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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

#181

Post by pjmlp »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #130
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…

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…

Around my area, what takes about 30 - 45m by car, can take up to 2h in public transports, and one needs to travel both ways.

Naturally I have better ways to spend 4h per day than jumping between connections.

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

#182

Post by mytailorisrich »

siva7 wrote: post #136
mytailorisrich wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is that in many, if not most, cases people choose based on convenience and practicality unless one option is simply unaffordable. In Europe in general affordability of public transport is not the problem so I don't expect that decreasing prices will have a big effect on use.

I would disagree. Public transportation isn't cheap either if you're not a student or have a company sponsor, in some cases even more expensive than having a car.

I didn't claim it was 'cheap'. I wrote that people can afford it in the same way people can afford a car and that other concerns are often more important.

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

#183

Post by dathinab »

lispm wrote: post #27
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…

> always need to buy a ticket I buy all my tickets online. That's largely possible in Germany. I can't remember when I last needed to buy a physical ticket.

But only largely and not always and not always through the same app or site.

How nice or bad it is differs MASSIVELY depending on where you are in Germany (sorry for the caps).

E.g. in Berlin it works rather simple and straight forward. But then recently someone I know went to another city and Germany and was completely inable to figure out if a ticket they had bought to get from A to B also worked for A to C (close by B). That wasn't a stupid person but someone rather clever.

Similar in some areas the local public transport companies bounded together creating some kind of "common organization" (e.g. VBB for Berlin & Brandenburg) and in some areas you have a splinter network of many smaller local transportation companies.

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

#184

Post by pjmlp »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #114
lytefm wrote: 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…

My take is that in many, if not most, cases people choose based on convenience and practicality unless one option is simply unaffordable. In Europe in general affordability of public transport is not the problem so I don't expect that decreasing prices will have a big effect on use.

It surely is a problem and not everyone lives in the city center or in a nearby street with a public transport stop.

Then there is the whole issue with timetables once one gets a few km away from city center, with only one connection per hour between 7 AM and 8 PM, for anything else there are taxis.

Not every location in Europe is Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan,...

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

#185

Post by dathinab »

shafyy wrote: post #161
Aachen wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bahn afaik isn't allowed to sell you tickets when the start and destination are within a regional operator, and my regional operator (to get to work) doesn't have a web shop. The bus drivers are comically confused when I try to buy "einen Viererkahrte zu Aachen, drei Stück" so that I don't have to deal with it every other office day (this I can pay with a convenient 50€ bill and lasts about a month, give or take). Th…

The DB app allows you to buy tickets for local transport associations - not sure if it includes everything, but so far I always found the regional tickets there.

The legal difference is that here the DB (app) only acts as proxy, i.e. you don't buy a DB ticket for the local transport but a local transport ticket through the DB (app).

On the other hand if you get a DB ticket across regions it might include local transportation at the begin/destination of the cross-regional route as part of the DB ticket. And this they are not allowed to provide you if your DB ticket isn't cross regional. E.g. if you buy a ICE ticket from one station in Berlin to another station in Berlin they can't offer that. (Most ICEs passing through Berlin stop at least at 2 stations in Berlin).

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

#186

Post by mytailorisrich »

louwrentius wrote: post #153
AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 numb…

In most cases it is unrealistically difficult to beat the convenience and speed of private cars. If you are in a very dense urban environments, maybe. Otherwise, no.

That's why making public transport very cheap or even free does not make everyone let their cars at home.

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

#187

Post by pjmlp »

netrus wrote: post #31
ffritz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, but if you miss your connection you can just take the next train. Frankfurt to Berlin might be impossible, but Hamburg to Berlin is manageable (4-5h), if money is tight, as is Hamburg to Sylt (3h) and many other connections in the 200-400 km range.

Assuming there is a next train.

Two weeks ago, the usual "person on the train line" cancelled all traffic for two hours, with the usual cascading effect for connections.

So instead of arriving at 7pm, I ended up reaching home about 10pm. I was 30 km away from home.

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

#188

Post by JanSt »

AnonymousPlanet wrote: post #130
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…

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's obviously not convenient for everyone - but no single measure is.

I'd also cut down on your walking time by taking a bycicle - you could probably save 20 minutes by that alone. My wife also takes a bike ride to the train station (and she packs quite a few bags on the bike).

Nonetheless - yes, there are situations in which cars are still way better.

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

#189

Post by pchangr »

fxde wrote: post #91

Let's see if this will have a noticeable impact on university enrollments. Personally, I know a few people who re-enrolled after finishing university, including one person who even got a PhD, solely to get the ticket for their full-time job. It would not surprise me if universities experience a significant drop in enrollment due to this issue, especially at larger universities. An article from 2019 estimates that at…

What are you taking about? You don’t need to be a student to get the ticket.

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

#190

Post by gbear605 »

msavio wrote: post #105

> But the Deutschlandticket is not the end of the story: to make it still more attractive, German Rail is also planning to introduce more modern and faster trains. According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, this will create almost 20,000 new seats on long-distance services. The mentioned trains are ICE long-distance trains. Exactly those that are not included in the ticket the article is about. It does not make…

The new ICE trains are still helpful for local transit because if non-Deutschlandticket trips switch from regional rail to ICE that will clear up seats on the regional rail lines for Deutschlandticket uses.
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