Live data from Hacker News

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

deutschland.de

151–160 of 345 posts

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

#151
post #119
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still have massive subsidies for providing leased new cars, mostly selected from German car manufacturers, to employees (about 3 bn per year [1]). Few people in the upper middle class and above will use public transport instead of their car, if it's provided by their employer. The results from the 9€ Ticket also indicate that people aren't using their car that less often. They are just using the ticket to do addit…

One limitation of the previous price experiment is that it was only a few summer months. Nobody sells their car for 3 months, especially when they include a summer holiday. Let's see what happens when you can count on this existing for years to come. The germans are generally quite conscious of right and wrong (see e.g. Linux and OSM usage: it's still minorities but it's much more present than in similar countries li…

You don’t need to mention that you are in the top 50% to make your augment stronger. You should probably even actively avoid saying it so that people don’t think you’re relying on selfless reasons, (hey everyone I’m the nice one in the room) to further your point, because others may not feel that way about themselves.l, at least not to random strangers in the bottom 10%.

Anyway, making more money is just a measure of one’s ability more or less (not a causation but a strong correlation). Therefore to the extent that one works harder or provides more value to others and is rewarded for it by increased earning power, they should not be punished for it by an arbitrary tax on their transportation needs.

I think it might make sense to create countries or places where people in the bottom 10% live with minimal conveniences, a place like Thailand when everything is cheap.

In additional to above requiring everyone to pay the same amount creates equality and most likely moves technological innovation ahead that much faster because everyone feels like they are getting value for their money and more likely to spend even more on improvements.

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

#152
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not destroying it but forcing them to acknowledge the truth about climate.

Isn't that about the fuel and not the vehicle? If we manufactured diesel out of wood or algae, the same cars would suddenly become very green - in case of algae cultivation for fuel, you can reach carbon negativity (the process net-decreased carbon in atmosphere). This is likely more green than building battery electric vehicles with large capacity. Batteries are great but cars don't need more than 100km of charge. L…

The process cannot be carbon negative unless you sequester the algae somehow. All the carbon the algae captures while growing will be released when they decompose.

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

#153
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…

I use public transport to go to work. But it's not really convenient. It takes me about 45 minutes to get there. And that's if everything goes well. Half an hour of that is walking (to and from bus stops) and waiting (you should be several minutes early because busses sometimes leave early themselves, but most of the time they are late). So there's not much reading that can be done. Also, try reading while you're wai…

It all depends on circumstances, starting with the country you are in, that often determines the basic level of quality of any kind of public transport.

Then, the real travel time is measured from door-to-door. That includes the traveling to stations/stops and the waiting time for connecting transport. I think this is fairly obvious.

If we want to make the world a better place for people and the environment, the number one priority should be to reduce any need to travel in the first place. But if they must travel, make public transport so good (price/time) that it is the first choice of transport.

That would be the appropriate vision for the future. And it can happen in any country.

The reality is that capitalism and politics prevent public transport from truly shining. It's not even that of a political statement because we know why America doesn't have great public transport overall, especially a lack of long-distance rail lines like 'we' have in Europe. (Car companies lobbying against rail)

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

#154

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…

Why would it be desirable to have pensioners pay less and tourists pay more? I imagine this model will attract quite a bit of additional tourists (without their annoying cars), which is a good thing (for most cities).

pensioners should pay less because they have less income and are more dependent on public transport.

tourists paying more doesn't make sense, because tourists are not going to use this kind of ticket anyways unless they are in germany for a few months. and even if they get it for just a short visit then they will hardly make as much use of it as locals, so there is no benefit for them paying more.

that said, there could be a more expensive version of this ticket that does not require a subscription that you'd have to remember to cancel.

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

#155
post #127

Sadly, this will likely not provide much incentives for infrastructure improvements. Local commuter trains around here have deteriorated substantially over the past decades. The trains have become dirty and unreliable. More passengers will only stress the infrastructure more, so it will become even less attractive. Maybe it would be wiser to spur the competition between various commuting alternatives such as shared c…

Berlin(the biggest city) is miserable in this regard. My former tram line(M4) used to be 50:50 with old and new trams. In the last year before I moved, they had almost 100% old trams in there. Same goes for S-bahn, even new carriages are not equipped to deal with the weather. I dreaded using them in summer.

The city has an excellent network in terms of coverage, but the trains are outdated.

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

#156
post #127

Sadly, this will likely not provide much incentives for infrastructure improvements. Local commuter trains around here have deteriorated substantially over the past decades. The trains have become dirty and unreliable. More passengers will only stress the infrastructure more, so it will become even less attractive. Maybe it would be wiser to spur the competition between various commuting alternatives such as shared c…

Regional trains in Germany are not run for-profit. For each route there is a public tender for subsidies every 10 years or so. Private companies that win these contracts have to fulfill whatever local authorities put into these tenders (like timetables, capacity of trains etc). So your suggestion simply wouldn't work. Instead, your local authorities must improve whatever they require from the companies (and then also increase the subsidy accordingly of course).

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

#157
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.

Some German car manufacturers invest in fleet management probably foreseeing the future in which people won’t own their cars. Car sharing can be the future and the answer.

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

#158
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…

I use public transport to go to work. But it's not really convenient. It takes me about 45 minutes to get there. And that's if everything goes well. Half an hour of that is walking (to and from bus stops) and waiting (you should be several minutes early because busses sometimes leave early themselves, but most of the time they are late). So there's not much reading that can be done. Also, try reading while you're wai…

Is this in the US or Europe?

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

#159
I have a love-hate relationship with this. I love it conceptually and I think it's the right model, but it has a lot of problems.

For one, people on unemployment benefits don't even have close to 49 Euros allocated to them for transport. They'll likely be overpaying for local trips and continue to not be able to afford long distance trips.

And two, the infrastructure here is just not ready for more passengers. The 3 months where the 9-Euro ticket existed, public transport was unusable. I upgraded to long distance trains (which were deserted) several times to bypass the hours of delays and the overfilled trains (where masking mandates could not be upheld). I don't have a car and I didn't plan to ever have one (until now, maybe), so I fear my only mode of transport is going to be even more hellish than usual.

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

#160
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its also worth mentioning that there are express connections between big cities that are relatively close. For example, there is a sprinter connection between Nürnberg and Munich that takes about 90 minutes using a regional train instead of the 60 minutes it would take with an ICE.

Same for Dresden-Leipzig. I usually take the ICE since I have a Bahncard 100. In addition to the real time saved, it also feels a lot faster if you're not stopping every 5 minutes.

That's around 450 euros per month right?
Post reply on HN