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9-Euro-Ticket

bahn.com

321–330 of 598 posts

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#321

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…

>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.

What's the difference between this and completely free rides? AFAIK, making it "almost free" is usually preferable, as it prevents some abuse ("it's free so I'll take it even when I don't really need it", which depletes the resource), while still making it effectively free.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still plenty of diesel run train engines in Germany. Also coal is still being burnt. So I don't think it is mostly renewable.

I think that the Deutsche Bahn runs 100% on clean energy.

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk_Datteln

40% ~ 400MW of this coal plant go directly to DB. They argue that it’s only used for freight and not for public transport but meh - a useless differentiation IMO.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#323
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way. Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow ones, comparatively. Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin options: - By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20 - Regional…

This is assuming that your trip starts and stops exactly next to the train station and that there is a non-delayed train available precisely at the right time. In practice that's not the case and those time add up quickly . Car trip will look like: 1. Travel from start to location (3:20) 2. Find parking (0:5) 3. Walk from parking to location (0:10) Total time of 3:35 Your train trip will look like: 1. Go from start t…

I'm not sure what "Wait at location because there was no better train" means?

Are you massuming a 3h40m trip for a specific time-based appointment? I think the use case of this kind of train is more similar to a flight with one or more nights at destination, so that the specific arrival time is not that important.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#324
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "free traveling across Germany for a month" It's 3 months

No, it's 1 month (in a 3 month period): > For 9 euros, you can travel throughout Germany on local/regional trains for a whole month in June, July or August.

You can buy one each month, though. Even of you just use it for metropolitan transit, it's super cheap. My monthly pass (reduced because it only valid after 9 am so commuters have to pay more) costs 75 EUR. A single ticket ist 2.80. This is a good deal in almost any scenario where you take and applicable train.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#325

Why don't they make this for the whole year?

It is meant to temporarily ease the burden of risen energy prices. (Car users are going to get a lower tax on gas soon.)

A quarter of a year might be enough already to find out how much demand for low cost public transport there actually is. I consider it an useful experiment at this point.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#326
post #34

Some context is given here: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-introduces-9-ticket-to-offset-... The ticket is part of a support package signed off by the German parliament. The will pay approximately €2.5 billion for the ticket offer, as a response to rising energy prices and the resulting high costs of individual mobility.

In the meantime I just paid 200% more for heating oil than it cost me one year ago. And I cannot use this public transport offer. But I am contributing to it with my taxes.

In other words, your transportation patterns don’t let you reduce your oil use, so you’re doing your part by paying slightly higher taxes to benefit those who can? That doesn’t seem like a bad thing

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#327
post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way. Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow ones, comparatively. Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin options: - By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20 - Regional…

This is assuming that your trip starts and stops exactly next to the train station and that there is a non-delayed train available precisely at the right time. In practice that's not the case and those time add up quickly . Car trip will look like: 1. Travel from start to location (3:20) 2. Find parking (0:5) 3. Walk from parking to location (0:10) Total time of 3:35 Your train trip will look like: 1. Go from start t…

Finding parking is hilariously underestimated for any metro area I've been to.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#328
Hopefully this measure will persist even when (and if) inflation goes back to "normal" levels back again, imo heavily subsidised public transport is the way to go if we want to reduce car use.

Asking people for a lot more money in order to decrease the regular use of their cars (either through higher gas prices or forcing them to purchase relatively expensive newer EVs) is really not fair if you don't offer something in return.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#329
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even Bavaria's CSU/Free Voters government voted for the ticket in the Bundesrat today.

Re: 9-Euro-Ticket

#330

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 i…

People in Germany are typically not very contact friendly and since COVID it got way worse. People here rather stand than sit next to a stranger, sometimes even across. The trains will be beyond crowded this summer (especially the ones going to the sea), so it will be interesting to watch how people will react. I think though the ticket will mainly be used by younger people which are typically more open to this.

If the recent street scenes in Frankfurt are anything to go by I'd say people will be just fine, as long as there will be something to celebrate/look forward to :) (either a fantastic football win, like in Frankfurt, or waiting to get to the seaside, like in your example).
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