[HN Gopher] Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shi...
___________________________________________________________________
Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to
rail
Author : mpweiher
Score : 264 points
Date : 2024-10-12 14:47 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.mcc-berlin.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.mcc-berlin.net)
| server_man3000 wrote:
| Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings
| attached?
|
| I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in
| cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new
| system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription
| model. If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of
| the month or you get auto rebilled.
|
| Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as
| some white label system, so it was very confusing to purchase
| (you cannot buy them at the machines).
|
| The price hike is the wrong direction here if we are reducing
| that much time on the road. Kudos though for the great rail
| systems. The USA has a lot to learn here and it's baffling how
| terrible it is here. I doubt I'd ever need a car in Germany given
| the rail system was much more convenient. In the USA I spend
| 10-15 mins trying to park any time I go anywhere
| luto wrote:
| It started with 9EUR, is 49EUR now, and will be 58EUR starting
| 2025.
|
| You can buy for a single month when booking through the right
| company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree
| that it is a bit predatory.
| geraldwhen wrote:
| Germany is smaller than California. The United States is very,
| very large place, mostly unpopulated. It's hard to apply
| whatever Germany, a small, densely populated country does to
| the US, which is largely empty land.
| waveBidder wrote:
| Look, nobody is talking about Nebraska. the density of the
| east coast is easily high enough to support high speed high
| quality rail.
| euroderf wrote:
| That's why they call it "flyover country". Not "railover
| country".
| Larrikin wrote:
| Why do we have to pretend that routes between Montana and
| South Dakota have to come up when discussing ways of
| improving rail usage in the US? We could treat routes between
| Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis like Germany. We could
| treat high speed rail in California or the Northeast like
| Japan. Choosing to live in an extremely rural area shouldn't
| just be a "well it doesn't help" me trump card to defeat
| things that will help most of the population.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. Always _somebody_ trots out invalid arguments
| about size and population density. There are smaller states
| in the USA that are about as dense as Germany, like
| Maryland and Connecticut. So, why don 't those states have
| great state-wide public transit systems?
| adamc wrote:
| The politics at the national level are likely to be that
| states not helped by this vote against it.
| twodave wrote:
| Yep, federal income tax is a big reason. For states to
| fund this on their own requires additional taxation. Some
| places like FL don't even have a state income tax, so
| they are stuck trying to get tourists to fund
| transportation projects somehow or increasing sales taxes
| or higher tolls. And of course higher tolls have the
| unfortunate side effect of reducing demand for the thing
| to begin with.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Maybe we should work on making one vote to be equal in
| the nation.
| kortilla wrote:
| This is a boring trope. Whether it's a group of United
| States or a single State is a debate as old as the
| country. You're going to need really compelling reasons
| for states to give up their representation and
| participate in the state vote required to amend the
| constitution to remove their rights.
| BirAdam wrote:
| Another significant issue is that the USA wasn't built for
| rail, and to do so now requires sign off by land owners,
| municipalities, and so on. The amount NIMBY-oriented
| policies in California, for example, is a serious
| impediment. Oddly, people cite rural areas as an issue, but
| rural areas aren't typically an issue. It would be
| comparably inexpensive to run high speed rail over
| undeveloped land, while tearing up buildings, roads, water,
| sewer, and power would be tremendously costly. For much of
| Europe, rail transport was put in place long before
| automobiles became commonplace. For much of the USA, the
| cities didn't even exist at that time, and they were mostly
| built around automobiles.
| tetha wrote:
| We also have a similarly frustrating kind of arguments in
| germany itself.
|
| Like, focus on public transport won't work. Because in some
| tiny towns of 30k people living there, there is never a bus
| around so why care? Like... dude. In Hamburg, we have
| subway stations that move more people in minutes than
| people live in your town. Yes, it may not work on your
| case. Your case is however a side note. It needs
| consideration, but not focus.
|
| Or electric vehicles. There are interesting questions about
| electric vehicles in uncontrolled situations, emergency
| services and long-distance situations. As well as regions
| without a good charging infrastructure. Yes. These are
| problematic. Except, most likely, more unique cars drive
| past my window in an hour on a workday than exist in that
| tiny town. Just keep your ICE car for the trip to spain you
| never take by car, but we should optimize the vehicles in
| cities. Again, it needs consideration, but not focus.
| kortilla wrote:
| Because those states are part of the same federal
| government and they have a say in what the federal
| government does. These rail systems almost always require
| federal government level investments.
| shantara wrote:
| And how many people regularly commute across the United
| States? The absolute majority of the journeys people make
| regularly is still quite short, so why not start by
| optimizing for them? Then continue with building high speed
| intercity connections between the urban areas with <500 km
| distance to create valuable alternatives to being stuck in
| the highway traffic and dealing with the airport security
| nonsense.
|
| Why do you always think that you need to reinvent a tried and
| true solutions that have been proven to work across the
| world?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Also even if you're worried about going cross-country, that
| requires what, two fast lines between the coasts to get
| good routes? So even though those areas don't have many
| people per square mile, passing through would need an
| extremely small amount of track per square mile.
| ben_w wrote:
| 1. CA is the 3rd largest state in the USA. Do any of the 47
| smaller states have something like this?
|
| 2. As the unpopulated bits necessarily don't have many people
| or things to do in them, the cost of subsidising a public
| transit ticket in those places is necessarily small.
| oersted wrote:
| I don't have the details, but every single time I have heard
| the mention of Deutsche Bahn in the last few years it has been
| accompanied by comments of how broken it has become, with
| constant delays and cancellations, to the point where for many
| people it is no longer a viable option for commute or for
| anything where you cannot risk to be up to several hours late.
|
| I guess it's all relative. If you come to rely on an excellent
| and omnipresent rail service for many years as a society, the
| impacts are quite big when it stops working well. If the
| service itself is built assuming reliability, where
| transferring between trains is common, then issues can get
| substantially amplified if that choreography gets somewhat
| disrupted.
| dustyventure wrote:
| It was broken long before the offer though so the reduction
| in driving being moderate probably reflects fewer shifts in
| daily commute and mostly more leisure usage.
| sadcherry wrote:
| There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the
| news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on
| time". You only read about some train having had an AC issue
| or the like.
|
| I have family in Germany and they never go by train but tell
| me regularly about how bad the train has become. They have
| literally not been in one for 15+ years. But they watch the
| news every day.
| currymj wrote:
| among intercity trains run by Deutsche Bahn, the on-time
| rate hovers around 2/3. it's technically true that "most
| were on time", but one third being late is really terrible,
| especially since you often need to make a tight connection.
|
| even if your family has no justifiable basis for believing
| what they do about DB, they happen to be correct by luck.
|
| https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-
| re...
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| Long-distance trains are worse statistically because they
| travel longer Router and therefore have more
| opportubities to gain delay. Across all trains,
| puncuality is like 95%.
| currymj wrote:
| that is true, but tons of highly frequent on-time
| commuter trains doesn't help anyone who wants to travel
| long distances.
|
| right now if you want to go between two cities you always
| have to plan on missing your connection.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the
| news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on
| time". You only read about some train having had an AC
| issue or the like.
|
| I feel most know about Japan's shinkansen being run well.
|
| For those who don't, the average delay is 1.1 minutes on
| average.
|
| For comparison, the DB long distance trains are considered
| on time if they're less than 6 minutes late, and still only
| 64% are considered on time.
| lispm wrote:
| > Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no
| strings attached?
|
| That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid
| for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing
| energy use amid the 2021-2022 global energy crisis."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket
|
| It influenced the idea to come up with a permanent ticket: the
| "Deutschlandticket". It started 1. Mai 2023.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket
|
| The Deutschlandticket costs max 49 Euros (next year it will
| cost 58EUR per month) and is valid for one month for mostly all
| local®ional public transport systems (plus a few selected
| non-regional trains) in the whole of Germany. The subscription
| will renew automatically.
|
| Companies often support employees by paying some of the costs.
| Then it typically costs 34.30 EUR per month. From next year on,
| employees pay 40,60 EUR per month max.
|
| Here in my home city already 94% of the 213000 pupils use the
| Deutschlandticket for 0 EUR per month. Every pupil has free
| access to all of the country's local®ional public transport
| system... I find that kind of mind-blowing.
|
| I have the ticket in my iPhone's wallet and thus also in the
| Apple Watch wallet. Additionally I need an ID card. Which at
| some point in time will also come to the smartphone.
| https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mob...
| consp wrote:
| > Every pupil has free access to all of the country's
| local®ional public transport system... I find that kind of
| mind-blowing.
|
| We've had this since the 1990s for higher education students.
| One of the known effects is that students who got it, used
| the public transport systems more often after wards as they
| were more familiar with it. I would not be surprised if
| Germany has a simmilar effect. The problem with these effect
| is they far outgrow the attention span of polititians as they
| take years to come to full force.
| sva_ wrote:
| It was only valid for the state in which the university is,
| and not all universities offered it.
|
| Most students now get the nationwide ticket for effectively
| about 30EUR/month.
| riedel wrote:
| I only pay 20 EUR a month because a 25 EUR subsidy by my
| employer. It is a total nobrainer although, I often even use
| it less, just because I can jump on any local train, tram,
| bus without worrying about a ticket (particularly as we don't
| have NFC payment). Actually the 9 EUR will effectively mean a
| 50% raise for me, so I am not sure if the raise even makes
| sense economically because people like me just would cancel.
| Hugsun wrote:
| It sounds amazing. All these prices seem crazy low. A
| significantly zone limited monthly commuter ticket here in
| Denmark costs over 500EUR
| mk89 wrote:
| And if I am not mistaken, as a university student you get
| also that ticket for free and you just need to show your
| student card.
|
| So students basically never have to pay for the public
| transportation which is really awesome.
|
| EDIT: by public transportation I mean whatever is included in
| the D-Ticket (no Intercity or similar types of trains).
| lispm wrote:
| Where I live, students pay for it, 29.40 EUR. It's a part
| of the semester fees, IIRC.
| archi42 wrote:
| For those not familiar with how this works/worked: At
| most universities, a similar fee was collected from all
| students. That was then used to finance a regional
| "public transport flatrate".
|
| Implementation details likely differed, but for us the
| fee (80 or 100EUR, can't recall) was socialized across
| all students and payed together with the tuition fee;
| opting out was not possible (with some exceptions, like
| disabilities). The money went from the University
| administration to the AStA - the "general students
| council" (the executive section of the elected student
| self-government). The AStA then negotiated with the local
| public transport company/companies and well as with the
| Deutsche Bahn (e.g. to get access to certain inter-
| regional train connections - we have cooperations with
| iirc 3 or 4 nearby universities, and students somehow
| needed to get there). Those negotiations can be a royal
| pita, and often the students were in a weak position.
| Even if we
|
| Source: I was in the AStA (~12 people), but not involved
| with that task.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" I LOVE the German transit system"_
|
| I have some experience with the public transport systems in
| Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my
| opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in
| paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly
| digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are
| overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common
| balkanization.
|
| The _DB Navigator_ is so terrible that I try to book the German
| leg of my international travels from one of the other countries
| apps whenever possible.
|
| For a counter example look at the French _SNCF Connect_ app. It
| is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.
| lispm wrote:
| > Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only
| occasionally and very listlessly digitized.
|
| That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now.
|
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible
|
| It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels
| just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives
| me a 50% discount on all trains.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I couldn't pay for my ubahn with a credit card on the bahn,
| and the app required me to use some kind of a paypal
| derivative. I did not pay.
|
| Regardless of whether it is digitized or not, regional
| trains suck. To pay on the train, I think I was forced to
| use cash.
|
| Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a
| connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan
| them in and then send in via email. Or was it snail mail? I
| didn't attempt it, I just saw that my train was delayed for
| hours with no explanation for what can I do about it,
| realized I'm missing my connection and then booked a plane
| ticket and got home faster than if I had traveled by rail
| without any delays. 10/10, will fly whenever possible from
| now on.
| lispm wrote:
| Pay before. That's how the transport systems generally
| work in Germany. In many trains you need to have a ticket
| BEFORE entering the train and also BEFORE entering the
| platform in the train station.
|
| > Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss
| a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and
| scan them in and then send in via email.
|
| I can do that in the DB app.
| eptcyka wrote:
| The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people
| who did that. Granted, we are europeans, not Germans
| living in Germany.
|
| Paying before just isn't always practical, but I
| understand that such limitations are often a non-issue
| for locals.
| lispm wrote:
| > The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people
| who did that.
|
| Yeah, it's in the app.
|
| > Paying before just isn't always practical, but I
| understand that such limitations are often a non-issue
| for locals.
|
| That's how it works. Typical here for local trains: there
| are no barriers in train and bus stations. One can just
| enter the train and bus without any ticket check. But you
| have to make sure that you have a ticket. The local
| trains have no installation to buy a ticket anymore.
| Typically one would buy them online or have a
| subscription ticket. How does the system make sure that
| people pay and don't game the system? There are random
| checks.
|
| If you want a ticket, buy it before entering a train.
| Train stations have either ticket systems or a ticket
| office. But most people by now do it online either per
| website or app.
|
| For long-distance trains I would always book in advance
| (it's often also cheaper) and book a seat, too.
| eptcyka wrote:
| Yeah, cool, I understand, it is how it is done. I am not
| arguing that, and I already conceded that.
|
| Why are you bringing the same argument back up again?
|
| Have you considered that people who travel through your
| country will not install another app on their phone? I do
| not need another quarter of a gigabyte app to pay for
| something that could've been paid for via VISA or
| Mastercard. Oh wait, I did install the app. And it asked
| me to use a paypal account. I do not carry my papyal
| credentials with me.
|
| I have never gotten on long distance trains and expected
| to pay on them, not what I am arguing about.
|
| And when I mean that the app was not an option, I mean
| that in our case, we couldn't use the app to submit a
| return. I was not the one submitting those forms, I was
| too lazy. The people who did told me the app did not work
| for their case. Given that you've told me 2x that "you
| can just do it in the app", what else can I say besides
| the fact that when tried, it did not work? Are you
| dismissing the lived experience of the person you are
| talking to? Why?
|
| All of that notwithstanding, why not decrease the
| friction from needing to use an app (phone needs to be
| supported, charged and have an internet connection) and
| instead use contactless payment terminals?
| lispm wrote:
| > Are you dismissing the lived experience of the person
| you are talking to? Why?
|
| The DB App has this option, now. That's all. If this
| information does not help you, there are other readers
| here, too.
|
| > All of that notwithstanding, why not decrease the
| friction from needing to use an app (phone needs to be
| supported, charged and have an internet connection) and
| instead use contactless payment terminals?
|
| You can buy with credit cards (and a few other options)
| using the usual payment terminals. Again, you usually
| have to pay outside of the train. The terminals are at
| the train station.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the
| German leg of my international travels from one of the other
| countries apps whenever possible.
|
| > For a counter example look at the French SNCF Connect app.
| It is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.
|
| I am extremely surprised that you would write this. The SNCF
| Connect app has a lot of problems. Just for starters, it
| can't cope with any journey with more than 2 changes. SNCF
| shut down there international ticket sales computer system -
| because it was too old. They no longer sell any international
| tickets, unless it's on a train actually run by SNCF.
|
| The DB App has train services for the whole of Europe. It can
| plan a journey from Oslo to Sofia if required.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| So much this. I often use DB navigator to plan trips
| _within_ france. As soon as you 're not going to or from
| Paris, the sncf offer _and_ app are just terrible. Often,
| sncf-connect will refuse to offer me TER-only (regional
| train) trips, because one of the legs _can_ also be done by
| TGV. Basically impossible to plan this kind of thing with
| the SNCF apps.
|
| But even the basic UX is terrible. The most blatant example
| of this is the choice to make the first text input on the
| search the _target_ station. If you do limit yourself to a
| single text input as the entry point to the search, I see
| the intuition. but the result is that they are the only
| transit search mask I know where I have to first type where
| I 'm going, and then where I'm coming from. I hate it.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" They no longer sell any international tickets, unless
| it's on a train actually run by SNCF."_
|
| I booked ICE trains run by Deutsche Bahn via SNCF
| successfully in the past, the last time three days ago.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| I just used the DB Navigator for extensive travel in Germany
| without any problems. It doesn't provide quite as much
| information about how to deal with connections for a delayed
| train, but that is minor compared to the very transparent
| function for buying and displaying tickets.
| elpocko wrote:
| >Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes
|
| I want to buy a ticket every now and then. I want that
| process to be straight forward: cash money for one-time
| ticket. I don't want your app on my phone, I don't want a
| subscription, and I don't want to be tracked.
|
| Paper based offline processes forever, please.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| lol you know websites exist right. what a luddite approach.
| Paper is expensive, wasteful, environmentally harmful, and
| time consuming.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Sure. And how do you pay? I mean, really. You're forced
| to create an account, then link a payment method (PayPal
| and/or Visa/Mastercard may or may not be supported, Apple
| Pay almost never is). Sometimes you also have to link a
| mobile phone number or the number is the account
| identifier.
|
| How is that an alternative?
| elpocko wrote:
| I don't carry a phone around with me at all times. Phones
| are expensive, wasteful, socially and environmentally
| harmful, time consuming, and they erode our freedoms.
| BirAdam wrote:
| I'd love to see an in-depth analysis of the overall
| production costs for paper and ink vs electronic. Tree to
| processing to ticket vs smartphone, grid, network,
| software, and so on. I imagine the paper process is
| exceptionally cheaper but I could very well be wrong.
| psychoslave wrote:
| I can't tell for other countries, but SNCF digital solutions
| have been a great example of everything you should not do for
| as long as I can remember. Actually bahn.de used to be a far
| better interface to consult french train hours than whatever
| fancy new name SNCF would come every few months or so.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| > Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes,
|
| It is for that reason I'd love it. Accessible, universal,
| sustainable, resilient technology!
|
| I once got stuck in Nuremberg overnight. The ticket office
| was open all night and an official looked up all my options
| from memory and timetable books and wrote me a diagram with
| pen and paper that perfectly showed me how to get to my
| destination. I'll never forget that helpful clerk.
|
| Not saying you can't have your apps, but systems that lose
| touch with reality and human involvement are part of the
| emerging problem.
|
| For my mind the smartest ticket technology I ever saw was
| Hungarian and used on the Budapest transit system in the
| 1980s - some devious discrete mathematics that coded the
| journey stops, used status, and allowed routes all in a
| matrix of hole punches on a small paper ticket. The punches
| (that you had to use when getting on trains, buses and trams)
| were purely mechanical, and so was the validating machine
| used by inspectors/conductors to see if you had punched your
| ticket. Simply genius.
| euroderf wrote:
| There simply has to be a web page about this somewhere...
| tasuki wrote:
| > For my mind the smartest ticket technology I ever saw was
| Hungarian and used on the Budapest transit system in the
| 1980s - some devious discrete mathematics that coded the
| journey stops, used status, and allowed routes all in a
| matrix of hole punches on a small paper ticket. The punches
| (that you had to use when getting on trains, buses and
| trams) were purely mechanical, and so was the validating
| machine used by inspectors/conductors to see if you had
| punched your ticket. Simply genius.
|
| I think you're giving a little too much credit. In the
| nearby Czech Republic we had a system where there'd be
| eight (or perhaps 10?) places for a hole. Your ticket would
| get marked with a combination specific to the vehicle.
|
| They'd periodically change which vehicle has what holes.
| With 8 holes, 256 tickets would be enough to give you a
| valid ticket for any vehicle. With 10 holes, 1024 tickets.
| I think some people carried around all the tickets to be
| able to ride for free. Others kept tickets with small
| number of holes for later reuse in a vehicle which had a
| superset of those. Good times!
|
| I find it very hard to believe the Hungarians has something
| smarter than that, but would love to be proven wrong!
| dietr1ch wrote:
| As a tourist I agree, and the Deutschland Ticket App is
| Region locked, so you are bound to the complexity of the
| system, which seems unnecessary and way too expensive as
| opposed to the ticket locals get.
| n_plus_1_acc wrote:
| There are many different vendors with different apps.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| One fun experience, arriving in Munchen and trying to buy
| ticket for the airport train online. The app requires your
| birthdate. The date selector starts from present and only
| allows to go back one month at a time. So if you're 40 years
| old, you would need to click 480 times... We bought paper
| tickets from a machine . Machines work well compared to other
| countries though.
| emaro wrote:
| I thought the same thing first, but if you click on the
| year you can choose from a list.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| > The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the
| German leg of my international travels from one of the other
| countries apps whenever possible.
|
| While _DB Navigator_ does leave something to be desired the
| sheer width /breadth of the DB booking system makes it my go-
| to choice for international train travel. They're also quite
| forthcoming in paying back 25% to 50% of the ticket price
| when delayed more than 1 or 2 hours which is a frequent
| occurrence on the longer trips - from Sweden to the
| Netherlands - which I make about every other month. I can get
| prices directly without having to go through some silly
| booking agency, I can book tickets, reserve seats and
| sometimes actually choose which seats I want (something which
| doesn't always work). They did have some problems about a
| year ago when they moved to the 'new' DB Navigator and the
| price I was quoted suddenly quadrupled, this turned out to be
| an omission in the booking system which I submitted a bug
| report for. They fixed the problem and prices returned to
| where they should be (about 5% higher than before the change,
| they used the opportunity to raise prices...).
|
| No, the problem with DB is not to be found in their app or
| the booking system, those are at least on par and often
| better than their foreign equivalents. The problem lies in
| the unreliability of the long distance network, especially
| the ICE service which often sees long delays due to a lack of
| personnel, defective equipment, maintenance work, etc.
| Regional services tend to be more reliable, in part due to
| the higher frequency which makes it less of a problem if a
| single train does not run. All in all I can live with the
| problems and have switched over to rail travel whenever I can
| in Europe. The advantages - more space, more comfort, no
| security theatre, the ability to hack away while travelling,
| usually lower prices, I can take as much luggage as I can
| carry (which is a lot) - outweigh the disadvantages - longer
| travel times, need to change trains, delays which compound
| due to missing connections.
| taffer wrote:
| I couldn't disagree more. You can say a lot of bad things
| about Deutsche Bahn, but of all the travel apps I have used,
| DB Navigator and bahn.de were the best.
|
| SNCF Connect, on the other hand, not only had a terrible UX,
| but also crashed randomly, forcing me to use third-party apps
| to buy SNCF tickets.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I don't know about apps (only used the HVV app, for holding a
| ticket), but in terms of websites SNCF (at least the English
| version, the French one is a bit better) is an absolute mess.
| There is like 3 different ones for starters, one to find a
| connection, one to buy the ticket and one to find current
| status/delays.
|
| bahn.de is actually one of the more decent websites in my
| opinion (definitely better than most rail sites I have
| encountered).
|
| That said, the biggest problem with rail in Europe atm, is
| the lack of an integrated ticketing system. Going between
| places by train is a so much nicer experience than taking the
| plane, but the ticketing experience is such a mess. As others
| have pointed out, on SNCF you can't find any international
| connections any longer (IIRC SJ.se in Sweden still shows
| connections to Norway and Denmark), on Bahn.de you can find
| the connections, but can't actually see a price or book a
| ticket (you are told to go into a station). Train travel in
| Europe could be a surely awesome otherwise.
| taffer wrote:
| The EU should create a standardised system for tickets in
| Europe, similar to the New Distribution Capability for
| flights or SEPA for payments.
|
| There should also be a unified system for passengers to
| claim their money back if their train is delayed.
| barrkel wrote:
| The DB navigator app is actually decent. The one downside is
| it kicks you out to a website to book many international
| tickets, but you can still plan and track your journey delays
| etc. in the app.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > Didn't this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no
| strings attached?
|
| The EUR9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not
| originally intended to continue permanently at all.
|
| > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in
| cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new
| system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription
| model. If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of
| the month or you get auto rebilled.
|
| The ticket is subsidised by the German government(beyond the
| amount that all rail infrastructure and most services are
| subsidised) for the purpose what is covered in the article -
| encouraging permanent modal shift of regular
| travellers(primarily commuters) from road to rail. If you're a
| tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.
| sadcherry wrote:
| Airtravel is also subsidised by the German tax payer. Much
| more than the 49 EUR ticket. No matter if you are a tourist
| or not. (Arguably mostly for tourists actually.)
| kristianp wrote:
| What's the method of subsidy there? Contributing to Airbus
| shares?
| echoangle wrote:
| Commercial aviation fuel is tax exempt in the EU, I would
| already count that as a subsidy (yes, I count not taxing
| something that's normally taxed as a subsidy, even if it
| isn't done by directly paying out money).
| lispm wrote:
| > If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.
|
| Tourist&foreigners can use the Deutschlandticket, too.
|
| But: it's a monthly subscription automatically renewing every
| month, so one has to cancel it early enough when planning to
| leave the country. You'll also typically need a smartphone
| for the ticket.
| dietr1ch wrote:
| Well, on mobile they make you think you need the app, but
| it's region locked. I happened to email them about how this
| is annoying for tourists yesterday and got a very German
| response,
|
| "Downloading the Deutschlandticket.de app from the Google
| Play Store and Apple App Store is only possible in certain
| countries." (ikr, it's THE problem)
| lispm wrote:
| The ticket is available by other apps, too.
| juliangmp wrote:
| >I LOVE the German transit system
|
| What? How? I have the ticket and despite that I never use any
| regional train because they're generally awful. (Local busses
| and trams on the other hand work pretty well)
| ahartmetz wrote:
| Regional trains are really okay compared to long-distance
| trains. These are so bad that it's unlikely that you reach
| your destination on time now.
| consumerx wrote:
| True, significant only because offered for 9 EUR initially.
| ben_w wrote:
| Not only -- when I visit friends in the UK, I've had single
| rail tickets cost more than the increased next years' cost of
| a monthly nationwide ticket here in Germany.
| hilux wrote:
| I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely
| "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the
| US is a MUCH larger country.
| server_man3000 wrote:
| There's a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn't
| meet it at all. I can't even take a bus from my neighborhood
| in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner
| and it's often cancelled
| hilux wrote:
| Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the
| population density is lower than in European cities. (It's
| definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.)
|
| But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used
| to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC,
| so expectations are low.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| But the DC to Boston line isn't
| lispm wrote:
| > the US is a MUCH larger country
|
| with much of the population in a few denser areas, where
| public transport would make a lot of sense.
| ben_w wrote:
| The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany
| is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state,
| Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger.
|
| Do any _states_ have something equivalent to this?
| cycomanic wrote:
| The size "excuse" is often brought up, I don't think that's
| valid though, e.g. Sweden with a significantly lower density
| has much better public transport. Or if we talk absolute size
| I think even Russia has a better rail transport system than
| the US for example. Like usual I think it can largely be
| attributed politics and to the strength of the car lobby in
| the US (as well as a weird desire to "stick it to poor
| people"), which caused a complete focus on individual travel.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| Somehow that wasn't as much of an obstacle in 1920!
| onli wrote:
| > _If you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the
| month or you get auto rebilled._
|
| Just in case this is helpful to someone, you can buy the ticket
| from one of those different transport organizations you
| mentioned and avoid that time limit to cancel. The one to use
| for that is https://www.mopla.solutions/, it's a simple app
| (alternatively web site) that worked really well for me (no
| affiliation).
| emaro wrote:
| Surprised how positive you're writivg about the German public
| transport. The Deutsche Bahn doesn't have a good reputation in
| central Europe.
|
| I guess my frame of reference isn't average, given I live in
| Switzerland.
|
| Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!
| ben_w wrote:
| As a UK citizen living in Berlin, I assure you that for all
| the cancellations and repair works, there's many places which
| look up to the German system.
|
| (I've also been to the USA, and (IMO) Amtrak makes the UK
| look good).
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| > is a bit predatory
|
| what bugs me the most is that i can only book it for a specific
| calendar month. that is _so_ stupid ...
| serial_dev wrote:
| > I doubt I'd ever need a car in Germany given the rail system
| was much more convenient
|
| Sure, if you live in a larger city and you never leave... I
| lived in Munich for years and never needed a car, just
| comfortable shoes, a bike and occasionally a transport ticket.
|
| Try to get to a smaller town or village, you are lucky if you
| only spend twice as much time getting there as with a car.
|
| The trains get randomly cancelled, delay is basically
| guaranteed, the workers go on strikes relatively frequently, so
| you can never rely on trains working for anything remotely
| important.
| sva_ wrote:
| > You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If
| you're a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month
| or you get auto rebilled.
|
| Pro tip: some websites offer to start the subscription later in
| the month and you only pay for those days. So if, for example,
| you were to attend a certain hacker conference in Hamburg at
| the end of December, you could buy the ticket for the last 5
| days of the month for 49/31*5 euro. ("HVV Switch" App)
| Roritharr wrote:
| As someone that avoids the german rail at all costs I applaud
| this move, the freer the roads and airports are for me, the
| better.
| chairmansteve wrote:
| Exactly. I don't understand why most car owners are so opposed
| to public transport.
| waveBidder wrote:
| the same reason omnivores are sometimes highly critical of
| veg*ns: there's a moral claim going on, so their identity/
| moral standing is threatened.
| Aerroon wrote:
| It's not a question of moral standing or identity but
| rather that public transport (and vegan) advocates would
| like to force you to live like they do. Those things
| gaining too much popularity threatens the way you do
| things.
|
| We have examples of this happening, eg smoking. It has
| become unpopular enough that governments pass nonsensical
| bans like banning flavored cigarettes or just making it
| entirely illegal for only a certain year cohort (literal
| age discrimination).
| pkd wrote:
| > public transport (and vegan) advocates would like to
| force you to live like they do
|
| Is there a citation for this claim?
|
| > governments pass nonsensical bans like banning flavored
| cigarettes
|
| Is it nonsensical? There is research[1][2] showing that
| flavoured tobacco is one of the primary factors used to
| attract younger users. We know that tobacco is bad, and
| also that flavoured tobacco increases its usage, so
| unless you are against public health policy measures
| themselves, it follows logically that flavoured tobacco
| should be covered by public health measures.
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9007155/
| [2] https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/6/709
| WJW wrote:
| Vegans? Veg[a..z1..9A..Z]ns? Are there any vegyns out there
| who object to being put on the meat/no-meat spectrum? Are
| you afraid HN will censure you if you spell out the
| complete word?
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Really now. It's obviously veg.+ns: vegans and
| vegetarians.
| WJW wrote:
| Oh aha thanks for pointing that out. Now that you mention
| it that does seem obvious. I definitely didn't catch that
| from the first use though. There should be a better word
| to capture both those meanings that doesn't confuse my
| poor regex sensibilities like that. :|
| fn-mote wrote:
| My regex sensitivities only warned me about the
| persecution of veggggggggns.
| Quekid5 wrote:
| It's a regular veganza in here. (I'm sorry)
| juliangmp wrote:
| Personally I'm not opposed to public transport, in fact I
| want to like the railway. I tried. But the German railway is
| in such a poor state that I never use it. Not for small trips
| (with regional trains that are covered by my 49EUR ticket)
| and especially not for longer trips (long distance trains
| like ICEs).
|
| Every time you enter an ICE just remember that its a coinflip
| on whether or not you'll arrive on time to get your
| connecting train. Or maybe you won't arrive at all, happened
| enough times to me that I frankly don't trust it anymore. And
| considering how expensive ICE tickets have gotten... yeah I'd
| rather take the highway, despite that I don't like driving
| much.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I don't know where you drive for long car trips, but going
| south from e.g. Hamburg on the A1, or through the
| Ruhrgebiet by car is a much bigger coin flip with respect
| to arrival times (while always being significantly slower
| even on good days). So why the complains about
| punctionality for trains, but somehow it's fine for car
| travel?
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| It takes forever compared to driving in most cases, catching
| the transit often involves a walk, and a lot of public
| transit is kind of grungy. This doesn't apply or matter as
| much in some cases (e.g. the NY subway) but in general it's
| not great, at least not in the USA.
| jvesalius wrote:
| >catching the transit often involves a walk
|
| Tell me you're American without telling me you're American.
| trealira wrote:
| Does transit not always involve a walk, even a small one?
| It's not like everyone lives next to a subway station,
| and most destinations aren't right next to a subway
| station either.
| scns wrote:
| Walking is good for you.
| stavros wrote:
| Why do you avoid the rail system?
| Glawen wrote:
| Because waiting im Stau (traffic jam) is so much better.
| artemonster wrote:
| Because missing important appointment (Termin) that you
| have arranged 3 fucking months before by waiting in a phone
| queue for 30 minutes because your Sbahn was cancelled
| because of a nonsense signal-related reason is so much
| better.
| scns wrote:
| Sadly related:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OI8PlJkqvc0
| nik736 wrote:
| Only 62,7% of the trains were in time (and by in time they
| use a rigged system to count what is in time and what is
| not). So it's basically a 50% chance if you will be delayed
| at your destination or in time. Also note, that if you have
| to change trains mid travel you have that chance again. That
| means you will be late very very often. If you travel as an
| individual and you don't value your time at all this is a
| great deal, if you travel for business purposes good luck to
| you.
|
| Apart from that, it's a lot more stressful (and time
| consuming) to go to a train station and leave at a train
| station instead of just driving by car.
| ant6n wrote:
| Punctuality of local trains is much higher than the long
| distance ones whose stats you're quoting here. For rapid
| transit, punctuality is less of an issue, compared to
| frequency.
| chgs wrote:
| Not exactly hard to nowadays in Germany
|
| Using the rail system? Now that's a trick and a half.
| sadcherry wrote:
| Congrats, now you just need to be on board when tax money is
| used for that infra. I bet that latest there your opposition
| starts.
| ted_dunning wrote:
| As someone who uses the German rail any time I can, I also
| applaud this move.
| fn-mote wrote:
| A old friend used to make the same argument for doubling the
| price of gasoline (in Germany)... something like "it will keep
| the rabble off the road".
| hit8run wrote:
| I can fully relate. No one wants to travel in these unreliable,
| piss-stinking trains full of drunken criminals and islamists.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Except this only helped the folks living close to big train
| station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where
| the car is the only viable option.
| orra wrote:
| Well, no, it's primarily about regional travel, so it clearly
| helps folks near to smaller stations.
|
| Plus: your point, caller? Investing in roads only helps folks
| with cars. There are plenty of people for whom public transport
| is the only option.
| pjmlp wrote:
| 1h car, 3h public transport, that is the point.
| Glawen wrote:
| Germany is a dense country with a developed rail network, you
| are never far from a train station. Bear in mind that this
| includes also city transportation, which makes it a great deal.
|
| My gripe with the ticket is that traveling with bikes in
| regional train became a gamble, you never know if you can get
| in as there is so many people inside already (and even more
| when the previous train got cancelled, which happens a lot...)
| pjmlp wrote:
| Yeah, but doesn't make the Bahn more punctual, or reduce
| those comute times from 3h down to the 1h that is possible by
| car, not having to jump across four connections, with related
| delays and dropped connections.
| blueflow wrote:
| The density is not that great, its not good enough if you
| don't have a car.
| Rotundo wrote:
| This helped those people too. There is considerably less
| traffic cutting commute time significantly.
| lispm wrote:
| > Except this only helped the folks living close to big train
| station hubs
|
| Every city has public transport.
|
| There is a large density of public transport throughout the
| country: trains, local trains, underground trains, busses,
| ferries, ...
|
| The ticket is valid there, too.
| pjmlp wrote:
| There is a big difference between doing 1h with car, and 3h
| with public transport.
| lispm wrote:
| maybe 3 hours in the car and 1h with public transport.
|
| if you are in the rushhour and a traffic jam (not an
| unusual problem), then the train will be faster. Plus one
| can work in the train or relax.
|
| My regional train here 20km going into the city center is
| impossible to beat by car.
|
| 77.77% of the people live in cities. 55% live in cities
| with >20k people. Generally Germany is a decentralized
| country with a lot of regions with local center cities.
| There are 15 cities with >500k people. France has only
| four.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| True, but that's how trains work.
|
| As a counter example I live in Rome where city trains are the
| best public transport available and house prices are heavily
| linked to closeness to subway or train station, yet we still
| are the city with most cars per capita in Europe and probably
| in the whole west.
|
| If only those living close to train stations used trains it
| would massively reduce the need for cars and consequently the
| heavy traffic we usually experience.
|
| I live 15 minutes walking from the closest station and it's so
| much better to go to work by train than by car, the trip is
| shorter, I don't have to drive, find a parking spot, a legal
| one, where I can't be fined and don't have to pay for it, while
| on the train I can read and air conditioning actually works and
| train cars are usually not crazy full like subway ones.
|
| TL:DR that's how trains work they are not supposed to solve
| every commuting problem but the solvable ones
| Sakos wrote:
| It helped anybody and everybody that wanted to travel for any
| reason. It meant I could go to the nearest big city to catch a
| movie at an IMAX theatre, something that was significantly more
| expensive before. You don't need a big train station hub to
| have trains, and you only need a few trains or buses to make up
| for the cost and make it worth it. Since, you know, it applies
| to buses as well. I live in a small shithole town, and it's
| extremely convenient to have the Deutschlandticket because it
| means I can take the bus to anywhere in the area, including the
| nearest train station, and I can take a train to anywhere I
| want from nearby towns to cities hours away. Even though I own
| a car again, I still have the ticket because of how useful it
| is and how much money it saves.
|
| I don't understand how anybody can paint this as a bad thing.
| Are you also against universal health care by any chance?
| eesmith wrote:
| Just about all of which used to have train service, right?
|
| I mean, in the US I've been to a lot of small towns where there
| is no train service, but the old station is still there, with
| the rails all torn out and replaced with houses, or roads, or
| bike paths.
|
| And in the UK, the infamous Beeching cuts in the 1960s removed
| lines based on a profitability model which wasn't applied to
| roads, causing many communities to lose rail service and
| essentially require everyone there to shift to cars (replacing
| trains with bus service failed.)
|
| How much of Germany is like that, where the people in the
| country insisted on good roads for their cars, causing the rail
| system to be decommissioned, and now they are stuck with that
| decades-old decision to prioritize the more environment
| destroying option?
| chgs wrote:
| Most beeching stations were of no use- the service wasn't
| there. The village my son's school is at had a station, a
| mile out the middle, with 5 trains a day. You would have to
| change to another train to get to a station with a regular
| service to London, and increasing services wouldn't be
| possible without significantly increasing terminal capacity.
|
| Menawhile the far larger village I live in has never had a
| station.
|
| Some lines would be useful nowadays and could possibly be
| worthwhile, but there was no realistic way to know which
| should have been kept in the 60s. Far better would be to stop
| all the nonsense and just start digging new lines. But we
| proved we can't do that - look at the billions of pounds
| spent attempting to appease the millionaires in
| Buckinghamshire with tunnels. Billions the m40 never had to
| spend.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Well, of course, if we didn't have traffic ministers again and
| again, who do everything they can to make rail less attractive
| and road more attractive, then we could probably have a great
| system. But automobile lobby is so strong, they buy all the
| politicians in that role, probably even before they land in that
| role, so I guess normal people will have to keep suffering, so
| that those politicians can have a life of luxury. Thank you.
| petesergeant wrote:
| I really really would like to see Labour in the UK to use their
| sizeable majority + Parliamentary sovereignty to upgrade the UK's
| infrastructure, including more train subsidies, but they seem
| very cautious and also terrified of raising taxes. Such a waste
| that the UK is one of the few places where Parliament could just
| ram shit through and yet building anything in the UK is so
| hampered by self-imposed red tape.
| chgs wrote:
| 15 years of all major parties supporting hs2 and it couldn't be
| rammed through
|
| Want to improve things for people in the UK, ram through
| massive new housing akin to the newtowns of 50 years ago.
| flooow wrote:
| Lots of people seem surprised that the new government
| apparently have no desire to improve the dire state of the UK.
| But that was never on the cards and the idea that they might
| have done so is pure projection. The current leadership of the
| Labour party are from the right-wing Labour First faction who
| have always been very clear that their aims are not to improve
| the country but to keep the left out of power. They will govern
| in the same business-as-usual nothing-can-ever-get-better vein
| as the Tories and their Blairite predecessors.
|
| However I don't blame the public for not knowing this fact.
| There was (and to some extent still is) a media lockdown on
| reporting who is behind the Starmer project. (Because if it had
| been reported on it might not have succeeded).
| jdietrich wrote:
| Providing these EUR49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of
| around EUR3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the
| rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by
| 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to EUR447 per
| tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement
| methods cost well under $100 per tonne.
|
| I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other
| positive externalities, but I don't know how to price any of
| them.
|
| https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/ghg-abatement...
| szundi wrote:
| Secret plan of car driving politicians to decrease the traffic
| for themselves
| Arn_Thor wrote:
| When you say "carbon abatement" do you mean carbon
| credits/cleanup or other ways of emitting less of it in the
| first place?
| V__ wrote:
| > already substantial subsidies for the rail industry
|
| Though to be fair, there are also substantial subsidies for the
| whole road network.
| theendisney4 wrote:
| Roads are much more efficient with fewer cars.
| kachapopopow wrote:
| The weather would like to have a word with you.
| bmoxb wrote:
| By what metric?
| lispm wrote:
| A German study from 2021 says road traffic created 70
| billion euros costs per year. Of that 45 billion had to be
| paid from general taxes.
| msandford wrote:
| This was phrased poorly if I understand the meaning.
|
| "If there is limited use, roads are more efficient than
| rail"
|
| That's probably true as roads tend to cost less per mile
| than rail and you don't have transfer problems.
|
| When heavily utilized the opposite is true: rail is more
| efficient than roads.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Road vehicles are heavily taxed in European countries. I
| don't have the figures for Germany, but the UK spends PS12bn
| per year on roads, while it collects PS25bn in road fuel duty
| and PS7bn in vehicle excise duty.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/298675/united-kingdom-
| uk...
|
| https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-
| spend/...
|
| https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-
| spend/...
| V__ wrote:
| Vehicle, gas and similar taxes are about EUR50bn in
| Germany. The cost of the road system is about EUR70bn.
|
| [1] https://www.forschung-und-
| wissen.de/nachrichten/oekonomie/au...
| taffer wrote:
| According to a study by the HTW Berlin, Germany collects
| EUR50 billion in road taxes and duties, but spends EUR30
| billion on road maintenance and EUR30 billion on traffic
| police and road accident victims. Add to this an estimated
| EUR10-30 billion in environmental damage due to air and
| noise pollution.
| threeseed wrote:
| There are also deaths caused by road accidents and health
| issues caused by pollution.
|
| Those have real economic impacts which aren't being
| reflected in the true cost of cars.
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| > Providing these EUR49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of
| around EUR3bn
|
| and how was this number actually calculated?
| jdietrich wrote:
| https://urban-mobility-
| observatory.transport.ec.europa.eu/ne...
| 2-3-7-43-1807 wrote:
| just around 2 billion
| ccppurcell wrote:
| I find the word subsidy to be a possible weasel word here. I
| don't know all the details but a railway system has certain
| costs (fuel, personnel, water, upkeep, the trains themselves
| and so on) and takes in a certain amount of revenue (fares and
| subsidies, also food etc). It might be true that the government
| increased the subsidy in order to support the cheaper tickets.
| But that's not the same as "requires". Perhaps I'm splitting
| hairs but there's a strong danger of comparing apples and
| oranges if these things aren't spelled out imo.
| Swizec wrote:
| Here's another way to think about it: Germany invested N
| billion into shifting behavior to rail.
|
| How many billions in subsidies has OpenAI gotten to build us
| a chatbot?
| vkreso wrote:
| You mean another example of apples and oranges?
|
| Is software and transportation really a good example?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I'm not aware of any subsidies openAi has received. Did I
| miss something or is this one of the situations we're we
| are making up new definitions for words?
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > I'm not aware of any subsidies openAi has received.
|
| It is rumored that the military (and perhaps three-letter
| agencies) has/have special contracts with OpenAI. This
| can definitely be called a subsidy.
| punchmesan wrote:
| A contract isn't a subsidy... A subsidy would be giving
| them dollars without any particular strings attached
| except perhaps to use those funds to develop the product.
| If the contract is to provide money in exchange for
| services, that's called a transaction.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| It's important to distinguish between an operational cost
| and capital investment here.
|
| If rail usage continues once the spending stops then it's
| an investment. Otherwise is an operating subsidy.
| ericmay wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's the case here with Germany, but
| typically we refer to transit spending like this as
| "subsidies" but for some reason we forget that building and
| maintaining roads and highways and such are subsidies too.
|
| In the case of the US and probably everywhere else, the
| highway subsidies are a little insidious too because not only
| do you pay a boatload of money for highway expansion you have
| to then go and buy an expensive car and fuel too.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| Don't forget too that the cost of proving roads is also
| 'subsidised' in most countries, but we're tend to be a bit
| blind to that.
|
| (This is not an argument against rail - I just find that
| subsidies are often mentioned with respect to rail but not
| with roads).
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Calculating the subsidy associated with state maintenance
| of roads for private vehicles is difficult.
|
| Some basic level of signage and hazard prevention
| (potholes, ice etc) is necessary for emergency vehicles and
| other government operations.
|
| Thereafter, although there is some maintenance cost
| associated with the road wear from private vehicles and the
| additional infrastructure required for higher traffic
| volumes, we don't have an easy way to calculate the cost.
| clhodapp wrote:
| Wouldn't the very patterns of development be different
| (and more amenable to rail) if the state didn't spend
| oodles of money building nice roads to make sprawl
| livable?
| treflop wrote:
| Sprawl happens when there is available undeveloped land.
| Roads are just a symptom.
|
| People build outwards first and then upwards.
| Arainach wrote:
| There is plenty of undeveloped land that people don't
| move to because there are no roads to get to.
|
| We have more than a century of data showing that roads
| are subject to induced demand. If you build more roads,
| people move and sprawl (and take more trips in general)
| until traffic is once again unbearably bad.
|
| If you build more lanes, more people move further out.
| Roads create sprawl.
| xg15 wrote:
| Also bridges and tunnels, which seem to be very expensive
| to maintain.
| throwaway48476 wrote:
| People don't think of it as a subsidy because they are not
| charged per use a la toll road.
| kortilla wrote:
| It's not a weasel word, it's a word used to describe any
| program provided by the government that does not bring in
| enough revenue on its own to pay for itself.
|
| The same word applies to roads that do not pay for themselves
| through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| If the government pays for something through a general fund
| from income/property/corporate taxes, it's subsidized.
|
| It's important to call these out whenever they are because it
| means the program is not sustainable on its own and that puts
| it at risk during austerity, etc.
| eschaton wrote:
| > not sustainable on its own
|
| Or it is something that provides a benefit to society as a
| whole and therefore deserves to be maintained by the
| institution established by society to do such things,
| government, without assuming economic efficiency is 100%
| correlated with societal benefit.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >The same word applies to roads that do not pay for
| themselves through gas tax and/or tolls.
|
| I'm German and I can tell you it really does not. Like in a
| lot of countries car infrastructure is treated like the
| state of nature, it's just somehow there, and the
| infrastructure burden of parking, road construction and
| what have you isn't a topic. It's the 'default culture' and
| the support it gets is just the status quo, when you try to
| internalize the cost you cause a shitstorm. Look at how
| well surge pricing or road toll debates go over in most
| places, or how sensitive people are to fuel prices.
|
| Rail transport be it commercial or individual despite the
| fact that it's so much cheaper (in particular on emissions
| as well) is always one political decision away from being
| privatized or culled.
| arcticbull wrote:
| What's the subsidy to road and oil companies right now? Might
| be nice to just shift it over.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > requires an annual subsidy of around EUR3bn
|
| I suspect the key is to find ways to run railways cheaper. It
| has been a long time since railways were under severe cost
| competition encouraging people to look for efficiencies.
|
| I think the main one would be to find a way for railways to
| operate with no staff. Just like a typical road operates most
| of the time with no staff.
|
| That means you need to redesign everything that currently uses
| people to not need people. Sure - there would still be
| occasional maintenance - but nobody always on duty driving
| trains (automated), nobody selling tickets (online), nobody
| cleaning stuff (automated cleaning of trains inside and out)
| etc.
| luckylion wrote:
| I doubt that moves the needle a lot unless you're making
| _everything_ fully automatic, i.e. including the
| infrastructure creation & maintenance and streamline that
| extremely well.
|
| If you take a ride from Hamburg to Berlin with the ICE,
| there's maybe 8 staff on board, 200-300 passengers, it takes
| ~2 hours and the average ticket price is 77EUR according to
| some travel app.
|
| Even if you get rid of all 8 of them, the price per ticket
| isn't going to be lowered significantly.
| londons_explore wrote:
| But there is also the ~80 staff manning stations at each
| end and along the route, and more staff in the control
| room, the cleaning staff, the people who manually do
| maintenance checks every single night, etc.
| arrosenberg wrote:
| You can get rid of the cleaning staff right now. The
| terminals will become disgusting and people will stop
| using them. There is no way around this type of overhead.
| If you have larger numbers of people passing through, you
| need cleaning and maintenance.
|
| Your original point isn't even true - in California there
| is constant maintenance of the road network and crews of
| community service workers doing their sentence cleaning
| trash on the highway shoulder.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Roads still have far fewer staff per mile than railways,
| however you measure.
|
| In turn, that makes them cheaper.
| froddd wrote:
| Is there a source for this? Is this source heavily
| context-dependant?
| enaaem wrote:
| In Japan, rail companies also own the land around the
| station. There is often a mall or office right on top of the
| station. So they capture a more of the value of having public
| transport.
|
| In western countries land lords benefit a lot from nearby
| public transport for free and maybe only contribute in taxes.
| PlunderBunny wrote:
| You see the same thing in Hong Kong - the rail company
| practically creates new towns when they add a new station
| or extend a rail line.
| Discordian93 wrote:
| I was under the impression Hong Kong was one big urban
| area already, is there really empty land new towns can be
| built on?
| verall wrote:
| Most of the new territories is not highly developed.
| Kowloon and hk island are both entirely urban.
| mkl wrote:
| Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong#Geography,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_towns_of_Hong_Kong.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| Originally, rail worked kind of like this in the US too.
| Alternating squares of land adjacent to tracks were ceded
| to railroads, so you'd have sections of public land and
| private land beside each other.
|
| I learned about this when someone was trying to make a test
| case of "corner crossing" from one patch of public land to
| another a while back.
| okanat wrote:
| When installed and kept up properly with good policymaking
| railways are always a positive for the economy. They cause a
| huge amount of cheap movement that increases business
| activity. Little towns that become railway stops develop much
| faster. The bigger stations are great for shops and food. The
| access to education and high-value driving extracurricular
| activities increase for younger people too. They overall make
| the economy resilient against all sorts of crisis (energy,
| markets)
|
| The more railways are used for commuting, the less people are
| on the road. So it increases the road efficiency too and
| reduces degradation. Railways are great drivers of innovation
| and the technology they generate can be backported to cars,
| they are initial investment drivers.
|
| However, the first if/when is a big one. You can half ass
| roads. You pay compensation for a pothole every now and then
| and make small improvement to get votes. You cannot half ass
| railways. They require constant maintenance and a whole
| mindset built around them.
|
| Japan does railways correctly. China is getting there. The
| Netherlands is nearly a paradise of bike and railways.
| Germany isn't. The countries with almost the same culture,
| Austria and Switzerland, care much more about their railways
| and invest them properly however their government aligns.
| Germans keep electing the right wing party with their
| ministers of ~BMW~ transport and then complain about 50% of
| the non-cancelled trains are late and the maintenance cost of
| the falling apart rail system is quadrupled.
| ericd wrote:
| The only carbon capture/sequestration method I'm aware of
| without significant tradeoffs outside of price is direct air
| capture, and last I saw, that clocked in at $600-1200/ton
| (Climeworks). So maybe not such a terrible deal?
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Wetlands do a better job of carbon sequestration than trees.
|
| Globally, we've lost 85 percent of our wetlands since the
| 1700s.
|
| Maybe we should restore them.
| asmor wrote:
| The system simply doesn't have more capacity right now.
|
| Germany neglected or even removed their rail infrastructure,
| especially for the past 25 or so years, after privatization.
| These "subsidies" are a course correction.
|
| These investments also make it a real pain to use the system
| right now, because a lot of lines are closing months at a time
| and the alternatives are already overloaded. I'd rather have a
| car for the next 5-10 years too - and I live very central with
| many connections.
|
| Here's a map of disruptions for reference:
| https://www.zuginfo.nrw/map.html#!P|HimSearch!histId|1!histK...
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Me and my wife are certainly considering getting a car. Cars
| are a pain in cities, but it would save literally hundreds of
| hours over the course of even a single year due to just how
| poor the infra is.
| barrkel wrote:
| Cars also have a huge subsidy in the form of roads
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| There are generally taxes (e.g., car or gas taxes) that cover
| the costs. I don't know about Germany's situation, but it is
| not impossible to make that net zero.
| eigenspace wrote:
| Not even close to net zero in Germany. Do you have any
| examples of countries where car and gas taxes do actually
| cover the cost of roads?
| threeseed wrote:
| In Australia, petrol tax raises ~18bn.
|
| Cost of road infrastructure is ~36bn.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| Yes, lets subsidize the aviation and car industry more
| instead!!
|
| Face it, trains is the better option here.
|
| Bike and walk is best of course but troublesome long distance.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Well it's not just a carbon credit, it also provides subsidized
| public transport to everyone, reduces congestion, improves city
| air and likely cuts road deaths. Arguably tax dollars extremely
| well spent.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Except that due to this cheaper ticket congestion on trains
| is horrible and since the infrastructure is poorly maintained
| it's quite common to be late by 1-2 hours while being packed
| in a sardine tin.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| This analysis is too simple. Roads need to be maintained, road
| accidents are a burden on the national health service and air
| pollution has a long term negative impact on people's health
| epolanski wrote:
| Why do you need to price them?
|
| Also, there are countries out there where the average tax payer
| subsidizes car drivers a lot too.
| risyachka wrote:
| Who said rail industry should be profitable in the first place?
|
| I would fully support if part of my taxes would subsidize rail
| industry and I get cheaper prices. Imo good use of tax dollars.
| k__ wrote:
| It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time.
|
| First it started as 9EUR ticket for 3 months.
|
| People loved it, and the government talked about doing a
| permanent 29EUR ticket.
|
| But now we pay 49EUR and it's already planned to become 59EUR.
|
| Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
| lispm wrote:
| > Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.
|
| Depends. In my city "poor" people pay less. Just 19 EUR per
| month. Pupils don't pay at all. Students pay 29.40 EUR.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| It's still super affordable for the average worker using these
| tickets to commute.
| epolanski wrote:
| It's meant to be an alternative to car drivers which are still
| gonna save over driving even with multiple hikes ahead.
| internetter wrote:
| I made an argument for making my local public transportation
| free: https://boehs.org/node/free-the-t
|
| Some of the arguments is based on similar German research, which
| is cited.
| hit8run wrote:
| Look who is putting out this propaganda and who is funding them
| and then you will understand why the MUST sell this ticket as a
| success... With the high amount of tax money Germany collects
| from their slaves (almost 50%) we should have mobile phone
| coverage everywhere. Truth is there is no network on most high
| traffic railway tracks. You can't have a phone call without
| interruption of signal loss when traveling with Deutsche Bahn.
| They also have no WiFi on the trains, toilets are broken and
| rarely anything is on time. They wanted to become more reliable
| but they postponed this goal to 2070!!!
| theendisney4 wrote:
| The real puzzle imho is to get people to use public transport for
| the mostly empty route and time combinations. There are many of
| those for different reasons.
|
| Trains are so heavy it doesnt really cost or save anything if
| there are people inside or not.
|
| Its like restaurants throwing away food.
| overflyer wrote:
| Which I as a German simply fail to fathom. The quality of our
| Deutsche Bahn is so bad I would never drive by train. The worst
| thing is that they are incapable to have their trains be on time.
| Whenever you travel there is an extremely high chance you will
| not arrive at your destination in time.
| Aachen wrote:
| Not every trip is time sensitive, most trains do run on time,
| and not all trains are operated by your nemesis. If you still
| refuse to "ever" take a train anywhere, that's on you rather
| than the system
| patall wrote:
| Because it is a regional problem and some areas work mostly
| fine. I also fail to fanthom why people drive in rush hour,
| queuing every day for hours. Yet people do that. And people
| love to complain, especially those that only take trains on
| public holidays. But hey, here in Sweden the trains are worse
| than in Germany, but people complain far less and trains are
| full anyways.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| Would be interesting to see if the subsidy is covered by
| additional economic activity to cover the shortfall. If not it
| won't last long, money doesn't grow on trees
| moffkalast wrote:
| On the other hand the Bundeswehr burns through 50 billion a
| year to do fuck all, so apparently it does indeed grow on
| trees.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It does when maintaining roads, apparently.
| exabrial wrote:
| I have to admit the 'all access' ticket system was pretty awesome
| when I visited. Note that this did not include trains going into
| Austria (even if you road them only in Germany). Nearly every
| city is joined by rail and it's incredible.
|
| Sadly in the US Midwest we just don't have there population
| density to do this sort of thing.
| ggernov wrote:
| The reason nobody uses public transit in America is it's always
| packed with transients or dangerous people.
|
| I took public transit all the time living in Melbourne since it
| was clean and silent nearly 98% of the time. Same in the
| Netherlands.
| tantivy wrote:
| Hundreds of thousands of people use public transit daily in
| America. Long headways, poor coverage, and lackluster
| maintenance budgets are a much more important problem than what
| you're describing.
| partiallypro wrote:
| I think this is one reason why it is rarely expanded, people
| associate the stops as a way for criminals to get around; but I
| think usage is not great largely because it hasn't
| expanded...it's a self-feeding cycle.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| > The reason nobody uses public transit in America is it's
| always packed with transients or dangerous people.
|
| That's a lie told by people who sell fear as a product to
| people who always want new reasons to live in fear.
| jmyeet wrote:
| This last week we would've probably all seen the photos of the
| gridlock on I-75 as Tampa Bay residents fled Hurricane Milton. If
| you followed the story you know it eventually became almost
| impossible to evacuate.
|
| We should also know how much more efficient buses are on roads at
| moving people than individual cars are. You can fit ~60 people on
| a bus that takes up the space of ~2 cars.
|
| What should happen in these emergencies is there should be
| dedicated bus lanes and dedicates buses to evacuate people.
|
| But beyond that, what we should learn from this is that lack of
| public transit (intracity and intercity) is a public safety
| issue. Cars simply aren't an efficient use of resources.
|
| You can see from the comments here people will talk about
| "subsidies" for rail. Why does rail need to turn a profit? Roads
| don't. The Post Office doesn't. The Fire Department doesn't. Yet
| for some reason we hold public transport infrastructure to a
| higher standard.
|
| Americans, in particular, love their cars. And there has been a
| powerful lobbying operation to associate rail with tax increases.
| This is so short-sighted because nobody is confiscating your car.
| Fewer people on the roads will improve your driving experience
| and travel times.
|
| We see in the UK that it's cheaper to fly to Spain than to take
| intercity train journeys. As far as I'm concerned, citywide rail
| (eg the Tube in London, the NYC Subway) should be free and
| intercity rail should have a nominal cost that is cheaper than
| driving.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-10-12 23:00 UTC)