Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by andrepd » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 6:51 PM UTC

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…

In my country the road system has been massively subsidised in detriment of the rail system. Tens of lines that have been ongoing since the 1860s have been disabled even while they had users and were turning a profit.

Trains are constantly delayed or suppressed, lines are overcrowded in rush hours. At the same time traffic is ATROCIOUS in the two main cities where almost 2/3rds of the population lives. Then people say "why would I ever take the train if I can help it? It's almost as expensive and I cannot rely on it to go to work"...

So we waste billions on sub-par methods of transport which are (1) less efficient (2) less comfortable (3) take up ungodly amounts of space in 6-lane roads and huge parking. Sad state of things.

I don't know anyone who would prefer to suffer through 2 hours of gridlock every day to go to work, rather than cruising on a train reading a book or scrolling in their phone or just napping. The demand is there! Just the supply isn't...

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

#282

Post by orbit7 » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 6:53 PM UTC

zhte415 wrote: post #232

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.

Cool, if you have a road. Not everyone has that luxury. I used to live on an island where it was 12km to work and no bridge, just a ferry which wouldn't run during typhoons. Cars or bridges were taken as a huge unnecessary expense and no serious construction plans entertained.

If you choose to go live on an island isn't that kind of the point?

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

#283

Post by andrepd » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

lytefm wrote: post #263

Aachen wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> In my opinion it should be somewhere between dirt cheap and free if your income is in the bottom 10% of incomes (and could cost twice as much for the top 50% True, for many people 49€/ month is still too expensive - e.g. low wage, low pension or living on welfare. In its current form, it's mostly a relief for the middle class living in areas with good public transportation. I'm definitely happy to pay just 49€ for…

>True, for many people 49€/ month is still too expensive

But those people have to have means of transport at least to go to work. Even if they have a shitbox they pay more than that in gas and taxes. It's precisely for those people that this would be more beneficial.

As a bonus, it would reduce the ENORMOUS externalities that come from car usage: pollution, congestion, space for parking, roads, etc.

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

#284

Post by xigoi » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:07 PM UTC

incrudible wrote: post #175

siva7 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The truth about the climate is that whatever Germany does, it does not really make a difference, but also that what they have done (rolling out renewables) did not even work (high CO2 footprint, dependency on gas, coal and electricity imports).

Unfortunately, they made a really dumb mistake: getting rid of nuclear power in favor of shitty coal. Doesn't exactly make them look eco-friendly.

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

#285

Post by bombolo » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

codethief wrote: post #192

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in Berlin once as a tourist and I was surprised how bad is the planning of buses. They stop and wait in the station until their time arrives (in the middle of the route), with 20 people on them, wasting everyone's time. That's just incredibly dumb planning. I get that the point is to be more "reliable" and "on time" but what's the point of being accurate if you're so slow?! At some points Google maps suggested…

> They stop and wait in the station until their time arrives. So you're suggesting… they shouldn't follow a schedule? The bus only ever needs to wait when there are no people getting on/off the bus at multiple stops in a row (e.g. at night-time), so then those stops will be skipped. As a consequence, the bus will be a few minutes ahead of time and so at some point the driver will stop and wait to make sure the bus is…

> So you're suggesting… they shouldn't follow a schedule?

This is the Göteborg way. Want to take a tram and go there 5 minutes earlier? Ah, there was no traffic and you see the tram already leaving anyway. Now enjoy waiting 20 minutes for the next in freezing temperature and strong winds.

> and introduce electronic ticket checks at every stop

Copenhagen does this on bus. Basically every stop suddenly takes 2x as long at the very least.

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

#286

Post by bombolo » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

machina_ex_deus wrote: post #265

Pyramus wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they shouldn't follow a strict schedule. > Maybe it's just a cultural thing. You value how much the ticket costs and whether the timing is accurate. I value my personal time. What an interesting clash of cultures. I don't fully understand your point though, if you can't be sure the bus arrives at 10:23 h, you have to come earlier to the station and wait, no?

There's usually an app that tells you in real time when the bus will arrive, including possible congestion. When it's minutes away it's never early so it's not a problem. The bus is almost never early from the scheduled time because it's usually the minimum time. So the bus might be late, but at least it's not standing idly while you're already in it, intentionally wasting everyone's time. There's also a stop button…

So you think if a train driver happens to show up 30minutes earlier at the train station, a long distance train should just depart earlier, leaving all the passengers and people with connections stranded?

Your comments are fascinating. Completely nonsense, but fascinating.

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

#287

Post by bombolo » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

oynqr wrote: post #135

pretext-1 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* It’s inefficient. Eligibility must only be confirmed once while ticket control happens often. Ticket control needs to be fast. * Training all inspectors to verify student IDs is much more effort compared to training people at point of sale only. * Many places also accept tickets with student badge instead of student IDs for verification. This is probably also the reason we don’t get discounted 49€-tickets yet. They…

They are already trained to check eligibility. Yes, that includes student IDs.

They know all students id from all universities in europe?

I find this hard to believe.

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

#288

Post by nforgerit » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #284

incrudible wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth about the climate is that whatever Germany does, it does not really make a difference, but also that what they have done (rolling out renewables) did not even work (high CO2 footprint, dependency on gas, coal and electricity imports).

Unfortunately, they made a really dumb mistake: getting rid of nuclear power in favor of shitty coal. Doesn't exactly make them look eco-friendly.

They did not get rid of nuclear in favor of shitty coal. That’s fake news.

They planned to be at about 80% of primary energy to be based on renewables which got boycotted by Merkel government AND they expected to bridge the residual needs with cheap Russian gas which got rendered impossible in the current situation. Now the only option is shitty coal.

BTW: Nuclear energy is damn expensive (for the tax payer), the nuclear waste problem is still not solved and in France (>70% nuclear) we just started to see the huge problems with fission when climate change results in a drought.

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

#289

Post by badpun » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 7:49 PM UTC

Beldin wrote: post #224

mytailorisrich wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, in most cases it is unrealistically difficult to beat the convenience of public transport over private cars without MASSIVE infrastructure investments favoring cars. Being able to get places with cars requires a lot of things: roads, parking, traffic measures (signs, crossings, stoplights, onways, offramps, freeways, more parking at destination, etc etc etc). If you only build for public transport, bikes, a…

I'm not so sure about that. The subsidies that a functioning public transport requires every year are massive as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they exceeded the cost of extra infrastructure (roads, parking etc.) required by private cars.

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

#290

Post by Beldin » Sun, Mar 05, 2023, 8:06 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #264

louwrentius wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You set unreasonable expectations/ demands on public transport. There will always be some walking / biking to/from bus/tram stops. That has never been a problem. You are likely trying to compare the USA car-centric suburbs and frankly that choice makes distances larger but that’s life. USA has a tremendous disadvantage due to the car-centric nature. Yet even that can be changed, it will be costly, but there is no tec…

I am in Europe and I am replying to a claim that public transport can be made so good that it is people's first choice... and so the point I am making is that this is indeed setting an unrealistic expectation on public transport! If you need some biking or walking just to reach public transport, then wait, then travel through the network then there is always a level of inconvenience that you may not face if you use i…

> that you may not face if you use individual private transport instead.

Only if you assume that individual private transport can get you door-to-door. Which is a rather unfair comparison. "cars are better because unlike public transport, you can drive up to basically any building and park there" is only true if you build roads and parkings to basically every building.