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

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

#81

Post by fabian2k »

sandworm101 wrote: post #62
JanSt wrote: 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.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a single point in Germany that is 300km from any passenger rail station. Of course rail doesn't go to small villages, but most medium-size cities have reasonable rail connections here.

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

#82

Post by febeling »

lispm wrote: post #32
febeling wrote: post #19

So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas. It's a good idea to make them valid across regions. If they can make it work, that is. There is still the task to distribute revenue in some adequate way, and currently politicians like to in indulge in wishful thinking and disconnect from reality in Germany, so let's wait if anyone has bothered to solve the hidden problems behind this. Could play out like the dis…

> So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas It isn't. It is a ticket for all of Germany.

True, I meant say local public transport.

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

#83

Post by johnchristopher »

Aachen wrote: post #22
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #13

I'm somewhat surprised that they go for this model. It's 49 Euro per month with restrictions to regional services. However that ticket is available for tourists, students, pensioners, workers and regular people at the same price point. I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners. The way the Austrian ticket works (91 Euro per month for regulars, 68.5 E…

> 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…

Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper than 12 month subscriptions. In my country you can't cancel a yearly subscription (and I don't think you can give it to someone else either).

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

#84

Post by Aachen »

ntauthority wrote: post #34
Aachen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I earn enough to afford the current "BahnCard 100", but the pricing versus value is such that I'm not remotely considering it. That means that taking public transport is a hassle: - always need to buy a ticket: talk to a driver (who usually acts annoyed on behalf of the whole bus that you are holding up) or waste time trying to figure out ticket machines when you should be catching a connection; - always need to carr…

> talk to a driver (who usually acts annoyed on behalf of the whole bus that you are holding up) It is still an interesting cultural observation that here in NL, even people who manually buy a ticket at the driver while struggling using the card terminal do not seem to get an annoyed response inherently even on a half-filled bus, whereas in Germany it seemed almost expected to get chewed out for not having exact chan…

I guess in the Netherlands, you have to be nearly demented to not be able to use the ov-chipkaart. Beeping it when you step in and out could hardly be simpler, but my grandparents don't want to learn a new system¹ and also don't want to drive highways anymore. It's different if a 90 year old asks for a ticket at the driver's compared to 30 year old me.

¹ Pinnen existed before ov-chipkaart to they're okay with one form of electronic payment but don't even want to try out another... I'm waiting for the day where I am that old, probably then I'll understand!

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

#85

Post by usrusr »

valenterry wrote: post #3

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.

True, and it's a bit of a problem that the pennywise are now lured into abusing regional trains for long distance travel. Because that can considerably worsen the experience for commuters.

The main improvement is that now a subscription to your home public transit can also be used when you visit a different city, this is huge. Just like a car registered in Munich can be used to get groceries on a visit to Hamburg without registering there.

The inclusion of regional trains is mostly a side effect of keeping it simple while not excluding those whose commute includes regional trains if done by public transit (which isn't rare at all, and excluding them would be impossible because they are the most well-heard group in politics).

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

#86

Post by Xylakant »

ffritz wrote: post #25
valenterry wrote: post #3

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.

We used to do that as students. There was a ticket that would allow germany wide travel with regional trains on weekends. It’s long, but it was cheap and on trains isn’t too bad.

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

#87

Post by NGC404 »

fabian2k wrote: post #81
sandworm101 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure there isn't a single point in Germany that is 300km from any passenger rail station. Of course rail doesn't go to small villages, but most medium-size cities have reasonable rail connections here.

it indeed is hardly possible. See: https://www.openrailwaymap.org/

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

#89

Post by ghaff »

OJFord wrote: post #58
locallost wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still try that, but that's not the intention. The target audience are basically commuters. I had a colleague a couple years ago that went around 100km total both ways to work. He briefly considered switching to train but balked at the price of about 200 per month. This despite the fact that gas cost him more, his car commute was longer and he was paying for a parking spot. I guess the logic was he already pai…

Interesting logic! Even with the sunk cost of car, insurance, etc. it'd still have to be significantly cheaper or quicker for me to use it over a train, on which I can do other things. (I suppose its privacy is something, but not worth as much to me as the freedom to read or close my eyes.)

In the US, I'm about 45 miles from the nearest large city where I worked (many days) fairly briefly. I'd be about $400-500/month for commuter rail, commuter rail parking, and in-city transit passes. But the reality is that I'd be something close to $40/day driving (plus any parking) even given that I owned the car anyway.

I always took the train unless I was doing something in the evening--in which case the train was a poor option in general. (Once you got out of commuting hours there were only a few trains for the rest of the night.)

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

#90

Post by lol768 »

OJFord wrote: post #66
sprkwd wrote: post #26

Wish the UK would do this.

How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use!

> How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use!

Nah, we're just getting rid of return fares instead :-)

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