Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
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Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#2Sounds like a rhetorical question meant to boost support for wasteful EU-approved "investment" ie centrally blessed handouts for more debt and government spending that continues to violate eurozone deficit rules from the 90's.
How about some practical problems for these euro-geniuses such as why is gasoline and energy in general so ridiculously expensive? An entire generation has lived a miserable life because of the EU, it's like a 21st century version of Soviet Union.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#3Apparently there is little current economic incentive (or regulatory push) to streamline the process and take on airlines in cross-border travel:
Railway companies are national in nature and by history. The share of cross-border travelling is small; the income mainly comes from national rail.
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Obviously if they streamlined the process to take on airlines their revenue would increase. But perhaps the cost of streamlining would outweigh the revenue increase. Unfortunately it is almost impossible to create a disruptor in the train space due to rules, regulation and the capex nature of it. Whereas the airline space is easy to enter as a competitor even though it is capex heavy because the core asset (planes) are mobile. You can move them from very competitive market to another one that has less competition if the laws (and airport slots) allow for it.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#4Really?
> When travelling from Copenhagen to Warsaw or Lisbon to Marseille
People pick the train because those trips are far enough to make the train a hassle
But I can enter the origin train company sites (or the operator) and buy a ticket to another country "pretty easily" (for the last couple of times I did this). In fact buying online was easy enough.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#5Really? > When travelling from Copenhagen to Warsaw or Lisbon to Marseille People pick the train because those trips are far enough to make the train a hassle But I can enter the origin train company sites (or the operator) and buy a ticket to another country "pretty easily" (for the last couple of times I did this). In fact buying online was easy enough.
They even mention Trainline in the article, which spits me a next-day ticket from for both those trips in seconds. They hand wave it away by saying the are "unknown to consumers".
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#6Apparently there is little current economic incentive (or regulatory push) to streamline the process and take on airlines in cross-border travel: Railway companies are national in nature and by history. The share of cross-border travelling is small; the income mainly comes from national rail. - Obviously if they streamlined the process to take on airlines their revenue would increase. But perhaps the cost of streamli…
Also revenue comes from freight, passenger transport is just a subsidised public service.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#7Sometimes this complexity can lead to nice loopholes. Some time ago I wrote a comment [0] which explained how we once tricked ourselves into a 1,500 km, 7 day train trip for 39 EUR:
> Deutsche Bahn had (and still has I think) a "Europe Special" where you could buy a ticket from any town in Germany to any town in Europe for 39 EUR flat. Our idea was to travel through Croatia for a few weeks, starting from Zagreb. Sure enough, bahn.de (the journey planer of Deutsche Bahn) offered us a ticket for a train ride of around 16 hours from our home town to Zagreb, through Austria and Slovenia. We would have had to change trains 2 times.
> Then things escalated.
> We discovered that we could book the same trip, for the same price, but with a different route, making a 500 km detour inside Germany over my parent's town. Then we discovered that bahn.de allowed us to specify a minimum time to change trains. We set it to 24 hours at my parent's town, letting us stay at my parents for a night. Then we found out that we could set an additional via option in such a way that we had to change trains in Ljubljana. We set the minimum time to change trains there to 24 hours. Then we found out that the ticket price was the same if we travelled not only to Zagreb, but to Split (at the coast), which required a change of trains in Zagreb. But we wanted to stay a few days in Zagreb, and the maximum minimum time to change trains on bahn.de was 24 hours. But thenw e discovered that (at least 5 years ago) all foreign tickets were valid for 30 days in Croatia. Effectively, this meant that we could stay in Zagreb for 30 days, and our ticket to Split was still valid.
> We got the ticket. After a week of visiting my parents (1 night stay), Ljubljana (1 night stay), and Zagreb (5 nights stay), we arrived in Split without problems. It was a 1,500 km, 7 day train trip for 39 EUR.
> The only minor problem we had was the German conductor in the first train after we visited my parents. He just stared at the monstrous ticket in disbelief and had to finally conclude that it was valid.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#8Really? > When travelling from Copenhagen to Warsaw or Lisbon to Marseille People pick the train because those trips are far enough to make the train a hassle But I can enter the origin train company sites (or the operator) and buy a ticket to another country "pretty easily" (for the last couple of times I did this). In fact buying online was easy enough.
They even mention Trainline in the article, which spits me a next-day ticket from for both those trips in seconds. They hand wave it away by saying the are "unknown to consumers".
Those services are great. I used Eurail (a similar one). Bought X train trips for a flat rate, all I had to do was write in my To and From cities on the travel log. Reading this article, I took that for granted with how simple it was.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#9Really? > When travelling from Copenhagen to Warsaw or Lisbon to Marseille People pick the train because those trips are far enough to make the train a hassle But I can enter the origin train company sites (or the operator) and buy a ticket to another country "pretty easily" (for the last couple of times I did this). In fact buying online was easy enough.
This depends on your train operator. Deutsche Bahn won't even tell you prices to most international destinations (especially those DB doesn't itself service) and asks you to come in in person to one of the few remaining ticket sales booths OR call a hotline.
They happily let you select a train ride from Madrid to Wladivostok, including all intermediary stations ... but you can't buy the ticket. Same for Berlin to Rome.
Re: Why are cross-country train tickets in EU still so complex?
#10Apparently there is little current economic incentive (or regulatory push) to streamline the process and take on airlines in cross-border travel: Railway companies are national in nature and by history. The share of cross-border travelling is small; the income mainly comes from national rail. - Obviously if they streamlined the process to take on airlines their revenue would increase. But perhaps the cost of streamli…
Also revenue comes from freight, passenger transport is just a subsidised public service.
Really depends on the individual countries. Some countries subsidize the tracks for everyone (including freight), others just the passenger rail companies. Heck, in the EU there's even quite a few open-access operators who are fully for-profit.