Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a matter of perspective. The ticket is not aimed solely at people with median income of a tech worker (or the typical HN crowd), but help out the general populace as a whole. Including those who can not even afford a car. Now I think when the times comes (3 month from now) for the program to run out, we might see discussions about continuing it at a price that makes it a more sustainable, permanent offer. But…
> more sustainable, permanent offer Seems pretty unlikely that they'll be able to after a 3 month period of operating at a loss (for the government) and likely having more issues due to increased usage.
9-Euro-Ticket
201–210 of 598 posts
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#202Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#203Hmm, so social distancing is truly gone and they don't fear this action massively spreading the COVID virus?
Feels like the European governments' (I generalize...) thinking is, the vaccine is available, it's good enough, and Omicron is "not that bad" anyway, so, if you don't want to get vaccinated, it's on you, but let's get on with our lives...
All of this compares very favourable to the US where vaccination is 65% and boosters are 31%. Plus vaccination, mask usage and lockdowns became deeply decisive topics, substantially reducing the effectiveness of all of them. In the end it’s place the US in bad spot for resolving the the pandemic quickly.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#204I'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.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not German, I live in a Swiss village and drive zero km a day. But I spend almost an hour/leg in public transport traveling door-to-door to the office when I go there (well, before covid much more often). I can also work in the train most of the time - 45 minutes of said hour - so that it counts as work time too. So, no reason to drive at all. I only take the car at weekends for doing shopping or doing some visits, e…
The reason I ask is that there's a stereotype that German-speaking Europeans especially all go everywhere with hyper-efficient trains that come every three minutes and are only a little bit less on-time than the ones in Japan, and that can't actually be true out in the countryside.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#206I 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…
Not quite. Many people (eg commuters) have monthly train passes, almost all students have a "Semesterticket" (university enrolment is about 350 EUR every half year, but that includes all public transport in the region).
Now, the 9-Euro-Ticket is cheaper than those options, so out of fairness the holders of all those tickets are getting a refund of 3 months worth of their pass minus 3x9=27 EUR, which is a huge administrative burden for the public transport providers and universities. That substantial burden would not have been reduced by having the ticket for free.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment.
Your math is off by 50%. A gallon is 3.785 litres, and the euro is roughly $1.05. So 2 euros per litre = one gallon costs $8.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there cross country but regional rail lines?
Yes, there are! For example, I have travelled between Strasbourg and Basel (Switzerland) on a regional train, as well as between Milan and Nice, and between Nice and Barcelona (changing trains at the Spanish border due to the change of rail gauge). There's also a regional line connecting Barcelona and Puigcerdà (a town in the Spanish Pyrenees) which at certain times continues its service a further ~5km and terminates…
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#209I think it's great, but honestly, placing it at 15€ would have made only a little difference to the consumer, who is already getting a lot for the value, and helped the railway operators a good deal. As a compromise the age of kids who can travel together with their parents for free could have been raised from 6 to 8 years.
Isn't the taxpayer paying the shortfall, rather than the "railway operators"?
Don't ask me how exactly they assign the tax money to the train companies, but probably they get a fixed amount per ticket sold, which would be another reason why it is important to "sell" those tickets.
Re: 9-Euro-Ticket
#210Hmm, so social distancing is truly gone and they don't fear this action massively spreading the COVID virus?