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9-Euro-Ticket

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Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#121

Post by _0ffh »

kuschku wrote: post #65
_0ffh wrote: post #36

I'm sure the private bus operators, who usually are the only cheap option to travel in Germany, are just thrilled by this additional market distortion.

There’s only one left, all the others went bankrupt, and that one (FlixBus) only offers long-distance journeys, while this ticket only applies to regional trains.

Firstly, long distance is misleading, I do not need to travel the whole length of a route. I can hop into a bus and hop out again at any of the next few bigger cities along the route. In my experience, that's what most people seem to do.

Secondly, the 9€-Ticket is valid in all of Germany, so you could travel the length and width of the country if you wanted to. You'd just have to change trains a lot.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#122

Post by Escapado »

butterlesstoast wrote: post #81
MandieD wrote: post #51

Very important caveat for all of you who are thinking, “woo hoo, no need to buy that EuRail pass! Or to buy an expensive ICE ticket!” These tickets are good for all “Nah- und Regionalverkehr,” explicitly excluding ICE, IC, EC (international) and long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich) If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every…

For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment.

When I was still in school about a decade ago an exchange student from the US was flabbergasted at our gas prices when she found out that the signs at the gas station would display the prices in €/l and not €/gallon. Quick googling shows that €/$ was 1.45 around that time and gas prices were around 1.42€/l which would be a little over 2.06$/l or 7.79$/gallon. At the time the gas prices in the US was 2.79$/gallon.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#123

Post by GuB-42 »

Bayart wrote: post #66
curiousfab wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't imagine why not. You just to to a ticket machine and buy it, no need for a passport or anything. Enjoy - Sylt is waiting for you, and you'll be there along with a million like-minded people!

> I couldn't imagine why not. The single market. Refusing to sell to other EU citizens is very illegal.

Not illegal as far as I know.

These are almost certainly subsidized tickets, financed with taxpayer money, it is common to restrict the sales to those who pay taxes in the covered area. And I don't see how it could be illegal, it is like forcing Germany to provide health care for the French and vice versa.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#124

Post by soco »

hhlevnjak2 wrote: post #115
Escapado wrote: post #75

I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been a cool move. - Less/no expensive accounting - Less/no personnel for checking tickets - Less/no personnel for prosecuting people who don't have tickets - Less/no ticket vending machines (and all the maintenance that comes with it) - Less traffic on the roads since you can't beat "free" and hence less emissions (at least in hamburg trains operate on green…

Perhaps it would work in DE, but it can create wrong incentives. Here in Croatia, we had "free" public transport in some places for i.e. students travelling to school. But the price was still paid for by the cities/government to service operators. Which led to inflated prices for the service because there's always a way for the operator and some officials to collude together for extra profit. And the increases weren'…

Corruption always finds a way, with or without free transport. What I mean, that cannot be a reason to not provide some service, because also the paid transport is getting (or can be) corrupted I suppose, just like everything else.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#125

Post by Freak_NL »

RGamma wrote: post #50

For comparison: The equivalent, non-subsidised "Quer durchs Land"-Ticket costs 42€ for one person per day (70€ for 5 people per day) -- https://www.bahn.de/angebot/regio/qdl

There are also the cheaper Landestickets which offer the same, but limited to one (or two) Bundesland and usually starting from €25. Those offer good value for tourists exploring a region too (in the absence of this €9 ticket).

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#126

Post by poooogles »

sascha_sl wrote: post #63
mbg721 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When is there not a crisis? If you're running a train anyway, the marginal cost of attaching a couple more cars for the extra demand seems pretty small.

Not even that. Most lines are already at maximum capacity, and the number of cars is usually dependent on the shortest platform on the line already. We take this so seriously, any stop, even unplanned, where the doors might open aside from absolute emergencies must be on a platform of sufficient length.

>Not even that. Most lines are already at maximum capacity, and the number of cars is usually dependent on the shortest platform on the line already.

Here in the UK we run trains that are longer than platforms quite frequently. I'm talking about 9 car trains stopping at 2 car platforms here as well, not 9 car trains where the front and rear doors of the first and last carriage don't open.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#127

Post by kappuchino »

For anyone wondering why 9€? Not 10€ or 15€ or ... - its consistent with 101 consumer psychology.

First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. Free would suggest for some "not worth it". Not you, most likely, but this is why some free offers are not taken (seriously). If you want to see what free does, look for the Luxemburg experient: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/tickets/free-transport/

Second: Higher price point would make a difference for less subsidy payments for the state, but the psychology is "not even 10 bucks". I know that some will argue that 10 Euros will be hard for low income/poor/out of the system people - but again, this is seen as an experiment and a simple message. The data from the usage will help to understand how one can/might change public transportation on a grand scale.

Third: Its during the summer holidays. People with children in school have to book vacation during that time and so the traffic volume in every year before was less than usual on average. In reverse, a lot of people are on the autobahn and the high speed trains on the first and last days of each school holiday, which are different in each federal state.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#129

Post by franciscop »

When it gets crowded in Tokyo trains you are literally pushed against each other, back to front people against people, specially bad in summer where the aircon cannot keep up. That's only at 9am normally though, and so I do not consider jobs that make me be in the office at that time (9:30~10 is an order of magnitude better). WFH has been a blessing to Tokyo.

So it was funny when I visited my sister in a rural town in England, and there was a festival so we took the bus to get there. It was obvious the bus was more crowded than usual, and people were grumpy, but from my point of view it was almost empty; people were within an arm's distance from each other, which for the locals probably used to less than half the people that was very crowded.

I wonder if the same will happen on the trains in Germany. Japan is used to this though, and they have powerful ventilation and aircon systems to alleviate the situation in summer.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#130

Post by kuschku »

_0ffh wrote: post #121
kuschku wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s only one left, all the others went bankrupt, and that one (FlixBus) only offers long-distance journeys, while this ticket only applies to regional trains.

Firstly, long distance is misleading, I do not need to travel the whole length of a route. I can hop into a bus and hop out again at any of the next few bigger cities along the route. In my experience, that's what most people seem to do. Secondly, the 9€-Ticket is valid in all of Germany, so you could travel the length and width of the country if you wanted to. You'd just have to change trains a lot.

Both of those are true, but that market distortion isn’t nearly as large as you made it sound, and considering the upsides for society even the absolute worst case of driving one company into bankruptcy would definitely be worth it.
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