced people out of walking distance, etc.)
| revelio wrote:
| Prices were so heavily subsidized they were ruining the
| government's finances, so that's not a valid metric to
| compare on because it wasn't sustainable. Even when being
| bailed out by massive amounts of tax (a regressive tax!),
| ridership was falling because the services sucked so hard
| that they couldn't compete with cars/trucks, despite the
| latter being a source of tax revenue, not a sink.
|
| Dunno about satisfaction but clearly, when people were
| truly dissatisfied they stayed away and now the primary
| causes of satisfaction and reliability problems are simply
| that the network is so in demand it's at capacity all the
| time, especially London commuter routers. Some of that is
| driven by the huge increases in population via immigration
| in the last 20 years but some of it is just that privatized
| services are better, so people use them more.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In Europe, ownership of public transport is a pretty wild mix,
| and corporations that are publicly owned (or indirectly so) do
| not seem to work substantially better than private corporations
| that won public contracts.
|
| Aside from ideological arguments, can you support your opinion
| by pointing out examples that show that public ownership of
| means of transport improves customer experience? Because as
| someone who travels all the time with public transport, I
| definitely care about my customer experience. I spend quite a
| lot of time in trains and trams, and I want the time spent
| there not to be arduous.
|
| Notably, once you look at the related field of airlines, many
| publicly owned airlines were outright atrocious (looking at
| you, Alitalia). The traditional Czech airline, CSA, was blown
| apart when the local social democrats appointed their useless
| crook of a colleague (a former minister who was looking for a
| nice job) to be the CEO, and he ran the airline to the ground
| with alarming speed.
| woodpanel wrote:
| As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying
| tickets across German transportation systems: I've been working
| on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can
| tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each
| system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally
| and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue
| (by people like us - the E-Mail caste).
|
| Even the juggernaut Deutsche Bahn (they handle public transport
| in almost every municipality) couldn't break through these
| structures (eg the city of Munich just couldn't be pressured to
| comply with their ticketing schemes).
|
| In the end mandating it by the federal government was the only
| way. Although I'm curious who's really benefiting from it: yes we
| solved the annoyances for the E-Mail caste, but the service
| quality itself will surely deteriorate by this measure.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Its kind of ridiculous to call it a luxury issue. Its a luxury
| issue if you make it one. In Switzerland 85 year old
| grandmothers travel between cities to go for light walks. 15
| year olds go to football tournaments in other cities.
|
| Claiming that only some elite cast of digital nomads profits
| from it is utterly ridiculous. In Switzerland city to city
| travel is more common with trains then with cars, and a huge
| part of the population does it.
|
| > but the service quality itself will surely deteriorate by
| this measure
|
| If the government actually correctly invests in it then it
| doesn't actually, specially not long term. If anything it leads
| to more regular more frequent service on many routes.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Also most people end up buying demi-tarif card, to make
| travel affordable.
|
| Although a great thing of Swiss trains used to be being able
| to switch trains quite easily between destinations,
| regardless of the train type.
|
| No idea if that is still a thing nowadays.
| splatzone wrote:
| What do you mean by email caste? Do you mean people with
| internet access?
| kelnos wrote:
| Is that really true? The only people who need/want to regularly
| travel across local transit boundaries are tech people? That
| seems unlikely, especially nowadays.
| woodpanel wrote:
| Where did I write ,,tech-people"? Yes, all tech people are
| part of the E-Mail-Caste, but not all of said Caste are
| techies.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Basically everyone uses email, and you said "people like
| us", so the poor communication here is on your end. Please
| elaborate if you want to be understood.
| rebyn wrote:
| I got the Deutschlandticket for May and am tempted to travel from
| Berlin to Stralsund. Using RE/RB for this journeh takes more or
| less three hours without any train change (so not having to deal
| with the possible delay(s) and missing connecting rides), however
| I do hope the operator supports reserving a seat in advance with
| this subscription, cause otherwise showing up at the station not
| knowing for sure I'd have a seat would deter me from using this
| offer and instead just book ICE/IC (if any).
| mqus wrote:
| reserving seats in rb/re trains? Never heard of it.
| generationP wrote:
| Very few regional trains allow for reservation. See
| https://www.bahn.de/angebot/zusatzticket/sitzplatzreservieru...
| [deleted]
| admax88qqq wrote:
| We need Uber for Public Transit. Enter you destination and it
| tells you which bus to get on in real time, when to transfer and
| deducts payment automatically at the end of your trip.
|
| The Uber experience on transit would make lots never riders and
| occasional riders use transit more often.
|
| The mental load is a lot of some people at the end of the day,
| driving is just easier.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| It's overcomplicated. Take swiss by example. You turn on gps,
| press a button, take any transport you like, even boats. When
| you are done, press the button again and it calculates final
| price. It's called easyride. In theory you can avoid pressing
| the second time, I've read the app understands anyway that you
| are no longer in transport and will not charge you
| asdajksah2123 wrote:
| Google Maps does this for you. And nearly every local provider
| tends to have apps with end to end directions these days.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| GM tells you the route, it doesn't let you pay for it all at
| once at the end of the trip.
| kersplody wrote:
| Nor does GM understand ticketing nuances or optimized route
| costs. (discount cards, demand-based pricing). This is a
| big problem in cities without integrated fare systems. In
| many places, 3rd party planner apps are a must.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| The solution to that is to get rid of the nuance and
| optimization opportunities and turn them into a small
| across-the-board discount. Far fairer.
|
| Google Maps does offer "Buy Ticket" buttons for a number
| of agencies that have opened up their systems. They're
| far from universal coverage. But a new Uber for Transit
| would snap up the APIs Google has worked to open up and
| then be in the same position.
| asdff wrote:
| Because its not the interface on your phone to do that. On
| iPhone at least, you have apple wallet and transit agency
| cards often interface through those means. That's a much
| better system as you can access it when your phone is dead,
| unlike something that might be bounded behind google maps.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Anyone who regularly uses public transit in the USA could tell
| you this isn't a serious solution to a real issue.
|
| You use either Google Maps, Apple Maps, or the Transit app to
| tell you what to get on. You either buy a local nfc card or
| have an app on your phone you tap on the sensor to pay.
|
| Having to use more than one app isn't an significant burden
| compared to the fact that that trains and busses don't come to
| the places I want at the times I want reliably.
| jackson1442 wrote:
| Some cities come close to that, but most don't. Ignoring the
| fact that most cities in the US don't have expansive transit,
| even _getting a transit card_ can be a challenge in many
| cities.
|
| * in Denver, CO - there is a custom app that works fairly
| well until your phone is dead. Couldn't find a place to
| purchase tap cards, but the paper ticket vending machines
| worked well enough.
|
| * Seattle, WA - still working on mobile NFC tickets, and the
| current mobile ticketing system seems to only allow existing
| (> 1 year ago) customers to pay using a credit card. All new
| customers seem to only be allowed to use the app by filling
| up their balance using cash at a convenience store. Tap cards
| were an extremely rare find last summer. Only a select few
| buses seem to send their tracking data to Apple/Google maps,
| the OneBusAway app was really the only one that was close to
| accurate.
|
| * Dallas, TX - yet another custom app implementation
|
| * Austin, TX - _another_ custom app
|
| * Portland, OR - can only buy tap cards at some retailers,
| BUT they accept contactless credit cards and have an app that
| integrates with mobile NFC
|
| While I haven't been to NYC and a number of other cities with
| large transit systems, Portland OR and Washington DC had the
| best implementations, largely because they simply integrated
| with the native mobile NFC wallet. DC even lets you provision
| your card straight from the iOS Wallet app, though you can't
| use a standard contactless credit card.
|
| IMO the solution isn't an app, but rather simplifying fares
| and accepting contactless credit cards for fares. In Portland
| you "earn" your passes by riding rather than needing to
| purchase in advance - once you have paid $100 in a month
| you're automatically exempted from fares for the rest of a
| month.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| I'm quite familiar with the situation in Denver. Your
| criticism is that it doesn't work well if your phone dies.
| True, but I'm replying to someone suggesting "Uber for
| Public Transit". I presume that involves a app rather than
| a physical product.
|
| It would be kinda neat if we standardized across the
| country on one app, but it's nowhere near the top of the
| list of things to address. Most people mostly use one or a
| small number of public transit systems. You can just have
| more than one app. Municipalities are also increasingly
| opening up the payment system such that apps like Google
| Maps and Transit are able to offer buy ticket buttons.
| spullara wrote:
| NYC/SF let you just tap your phone to get on transit. Apple
| Maps does a great job of trip planning using real time
| information about the status of trains. It is super smooth and
| easy. Easier than Uber even.
| asdff wrote:
| Same in LA county. The same tap card will work across all
| agencies afaik.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| The Netherlands also has something similar: a country-wide public
| transit card. You put money on the card and then you can use it
| for all forms of public transport, checking in and out using that
| card. When it was introduced there was a lot of skepticism about
| whether it's a good thing, but now 10-15 years later I can't
| imagine not having it.
|
| Likewise, there's a country-wide public transit planner, 9292.nl.
| It works across all public transit companies. Seeing how
| fractured other countries' public transit are, it's amazing how
| 9292 came to be. I have no idea why Dutch public transit
| companies decided to work together to make it possible.
| TekMol wrote:
| The problem is that in Germany, the city-to-city trains that can
| be used with this ticket do not have WIFI IIRC. Can anybody
| confirm this?
|
| Traveling time without WIFI is a much higher burden to me than
| normal traveling time, where I can work on my projects. I
| actually like working on the train. It is a nice environment. But
| without that possibility, long train rides are a chore to me.
|
| And it will be interesting to see how crowded the trains will be.
|
| Durig the 9-Euro ticket times, city-to-city trains were
| uncomfortably densely packed.
| Escapado wrote:
| And also the inner city transport - at least in hamburg. Which
| is a great datapoint I think. Because this was true for all
| three months if I recall correctly and it means that there is
| absolutely a lot of public demand for inexpensive/free ways to
| travel. I work in an area with a lot of publicly subsidised
| housing which hosts mostly families that are less well off and
| I sometimes get to talk to these people and what I hear time
| and time again is how they had trouble paying for public
| transport and so they put off doctors appointments, can't have
| their child join a soccer team because they would need a
| monthly ticket to get to the field or have to compromise on
| other parts of their life that are completely non-negociable
| for many others. So there are many higher order effects where
| making public transport financially accessible to everyone
| could have positive benefits for financially underpriviledged
| people. Also higher public transport usage might lead to less
| cars and hence less polution, less road damage that needs
| repair and less crashes and accidents so there might also be
| other positive effects downstream. I would be interested in a
| full economic breakdown of this, although that might be hard or
| infeasible to do. Yet I would not be suprised if it turned out
| quite positive for most.
| eliaspro wrote:
| At least in Baden-Wurttemberg, most regional trains (and even
| some busses) I've used so far have WLAN nowadays.
| [deleted]
| tempaccount1234 wrote:
| Mobile data usually works fine in German regional trains. But
| if you want trips longer than 2 hours, you probably want the
| higher speed trains anyway (which now might have less annoying
| poor people in them) What's more annoying is that the price -
| in regions without good public transportation it's actually too
| expensive, but it's a nice gift to big city dwellers.
| timeon wrote:
| > annoying poor people
|
| > annoying is that the price ... too expensive
|
| >.>
| usrusr wrote:
| It's actually not half as bad for rural residents as it is
| usually presented by car addicts: for those amongst rural
| residents who would be interested in making their cumbersome
| trips using public transit, subscription in conventional
| price models were usually prohibitively expensive. They
| basically took distance based single ticket price, scaled by
| "what if it was used for the full trip five days a week?" and
| applied some discount. They were offered bad service at high
| price. In some places 10x the price a city dweller would have
| to pay for their short range subscription. Sure, many out
| there won't buy it even at the lower price, but for those who
| do is a much bigger improvement over the status quo than for
| a city dweller. For many city dwellers, it will in fact be
| nothing more than an upsell option to the ticket they already
| have, pay more (in some places twice as much) for a ticket
| that will also be valid for the occasional trip out of town.
| usrusr wrote:
| The possibility to go long distance on trains meant for
| commuters is an unfortunate side effect of the ticket, more
| tolerated than intended.
|
| The big improvement is that the ticket you buy for your home
| town now also works in cities you visit, no more figuring out a
| different byzantine price model each time you book a hotel.
|
| Imagine vehicle tax would only permit to drive on the roads of
| your home town and going elsewhere would require you to
| register locally. Until yesterday, that was exactly how public
| transit worked.
| odiroot wrote:
| Even if there was WiFi available on the train, the mobile
| network outside large population centres is so terrible, you
| wouldn't be able to get much done. Train WiFi is not magical,
| it needs proper infrastructure all over the place.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| ICEs and some regional trains do have wifi, but it can be quite
| slow and unreliable. Good enough for the occasional git push
| though ;)
| hannob wrote:
| Not sure why you get downvoted, lack of wifi in German trains
| is an issue, unreliable mobile internet coverage is another.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Just use mobile data? That's what the trains are using anyway.
| iruoy wrote:
| Apparently data reception in German trains is very low.
|
| This report[0] says it's 62-78% nationwide. Of the
| neighbouring alps countries Austria is 78-88% and Switzerland
| is 93-96%.
|
| [0]: https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/Reports-
| Certificate...
| TekMol wrote:
| In my experience, the mobile connection is _very_ flaky on
| the trains in Germany.
|
| I would think the train can have a much more powerful antenna
| to talk to mobile towers and then relay that to the
| passangers. So that WIFI is better than mobile data.
| pluijzer wrote:
| In my experience network coverage in Germany is way below
| must other European countries I have visited. Some with a
| much lower inhabitant desisty like Finland.
| konschubert wrote:
| A bigger issue than WIFI is the spotty cell coverage.
| dstick wrote:
| From my limited experience on the German rails (Amsterdam -
| Berlin 5/6 times in the last 4 years) the mobile 4G/5G
| connection was pretty good. Only dropping off when travelling
| through very remote rural areas. In the Netherlands we have
| unlimited data subscriptions, I assume Germany has something
| similar? That should be enough to get some work done in the
| train :)
| tempaccount1234 wrote:
| Unlimited data here is rare (or too expensive), usually
| normal people have 5-10gb a month. Still it covers most web
| and messaged stuff, just don't watch too much video....
| Escapado wrote:
| To be a little more precise about the pricing:
|
| O2 Unlimited:
|
| - 32,99EUR/month for 4G/5G capped at 3mbit with unlimited
| data
|
| - 42,99EUR/month for 4G/5G capped at 15mbit with unlimited
| data
|
| - 62,99EUR/month for 4G/5G up to 500mbit with with
| unlimited data
|
| Vodafone:
|
| - 79,99EUR/month with 4G/5G up to 500mbit with unlimted
| data
|
| Telekom:
|
| - 84,99EUR/month with 4G/5G up to 500mbit with unlimited
| data
|
| 1und1:
|
| - 49,99EUR/month with 4G/5G capped at 10mbit with unlimited
| data
|
| - 69,99EUR/month with 4G/5G up to 500mbit with unlimited
| data
| r3drock wrote:
| Freenet Funk is offering unlimited data with 4G for
| 0.99EUR/day. Speeds are up to 250mbit.
| logifail wrote:
| > From my limited experience on the German rails (Amsterdam -
| Berlin 5/6 times in the last 4 years) the mobile 4G/5G
| connection was pretty good. Only dropping off when travelling
| through very remote rural areas.
|
| Not sure what you'd call "very remote rural areas", but when
| on the main rail lines through Bavaria (Munich-Rosenheim-
| Salzburg-Vienna and -Rosenheim-Innsbruck-Verona) if you're in
| the countryside you'll often experience patchy or zero mobile
| coverage, never mind 4G/5G.
| _s wrote:
| With 5G speeds and unlimited data* - do you even need WiFi? Not
| to mention most companies nowadays have clear policies of (not)
| connecting to free public wifi's or even working in public
| spaces where your screen may be visible.
|
| * Usually the first 50gb is max speed and then it drops to
| 25/25 etc - which is still really fast.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Because network coverage in Germany is pretty bad, so you are
| mostly out of reach from networks when traveling by train.
| It's gotten better over the years since I moved here. But I'm
| basically still offline 80% of the journey between Berlin and
| my parents place in the Netherlands. As soon as you cross the
| border into NL, it's fine. It's a German issue. You have this
| effect on all its borders. You travel to the border, you are
| basically offline. As soon as you cross it into Poland,
| France, Denmark, etc. it's suddenly fine.
|
| Of course train wifi on intercities has the same issues since
| it relies on the same infrastructure. Even when it works, it
| tends to be a pretty poor experience and the network is low
| speed, over subscribed, etc.
| cyberpunk wrote:
| What network are you with? This doesn't match my experience
| -- I've traveled around 35,000km on trains inside Germany
| in the last few years, and apart from one 5 minute section
| just outside of Berlin when going SE dresden, I've pretty
| much always had a full signal.
|
| YMMV I guess. But I just wanted to say that I don't think
| this is completely accurate.
| locallost wrote:
| I travel long distance exclusively by train and can't
| really confirm. Sure there might be an issue here and
| there, but overall it's fine. Maybe if you want to watch a
| very bandwidth intensive video, but I don't know if that's
| realistic.
| Mashimo wrote:
| > Not to mention most companies nowadays have clear policies
| of (not) connecting to free public wifi's or even working in
| public spaces where your screen may be visible.
|
| Why is that? Would a VPN not make it safe against most threat
| models? I mean assuming you are not working at a place where
| government actors are trying to target you specifically.
|
| Or can they inject something to force the VPN to disable and
| hope non-encrypted data gets transmitted?
| meghan_rain wrote:
| > and help us achieve our climate goals
|
| There are 90 million Germans. Even if they all stopped doing all
| non-work-related travels immediately, it wouldn't push the needle
| thanks to China and India.
| willio58 wrote:
| I'm always confused by this. Climate change is inherently a
| global issue. It will take progress by _every_ country, not
| just those with the highest populations. Blaming China and
| India does no good to help the planet. We should instead push
| forward progress wherever we can get it and encourage
| technological progress, market changes, and regulation in this
| area.
|
| People in India and China hate pollution just as much as the
| rest of us, they've just been forced by their governments to
| endure it for the sake of growth. India last year banned
| single-use plastics. Few other countries have made those sorts
| of sweeping regulations.
| mahathu wrote:
| So they should just shrug and do nothing then? Spalter
| meghan_rain wrote:
| They should reduce importing cheap plastic shit from
| polluting countries.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Can this have the potential of having the MoviePass type outcome?
| Also, wouldn't this overcrowd public transit?
| e4e5 wrote:
| There was already a 9EUR ticket last year, while I wansnt in
| Germany at that time I didn't read a lot about overcrowding.
| With a more expensive ticket the effect will probably be even
| smaller today, though in the long run all trains will probably
| get more filled up.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > There was already a 9EUR ticket last year, while I wansnt
| in Germany at that time I didn't read a lot about
| overcrowding.
|
| There actually was a lot of overcrowding in the local and
| regional trains.
| woodpanel wrote:
| > I didn't read a lot about overcrowding
|
| Everybody I know complained about it. The 9EUR ticket didn't
| cover the ICE trains and instead put more strain on those
| lines that are already needed by lower- to median income
| commuters. Regional train lines have rush hours too and
| during those 9EUR Tickets months some wild videos went viral,
| where things got heated between old and ,,new" users
| _fizz_buzz_ wrote:
| It's backed/subsidised by the government, so a MoviePass
| outcome is unlikely, because nobody expects it to ever be
| profitable.
| solarkraft wrote:
| Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need more
| public transport users as quickly as possible.
|
| Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how road
| signs work would have to take care of spending further
| investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in
| car infrastructure.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need
| more public transport users as quickly as possible.
|
| Unless the capacity of public transport grows as well, no.
|
| > Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how
| road signs work would have to take care of spending further
| investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in
| car infrastructure.
|
| Roads aren't just for cars but also trucks which are the
| backbone of German logistics.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| Certainly that's a risk, but I'd hope they've done some
| projections on it.
|
| I'm not all that worried that this will cause overcrowding
| since I'd wager many people who bought the first round of
| tickets are just transferring over their current local
| subscription to the national one. Both my wife and I did that
| for example.
|
| It is worth noting that this ticket is 10EUR cheaper than our
| prior subscription, which I expect will result in a solid bit
| less revenue for the regional transit authorities. With a
| system that's already straining from under-investment,
| hopefully this doesn't compound already existing problems.
| bahnkenner wrote:
| The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the
| price, but rather that it simplifies things.
|
| This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard
| the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman
| Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you
| arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local
| transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g., "Is my
| destination in zone 1, 2, 3 or 4 of this city, and what zone am I
| in now?"). You can usually buy monthly cards for an individual
| transit company, but what if you live in one region and work in
| another? You may have to buy two separate monthly tickets. It's a
| mess.
|
| With the new system, you just buy one monthly ticket, and you can
| ride on local transit anywhere in Germany. There's no more
| worrying about different ticketing systems, if city X is in
| transit region Y, and so on.
|
| The fact that the new monthly ticket is half the price of what a
| typical monthly transit ticket used to cost is just the icing on
| top of the cake.
|
| I should also mention that while this solves one problem with the
| transit system in Germany, there's another, much larger problem
| that is still unsolved: on-time performance is abysmal, after
| years of neglected maintenance. The Deutsche Bahn is not what it
| used to be.
|
| 0.
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| The new ticket is an excellent example of when national
| government can be superior to more local government: when the
| national government forces coordination to solve fragmentation
| problems, where local agencies lacked the... _motivation_ to
| solve things on their own.
|
| On a technical level, it was always possible for different
| transit agencies to cooperate to simplify things for consumers,
| but they didn't, and likely never would, at least not on this
| level. A complex system per locality can still work okay for
| local residents; and if it's painful for visitors, well,
| visitors don't vote, and it's not the kind of thing that's
| likely to kill tourism.
| roamerz wrote:
| Agreed. Another much needed example would be nationwide
| reciprocity for concealed carry firearms. It's too easy to be
| on the wrong side of the law when crossing state lines and
| the regulatory nuances are difficult to understand state to
| state.
| wpietri wrote:
| Which reminds me to give a shout-out to the Clipper card. The
| SF Bay Area really did the right thing here. 24 different
| systems, all of which use the same card:
| https://www.clippercard.com/ClipperWeb/where-to-use.html
|
| And they have now expanded that card-based system to include
| a mobile app, Google Pay, and Apple Pay, so now I just tap my
| phone and I'm all set.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, not as much in the Bay Area these days, but the
| Clipper card is a huge improvement over the previous
| system. And I imagie by the time I eventually run down my
| Clipper balance I'll be fine with my phone.
| wpietri wrote:
| It's been a while since I set it up, but I'm pretty sure
| that setting up Clipper on Google Pay (or Google Wallet
| or whatever it is) is using my old Clipper balance. So
| you might be able to swap it over now and have it ready
| to go for your next trip.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| The SF Bay Area really did the right thing here.
|
| No, no they really didn't. They spent millions rebranding
| it, there is (was?) a huge lag between adding value and
| posting the value depending on how you added value. The
| original card readers were incredibly unreliable, and
| because Clipper/TransLink did absolutely nothing to unify*
| the fare structure across the twenty-four different systems
| you could be set up for a nasty encounter with a pop cop
| because you couldn't tag on or get charged the max fare
| when you can't tap off. Been there, done that.
|
| BART did their best to make a fantastic mess too and, at
| least according to their web site, they still _only_ sell
| paper tickets at SFO. For whatever reason the three _other_
| vendors at SFO do sell plastic cards. Because three
| additional vendors isn 't confusing at all.
|
| * Some systems are flat rate (Muni, Golden Gate Ferry,
| VTA), some are zone based (Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit,
| Marin Transit), and some are distance based (BART),
| SamTrans has a flat rate depending on the type of bus
| you're on. Some systems are proof of payment (Muni), some
| use turnstiles (BART), some are partially proof-of-payment
| (AC Transit). And some (AC Transit, Muni) still maintain
| their own proprietary mobile payment systems. It's still a
| fucking mess.
| wpietri wrote:
| It's not a perfect thing, sure. But it's a big step
| forward. It's hugely better than having to deal with each
| system separately; I've had days when I've used 4
| systems, for example.
|
| As you note with the pricing complexity, there is just a
| wide divergence of views and interests on how to run a
| transit system. And I get it; I think there are
| legitimate reasons people picked those different pricing
| systems. But they figured out how to overcome that so I
| can have one card for all of that. And even better, one
| card that is now my phone.
|
| If people are interested in the history that drives some
| of what it ended up the way it did, this is a good start:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_card
|
| For younger developers who are used to everything being
| connected, it's really worth thinking about how you'd
| build a reasonably robust, hard-to-exploit system when
| many of the important terminals, as on busses, were
| usually out of contact.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| I've had days when I've used 4 systems, for example.
|
| Sure, I've done similar trips and the worst part was not
| the payment but rather the obstacles that BART puts up
| and the sparse service in the suburbs. BART's TVMs have
| historically made it difficult to pay with cash _and_
| credit cards. TransLink /Clipper didn't fix that.
| If people are interested in the history that drives some
| of what it ended up the way it did
|
| The answer is, of course, that the Bay Area is fiercely
| provincial. The disparate payment methods were merely a
| symptom, as is evidenced by the wide array of fare
| policies. We didn't/don't need a single fare system we
| need a single hierarchy to unify all of the different
| transit systems. For younger developers
| who are used to everything being connected, it's
| really worth thinking about how you'd build a reasonably
| robust, hard-to-exploit system when many of the
| important terminals, as on busses, were usually out of
| contact.
|
| The problem with this is that by the time TransLink
| rolled around the rest of the world already had the
| technology and did a better job. Portland's TriMet had
| mobile payments (QR codes and NFC) long before the Bay
| Area. Mifare had already been exploited, and a huge chunk
| of the Bay Area's buses were connected to cellular data
| networks.
| mikae1 wrote:
| _> With the new system, you just buy one monthly ticket, and
| you can ride on local transit anywhere in Germany. There 's no
| more worrying about different ticketing systems, if city X is
| in transit region Y, and so on._
|
| There were some exceptions mentioned in
| https://youtu.be/hzuAohOSLi4, but perhaps those were only for
| inter-city transport.
| bahnkenner wrote:
| By "local" transit, I mean regional commuter trains
| (Regionalbahn, Regionalexpress and S-Bahn), not the faster
| long-distance trains (Intercity and Intercity-Express, the
| latter being Germany's high-speed trains).
| morsch wrote:
| I mean, you don't _have_ to figure it out. You can just punch
| in start and end of your journey into one of several apps that
| work nationwide, and pay whatever it says.
|
| Of course, many people don't have any of the apps, particularly
| people who rarely use public transport, which are also the
| people most easily confuse by the complicated fee structure.
|
| Unfortunately, the new monthly ticket does little to help them.
| 49 EUR isn't a value proposition for them, and so they are
| still stuck with the awful status quo.
| eliaspro wrote:
| You're out of luck, if none of the route segments is served
| by Deutsche Bahn (which is often the case for regional
| routes), because then you'll be unable to buy your ticket
| using the most common nation-wide app DB Navigator.
| morsch wrote:
| That's not true, they sell tickets for many regional
| transport associations.
|
| https://www.bahn.de/angebot/regio/verbuende
|
| Not all of them, I'm sure, but all of the major ones seem
| to be covered.
|
| I'm using it every day, because it's better than using the
| association's own app, which is not saying much. Or I used
| to, anyway, now I'm doing the 49 EUR thing.
| bahnkenner wrote:
| There are regions where the DB app will only sell you
| tickets that cross the region's borders, but not tickets
| that are wholly inside the region. There's even at least
| one region I know of that straight up does not do online
| ticketing. You have to buy physical tickets, in person,
| at a machine.
| generationP wrote:
| DB Navigator for regional transport is hit-and-miss. I've
| been using it a lot around the southwest, but it's fickle
| and sometimes fails to offer me tickets for no clear
| reasons (seemingly at random; the same connections by the
| same companies work on other days). And don't forget that
| a lot of the German hinterlands has very spotty to no
| mobile data.
| fweimer wrote:
| Or worse, you can still buy the ticket, but it's not valid
| for any trains actually in service. This stuff is really
| non-obvious. For example, train operators can license
| certain Deutsche Bahn trademarks without accepting Deutsche
| Bahn tickets.
| danhor wrote:
| Where? As far as I know, all the Deutsche Bahn Tickets
| for regional traffic use the Deutschlandtarif, which is
| accepted in all "normal" (excluding heritage trains and
| the likes) regional trains in all of Germany.
| calaphos wrote:
| For regular commuters the price is a big deal. Not only where
| tickets crossing multiple zones complicated to get but also
| unreasonably expensive (~200Eur/Month). In contrast the 49
| Euros is less expensive than (almost?) any single zone monthly
| ticket out there.
| brd529 wrote:
| Monthly train pass on New Jersey Transit, LIRR and Metro
| North can get to above $300 once you are 20 miles from NYC.
| ghaff wrote:
| About 40 miles outside of Boston I'd be around $500/month
| to have commuter rail plus subway per month.
| kspacewalk2 wrote:
| They're essentially actively trying to dissuade talking
| public transit regionally. Curious choice.
| gravypod wrote:
| If only NY/NJ could figure this out. I often take a longer
| route to work as it's much cheaper than buying the three
| separate tickets I'd need.
| moltar wrote:
| You are so right! I was just in Munich and had some of the most
| confusing experience in any public transport system I've ever
| used. And I've seen many! It was so shocking. The UIs of the
| ticket machines are horrendously slow and confusing. Stop names
| are always in German even when switching languages. This, of
| course, doesn't align with Google Maps half the time, as my GM
| is set to English.
| tcptomato wrote:
| What stop names are translated?
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| A good example of this complexity is Berlin. Many people have
| monthly passes for just A and B zones, which comprise the bulk
| of central Berlin. However, the new airport is just over the
| border in zone C, which requires an additional ticket. The
| transit authority knows this and will catch and fine people who
| neglected or forgot to buy a B to C ticket.
| patall wrote:
| What is complex about the B/C border? That Honow is B?
| Because else, it is literary the federal state border. A/B is
| the S-Bahn-Ring. Sure, three zones are not super simple and
| where zone C ends is somewhat arbitrary. But aside from that,
| it's the most logical and simple solution possible.
| throwaway60607 wrote:
| Do you mean that the airport is outside of Germany? Or what
| else is "federal state border"? And what is a S-Bahn ring
| anyways?
|
| I visit Germany often and yet this makes no sense to me.
| Don't assume it's so simple for everyone.
| tcptomato wrote:
| Berlin is one of the 16 federal states of the Federal
| Republic of Germany.
| mahathu wrote:
| The airport is located in Schonefeld, a municipality in
| Brandenburg, just outside of Berlin, which is also a
| state.
|
| S-Bahn ring, usually called ring for short, refers to a
| prominent circular route around the city center of
| Berlin.
| watwut wrote:
| Germany is federation of 16 or so states
| rcme wrote:
| Generally, I agree, it isn't very complicated to
| understand. But, it's very easy to forget to buy a C ticket
| if you're used to hopping on the U-bahn with your monthly
| AB ticket.
| mejutoco wrote:
| The announcement mentions you do need it when announcing
| the stop. By then it is prob too late, though.
|
| If you use the bvg app it tells you which ticket you need
| for any destination, but non-locals might not know that.
| cbmuser wrote:
| > The announcement mentions you do need it when
| announcing the stop. By then it is prob too late, though.
|
| Not on all lines. If I remember correctly, I have only
| heard it on the new announcements for the BER airport.
| And, they actually tell you on time so you have a chance
| to buy an extension ticket.
| [deleted]
| cbmuser wrote:
| If you think that Berlin's zone system is complex, you
| haven't seen the public transport in many other cities like
| Munich which has 6 zones or Japanese cities where trains are
| operated by different companies.
|
| Berlin's system is rather simple and comparably cheap.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Yeah but these days Japanese trains can all use the suica
| (and similar) cards to tap in and out, right? You don't
| actually need to understand the different rail companies or
| zones or whatever, you just get your one card and put money
| on it and then tap.
| inferiorhuman wrote:
| For regional, yes, a Passmo, Suica, or whatever card
| works pretty much everywhere. For Shinkansen service, you
| still have to buy tickets.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| Your comment is a fascinating take on _perspective_. To you it
| 's a fractured, difficult system. To this American, it has been
| absolutely futuristic every time I've been there. Wish we could
| get such an awful system anywhere near where I live.
| rconti wrote:
| Yup. As an American, I found it quite easy to navigate
| transit systems every time I visited Germany; most recently
| Berlin. Especially these days with things like Google/Apple
| maps transit directions that work more-or-less flawlessly.
| But maybe it's because I'm used to systems like Caltrain that
| don't even have a functioning app, and which just randomly
| cancel trains for huge chunks of the day, or BART, which has
| an even-more-insane pay-per-distance system than anything
| I've seen elsewhere.
| kingofpandora wrote:
| This is typical in most countries that aren't very small. I'm
| struggling to think of a moderately-sized country that doesn't
| work have regional transit authorities with their own ticketing
| systems. I haven't been everywhere in the world so I bet they
| do exist, but I've yet to see one.
| z2 wrote:
| While Japan has regional ticketing systems and companies,
| they did standardize nationally on supporting 3 major prepaid
| transit cards (pasmo, suica, icoca) so most rapid transit and
| regional transit are low friction enough to just tap in and
| tap out. China has done the same with T-Union.
|
| I suppose with NFC contactless payment, a plausible future
| state is just supporting credit card payments everywhere,
| though of course this doesn't solve the monthly pass problem.
| ghaff wrote:
| And for visitors who may not even speak the primary language,
| public transit is awful in most places in terms of onboarding
| jet lagged visitors. Apparently no one does UX trials of people
| who have zero familiarity with the system and don't speak the
| language--though at least they maybe accommodate major Western
| languages. But, in general, it's pretty awful and you at least
| should do some research in advance.
| atourgates wrote:
| Can confirm.
|
| I usually do a decent amount of research about public
| transport in our travel destinations, so I more or less know
| what type of tickets or passes I'll be buying ahead of time.
|
| But, last fall a flight cancellation left us with an
| unexpected day in Amsterdam.
|
| I guided our family through immigration and customs after an
| overnight flight from Canada, and then purchased what I
| thought were the correct tickets for our train ride from the
| airport to downtown.
|
| When we went past a card reader, it didn't seem to work, but
| there were no turnstiles and we were able to board our train.
|
| There were however turnstiles when we got off at the station
| downtown, and they wouldn't let us through.
|
| I walked over to an attendant at a podium, who looked at our
| (incorrect) tickets, our obviously sleep deprived selves and
| children and just laughed, told us we'd bought the wrong
| tickets, and let us through.
|
| I always imagined the world of high-stakes metro-related
| international criminality would come with more consequences
| than being good-naturedly laughed at by a Nederlandse
| Spoorwegen employee.
| riedel wrote:
| I agree that vending machines are really a mess. However I
| recommend the Deutsche Bahn Navigator App. If you have an
| account you can easily get most tickets.
|
| Also states like Baden-Wurttemberg got their act together
| recently and made it possible to book tickets all way
| through.
|
| I recently was in Netherlands trying to get from the Hague to
| the islands south of Rotterdam and it was also quite
| confusing.
|
| but the new ticket is really nice wrt booking.
| ghaff wrote:
| I was just in Amsterdam. One of our locals there said that,
| although there's an ongoing switch to just tapping
| contactless credit cards, he advised just getting a
| contactless transit chip card because even if it cost a few
| dollar more it would more reliably work everywhere. Things
| have improved in most places over time but it can still be
| confusing for the occasional visitor.
|
| I remember at some point pre-pandemic I was in the UK with
| a friend and we had all these these different
| tickets/receipts were trying to use to go through a
| turnstile and doubtless really pissing off the people lined
| up behind us but it was super-unintuitive what we needed to
| stick into the machine.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The UK has since simplified that into one ticket,
| possibly also a receipt of you ask for it.
|
| Prior to this, the ticket and seat reservation were
| seperate bit of paper.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, it seemed better last time I was traveling there as
| I recall.
| Maarten88 wrote:
| > I recently was in Netherlands trying to get from the
| Hague to the islands south of Rotterdam and it was also
| quite confusing.
|
| You can just swipe your phone (Apple Pay / Google Wallet)
| or credit/debit card to check in and out (do not forget to
| check out!) and you're done. Works for all public transport
| in the Netherlands.
|
| Of course there are also more traditional ways to pay for
| your ticket, but it does not get much simpler than this
| imo.
| cmarschner wrote:
| The company that runs the DB system (HAFAS) provides this
| system for half of the European railways though. And,
| interestingly enough, also for BART.
|
| https://www.hacon.de/unternehmen/
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Their codebase has to be a wild ride. There are still
| traces from the days it ran as Windows binaries in CGI
| fashion (very much doubt they still do it like that, just
| like a large number of eBay URLs still contain the
| ebayISAPI.dll bit from the time the site was literally a
| Microsoft IIS plugin). On the DB instance it also outputs
| like five different generations of UIs depending on the
| exact parameters you hand it. You can also find several
| different iterations of APIs, like one search API will
| output actual, non-trivial JS code to fill auto-
| completes, another gives you JSON with a totally
| different format and yet another XML with everything
| slightly different again. From their job postings it
| follows their backend is C++.
|
| The previous system came from the 80s and ran on multiple
| Tandem/Nonstop clusters.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| It remembers X.25 networks.
| mcspiff wrote:
| I will given Berlin credit here -- after checking in to our
| accommodations (took a taxi from the airport), I poked a
| ticket machine, quickly saw the Union Jack flag and got the
| machine into English. Couple minutes later we had our 1 week
| passes in hand. In general I found the system very
| approachable, using google maps for route planning.
| bombcar wrote:
| Every transit system should have a "tourist day pass" that is
| moderately expensive but allows you to use anything for 24
| hours or so.
| jtvjan wrote:
| I think having tickets at all is antiquated. In the
| Netherlands, there are terminals at the stations you tap
| your bank card against to "check in". When you get off, you
| tap it again at that station and your card gets charged.
| Sometimes the conductor comes around with a device to make
| sure people have checked in.
|
| If you don't want your travel to be associated with your
| bank account, you can get a chip card which can be topped
| up using cash.
| josefx wrote:
| I have about half a dozen different ways to get from one
| train station to another, some with first and second
| class options. Just tapping in and out would not be
| sufficient to find out how much I have to pay or in some
| cases which company to reimburse.
| andrewshadura wrote:
| For that reason before tapping in, you can select the
| correct class and discount in the app.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Integrate it into my visa (stamp).
|
| I'm also surprised airports don't integrate it into their
| passenger fees and boarding passes. But maybe that's
| getting a little too multi-modal to handle.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Very impractical on some routes, no one is even going to
| look at your passport in Schengen area flights.
| ghaff wrote:
| Depending on what I'm doing I often don't want to pay a
| lot for public transit because I won't use it much. And
| often don't even get a stamp, e.g. going to the UK from
| the US.
| bombolo wrote:
| Yes like in london.
|
| I bought a 24h pass at 8pm, only to find out it's 24h only
| if you buy it at 00.00, because they all expire at
| midnight.
|
| They are basically running a legalised tourist scam over
| there. I can imagine hundreds of thousands of people
| falling for this.
| Symbiote wrote:
| In London, aren't you pushed towards using a contactless
| credit or debit card?
|
| (They expire at 4am, though the point remains.)
| f_allwein wrote:
| In Rome, you can now just tap contactless payment cards (/
| smartphones, I assume) to readers in buses/ at underground
| stations. Huge step up from the previous system, which was
| based on buying paper tickets from newsagents.
| willyt wrote:
| But now Italian newsagents don't get to laugh at us
| pronouncing the 'g' in biglietti. Makes me feel a bit
| nostalgic/sad for some reason.
| akavi wrote:
| The "g" is pronounced (in a sense). In Italian, the
| digraph "gl" represents a single sound /y/, which is
| distinct from the sound represented by "l" alone (/l/)
| ghaff wrote:
| City passes are mostly a lousy deal unless you're zipping
| here and there all day every day. Pay per use is almost
| always a better deal but you need to know the particulars
| and get the right card/amount.
| atourgates wrote:
| True, but I often find them worth it to not have to worry
| about buying appropriate tickets for every journey when
| I'm a tourist in an unfamiliar city. And on many transit
| systems, the options seem to be, "Be a local and get an
| affordable pass or reloadable card, buy individual
| tickets for every journey, or be a visitor and buy a
| moderately more expensive tourist day pass."
|
| This is extra true if you're traveling with a family
| including kids, as I often am.
| camillomiller wrote:
| Berlin reporting: this is huge for anyone taking public
| transport. Monthly ticket for the AB area alone was way above
| 80/EUR/month for the city only. This is 49 for everything
| anywhere in Germany except for high speed long distance trains,
| flixbuses and flixtrains (the latter are private entities)
| mqus wrote:
| I thought the ticket was more like 63 Euros per Month, when
| paid yearly
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