Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

9-Euro-Ticket

bahn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 598 posts

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#291

Post by Symbiote »

Shacklz wrote: post #192
kilotaras wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, UKs train tickets are ridiculous if you compare it to rest of Europe. And that's not even case of UK just being generally more expensive, e.g. cheapest StAlbans - London (~25 km) yearly pass costs around £4k. About a 1000 pounds more than Switzerland GA travelcard which covers basically any form of public transport in Switzerland.

As a Swiss GA holder - UK public transport is all privately owned, right? The joys of free market efficiency in "public" transportation - maximum efficiency for the owners/shareholders, minimum efficiency for the people. The Swiss SBB is also again and again under assault to be fully privatized, luckily so far this hasn't happened yet, and I hope it never will...

The public transport politicians use (London Underground, London buses) is publically owned.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#292

Post by aqwsde »

Archelaos wrote: post #134
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…

> I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been a cool move. Here in Germany, there were many voices in favour of making the ticket completely free. What I heard about the reason for not doing so is that the government wanted to easily measure the actual demand in different regions for such a "free" ticket. So the price is low enough that anybody who wants to ride practically "for free" is buying i…

No post body was provided.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#293

Post by johannes1234321 »

ptspts wrote: post #256
johannes1234321 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat off topic, but still: > long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich) Zurich is too deep in Switzerland to be covered anyways. (Salzburg, Kufstein, Basel Bad Bf, etc. however are in Austria/Switzerland but part of German rail rates and included in 9€ tickets) And that DB bus doesn't exist anymore since the new electrified railway line to Lindau was opened two years ago, as Munucih-Zurich got…

From Zürich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it way faster. By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 minutes late.

That was the integration into the Swiss train schedule.

They improved the line (electrification which allows better trains, moving tran station in Lindau from the island with old town to the shore etc.) in the first year they went from 4h30 to 4h. Where the trains were standing for about half an hour at St. Magrethen at the Austrian-Swiss border. In 2021 they improved signalling and adjusted schedules and got rid of that half an hour wait, so it's now at 3h35.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#294

Post by User23 »

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…

This is still a screaming deal. It's been a while, but this is like getting multiple Monatskarten for for single Tageskarte prices.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#295

Post by Bigpet »

jona-f wrote: post #153
jdhzzz wrote: post #99

Who-hoo, let's all go to the summer long super-spreader event.

Covid is currently not a big issue in Germany. Even so restrictions are lifted and most people don't care at all anymore about protection, the numbers are going down.

Numbers are still significantly higher than Winter 2020/21. So with lessening restrictions this winter is poised to set another record (for infections at least, deaths might not be as high as last year). People don't care, true. But that's about feeling, not about numbers or facts.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#296

Post by iggldiggl »

Archelaos wrote: post #236
pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be replaced by real free rides in the future. What’s your confidence level here? Because if you can make me believe that the ticket is effectively a vote for ticketless/free ÖPNV I will buy them for everyone I know.

There is support for this idea across MPs of multiple parties, from Conservatives, Liberals, Greens and Labour/Left. It appears to be a comparatively cheap measure to reduce CO2 footprint (I am not an expert here, though, so this might be incorrect, but one hears this argument a lot) and at the same time an easy measure to improve mobility for the poor. (Thousands of people went to jail in Germany every year because…

Maybe that number includes grants for capital expenses (building new routes and stations, step-free remodelling, public transport priority, etc.) as well? According to https://www.vdv.de/vdv-statistik-2019.pdfx#page=35, for day-to-day operations farebox recovery ratios are rather around 75 %.

Edit: Looking at your link, it seems the difference might be accounted for to some extent because the 75 %-figure - might possibly not include heavy rail

- like I said definitively doesn't include grants for major capital projects and only looks at day-to-day operating expenses

- is looking at things from the perspective of the local transport operators, respectively counties/cities that mostly are directly responsible for financing any shortfalls, so the compensation payments for the state-/federal-level mandated fare reductions for pupils and handicapped people are included as part of the regular farebox income

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#297

Post by rootsandstones »

2143 wrote: post #280
ptspts wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Zürich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it way faster. By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 minutes late.

(I haven't yet had the good fortune of visiting Europe). I can see why you said the train takes 221 minutes. However, "225 minutes" for bus? I know y'all are known for punctuality, but are buses in Switzerland/Germany that precise?! Also, is it customary to tell such durations in minutes, as opposed to something like "4 hour 45 minutes" or "4 and 3-quarter hours"? Where I'm at, nothing runs on time unfortunately. Ove…

In 2021 91.9 percent of the trains in Switzerland were on time (tolerance is 3 minutes)

Source:

https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zweit...

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#298

Post by trompetenaccoun »

cbmuser wrote: post #260
Archelaos wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been a cool move. Here in Germany, there were many voices in favour of making the ticket completely free. What I heard about the reason for not doing so is that the government wanted to easily measure the actual demand in different regions for such a "free" ticket. So the price is low enough that anybody who wants to ride practically "for free" is buying i…

We had cities with free public transport in Germany. One example was the city of Templin in Brandenburg. The project was eventually abandoned because lots of people were just riding the busses out of boredom and busses were permanently full with costs exploding for the city. See: https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/nahverkeh...

First thing I thought of even though I never heard of this example: It's a terrible idea if you think about it with an economic mind. There are very few scenarios where making things "free" can actually provide a long term benefit for the public. The reason Communist economies don't work isn't because there's not enough wealth in society to guarantee a modest income for everyone. It's because once you take the incentives away people behave differently than they would normally. In the case of a guaranteed workplace with no profit sharing for example you get rampant corruption at the top and workers who don't see the point in doing their job properly because they neither get rewarded for working hard nor can they get fired. So they just show up and do the bare minimum.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#299

Post by aqwsde »

Archelaos wrote: post #236
pwdisswordfish0 wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be replaced by real free rides in the future. What’s your confidence level here? Because if you can make me believe that the ticket is effectively a vote for ticketless/free ÖPNV I will buy them for everyone I know.

There is support for this idea across MPs of multiple parties, from Conservatives, Liberals, Greens and Labour/Left. It appears to be a comparatively cheap measure to reduce CO2 footprint (I am not an expert here, though, so this might be incorrect, but one hears this argument a lot) and at the same time an easy measure to improve mobility for the poor. (Thousands of people went to jail in Germany every year because…

Show me a _single_ MP from CDU or CSU in favor of free regional transport.
Post reply on HN