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Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

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Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#111

Post by bmicraft »

fouric wrote: post #84

I see a detrimental incentive here. Let me explain, and then someone please show me what I'm not getting. We're trying to incentivize public over private transit because the former emits less carbon (in general). However, public transit still costs carbon, so taking less trips total seems to be better for the environment (the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle" - kind of). If the marginal cost to a public trans…

That's the best way to make people switch back to cars imho. Not only does constantly paying a fee increase friction significantly, the same is not the case if you were to use a car you only need to refill every other week or so.

At the end of the day the total number of trips are probably not very elastic, because the price (if it isn't a very high one) usually isn't even a consideration if you want to go somewhere (if it's not that far away anyways).

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#112

Post by anchpop »

fouric wrote: post #84

I see a detrimental incentive here. Let me explain, and then someone please show me what I'm not getting. We're trying to incentivize public over private transit because the former emits less carbon (in general). However, public transit still costs carbon, so taking less trips total seems to be better for the environment (the "reduce" part of "reduce, reuse, recycle" - kind of). If the marginal cost to a public trans…

The enlightened big brain politically impossible is to internalize as much as possible. For example, everyone could have a device on their car that records how much carbon they emit and reports it to the government so they can be taxed. The amount they should be taxed is not trivial to determine, but an upper bound would be the cost of offsetting or capturing the same amount of carbon they emitted. (you don’t actually have to spend it on that, the point is just to incentivize people to avoid emitting carbon)

Then increase train fare so it’s at least as expensive per-carbon-emitted as driving. Since trains emit much less carbon, it will end up being cheaper to get from point A to point B by train.

Driving or taking the train has another cost, congestion. (more drivers means it takes everyone longer to get to where they’re going, more riders means some people might not be able to fit on the train. that second one used to be a common occurrence to me.)

Now that might seem hideously unfair to poor people. The solution is to take all the revenue collected this way and redistribute it throughout the jurisdiction where the law is enforced. The poorest would actually see an increase in their purchasing power. That’s because poor people emit less carbon on average, so if e.g. a poor person emits 1 ton per day and the average is 2 tons per day (making up numbers), they would pay the tax cost of emitting 1 ton but receive the tax cost of emitting two tons. The money would come from wealthy people who emit 3 tons but only receive the cost of emitting 2. That way everyone is incentivized to emit less without it unfairly burdening the poor.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#113

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

flemhans wrote: post #86

The BahnCard 100 is 3000 EUR in Germany, giving you full access to all trains. Austria is 1/10th the size of Germany. By this logic, the ticket price should be 300 EUR, not 1095 EUR.

And Switzerland is also small but way more expensive, but, that's not how things work. That's not how anything works.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#114

Post by rad_gruchalski »

ortusdux wrote: post #62
quadrifoliate wrote: post #30

Next stop: Just make public transport free for all reasonably permanent residents (for example, you could get a free ticket for next year when you file your taxes). Anyone who rides public transport instead of expensive and polluting cars is doing a service for the environment.

Tom Scott did a great video on Luxembourg's switch to free public transport. They were already covering 90% of the cost, so upping that to 100% was easy. London's network, on the other hand, gets roughly 50% of its funding from fares. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feCQPD9DSOA

The area of Luxemburg is 2500km2 and the estimated population is 633k. For comparison: the area of London is ~1500km2 with population of 8m+. Do you think that Luxemburg’s system can be scaled up?

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#115

Post by eptcyka »

fnordsensei wrote: post #110
sokoloff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you go that far, why stop there? What's the reason to have all the expenses and effort of fare collection if you're only going to collect fares from the occasional users of the system and not the daily users? If you're going to make it free for all residents, you might as well just make it free for everyone.

If you really want to charge tourists for the use of public transport, you could perhaps find ways of charging that at the border of the country. A daily tariff, either on entry, or on exit.

This isn't tenable in the EU due to the freedom of movement across borders.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#116

Post by FabHK »

Leherenn wrote: post #106
adventured wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American I had always heard that public transportation was super inexpensive in essentially all of Western Europe. Is that not the case generally?

It's hard to answer, it depends on a lot of variables, but it is rarely "super inexpensive", just usually cheaper. On a trip basis, i.e. no fixed costs included, no reduction; public transports are often the most expensive form of transportation (when compared to car or plane for longer distances). However, few people pay the full price, especially not those taking the train regularly, and cars have massive fixed cos…

> whereas public transportation is usually linear

With "usually" being an important proviso: In Germany, there are weekend tickets for up to 5 people. A student ticket (covering the entire state, included in the tuition fee of around 700 EUR/year) often allows the holder to take someone along after 7pm or on weekends.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#117

Post by droopyEyelids »

shimonabi wrote: post #104

I used to live in Austria before Covid without a car and travel to my home country by train on weekends. I have the feeling they are doing this because they lost a lot of passengers during the epidemic. Maybe I'm wrong...

Thats how it worked in Chicago: everyone stopped riding due to sars-cov-2, the Transit Authority started selling 1/3 price passes, ridership picked right back up.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#118

Post by mongol »

southerntofu wrote: post #74
bluGill wrote: post #3

This should be the preferred way to ride all local transit systems. One price for the whole family, ride as much as you want for the month (I think month is better then year - easier to budget, and if you move you are not out as much). If people aren't willing to pay for the pass, your system isn't useful and you need to fix that. Because it is unlimited rides people are less likely to think about using the car for t…

> One price for the whole family Why not make it free? It's a public service after all, and it's hard to "abuse" transportation like one can use "too much" free water/electricity.

Every passenger wears on the system. It is fair that you pay a part of things you use.

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#119

Post by albertgoeswoof »

sokoloff wrote: post #52
quadrifoliate wrote: post #30

Next stop: Just make public transport free for all reasonably permanent residents (for example, you could get a free ticket for next year when you file your taxes). Anyone who rides public transport instead of expensive and polluting cars is doing a service for the environment.

If you go that far, why stop there? What's the reason to have all the expenses and effort of fare collection if you're only going to collect fares from the occasional users of the system and not the daily users? If you're going to make it free for all residents, you might as well just make it free for everyone.

The easy way is to make it legally free for residents and charge tourists but don’t actually enforce it. Just put up ads in the airport and all over the tourist hotspots, run a few fake stories in the media of tourists being fined etc.

You get your money for nothing and your travel for free

Re: Klimaticket: All public transport in Austria with a single ticket for 1095 EUR/y

#120

Post by bckygldstn »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #85
lbriner wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I visited Germany, they had cleverly ditched most "gateline staff" like you say but then had a reasonable number of ticket inspectors who would check you had a ticket and it was stamped for the current day. Best of both worlds?

Italy does this and I've always wondered how much they must lose over it. Even as a tourist, every time I saw a ticket agent get on the bus/tram, a good number of people would instantly get off. I do like the system better, it's faster in every way. But lost fares would definitely be a concern. Also not sure how that has anything to do with making public transit free honestly.

I've lived in a place with a system like this. The people who jump off were mostly students and people for whom tickets represented a significant expense.

The lax rules and clearly uniformed agents were seen partly as progressive price discrimination, giving free access to public transport to those who really need it.

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