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Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

deutschland.de

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Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#61
post #48
post #43

My wife had a daily 45km rail+2km bus trip to work which was 200€ per month. That's massive savings for many people who choose not to drive with cars. Her colleagues drive to work with cars for 2 km trips and ask her whether she does not own a car (we do). Taking the train is a) cheaper b) more relaxed (can read) c) better for the environment d) it's even faster in her case The €49 ticket could give public transporta…

That's not quite in the interest of the car manufacturers that public transportation is cheaper than cars which is one of the reasons this took so long.

That's why it's even more impressive it took off in Germany which is normally very protective of its car industry.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#62
post #43

My wife had a daily 45km rail+2km bus trip to work which was 200€ per month. That's massive savings for many people who choose not to drive with cars. Her colleagues drive to work with cars for 2 km trips and ask her whether she does not own a car (we do). Taking the train is a) cheaper b) more relaxed (can read) c) better for the environment d) it's even faster in her case The €49 ticket could give public transporta…

Cool, if you live near a rail line in a major city. Not everyone has that luxury. Im standing about 300km from the nearest passenger rail setvice. It is 0530, -25c, and i am about to drive 18km to work (government/military). Trains or even busses are a distant concept here.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#63
post #25

Mind that the ticket excludes all fast trains, it's only for local trains. Still pretty good, but you shouldn't get the wrong idea and think you can suddenly use every train.

This is correct and to show what that means: Frankfurt to Berlin with a fast ICE: 4 hours, no changes. With regional trains only: 10-14 hours, 3-6 changes. With a car this trip is 5 hours. No one in their right mind would ever do such a trip with regionals only, it is extremely painful. In addition, the chance that one of the connections will be missed is extremely high.

Still great for everyone who just cannot afford a ICE ticket or even a car. And there is a huge in-between area between local connections and long distance. There are a lot of medium distance connections, where the time difference isn't that large and which become suddenly "free" for those ticket owners.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#64
post #59

I read the text but for me it was not clear the following: does this include intercity trips or "only" a plain ticket within the city?

Inter-City Trips are covered as long as you take the slower "regional-Bahn". They usually don't go long stretches so you have go change multiple times on long legs .

The actual high speed intercity lines are not covered.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#65
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>because it also enables some level of competition Does it? How do railways work in Austria? In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway. >and it lets the rail companies charge higher prices for tourists. Is that a good thing? I assume at least one of the reasons is to get people out of cars. It's unclear to me why a tourist not using a car is worse than a local no…

> Does it? How do railways work in Austria? In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway. There are routes on which there is competition (eg: Vienna to Salzburg) where two rail companies operate. For the most part the competition is quite limited, something which I hope will change. > Is that a good thing? Yes. Because public transit is primarily for the people who…

> Because public transit is primarily for the people who live there and pay taxes.

Public transport is transport for the public. This explicitly includes visitors. Tourism is a large part of the economy of most countries, and unless you are talking cities with over-tourism like in Amsterdam, getting rid of tourists is very much not what the people who live there (and who earn a living through tourism) want. Resolving congestion, improving air quality, and generally making cities more pleasant to live in, means getting as many people out of cars and into public transport, including tourists.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#67
post #24
post #10

By way of comparison, 5 days of all-day, all-zone tickets in Hamburg currently costs €91, so this is a YUGE saving. I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication.

I was travelling this week three times in Germany with long-distance trains. No problem. Both of the ICEs I had were very modern. Four of the regional trans were modern. One train was older. > I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication. Many times it is not a problem.

A big part of why there are so wildly differing accounts regarding punctuality of German trains is that a lot of the delay is limited to a few specific lines that are overloaded even on the regular schedule. Most of these lines are on the dense part of the long-distance network [1], around the Ruhr area and the Frankfurt area.

By contrast, I usually use routes in Eastern Germany, such as Dresden-Berlin-Hamburg/Rostock. These lines have been recently built and are not overloaded, so services are nearly always on time (or, at most, 10 minutes delayed) and connections are very reliable.

[1] https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d...

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#69
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners. The way the Austrian ticket works [...] It's a yearly subscription, but you can cancel monthly What's the difference between a monthly subscription and a yearly subscription that you can cancel monthly? Either way you pay for however many months you choose to have it? It sounds like the difference is that…

> What's the difference between a monthly subscription and a yearly subscription that you can cancel monthly? Either way you pay for however many months you choose to have it? It sounds like the difference is that you need to fork out the cash for a whole year up front The difference is in the process mostly. They make it a process that requires a physical address, you need to return the plastic card etc. It's someth…

That... doesn't sound like a benefit? Why be surprised they didn't go for this? Guess I read a meaning into that comment (that it could have been better by changing a technicality about billing period) that wasn't there.

Re: Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

#70
post #59

I read the text but for me it was not clear the following: does this include intercity trips or "only" a plain ticket within the city?

I have read is the successor of the 9 euro ticket. You travel between cities but only on certain RB trains, not on IC nor ICE.
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