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Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

mcc-berlin.net

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Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#21

Post by dustyventure »

oersted wrote: post #9
server_man3000 wrote: post #2

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

I don't have the details, but every single time I have heard the mention of Deutsche Bahn in the last few years it has been accompanied by comments of how broken it has become, with constant delays and cancellations, to the point where for many people it is no longer a viable option for commute or for anything where you cannot risk to be up to several hours late. I guess it's all relative. If you come to rely on an e…

It was broken long before the offer though so the reduction in driving being moderate probably reflects fewer shifts in daily commute and mostly more leisure usage.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#22

Post by lispm »

pjmlp wrote: post #5

Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option.

> Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs

Every city has public transport.

There is a large density of public transport throughout the country: trains, local trains, underground trains, busses, ferries, ...

The ticket is valid there, too.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#23

Post by peoplefromibiza »

pjmlp wrote: post #5

Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option.

True, but that's how trains work.

As a counter example I live in Rome where city trains are the best public transport available and house prices are heavily linked to closeness to subway or train station, yet we still are the city with most cars per capita in Europe and probably in the whole west.

If only those living close to train stations used trains it would massively reduce the need for cars and consequently the heavy traffic we usually experience.

I live 15 minutes walking from the closest station and it's so much better to go to work by train than by car, the trip is shorter, I don't have to drive, find a parking spot, a legal one, where I can't be fined and don't have to pay for it, while on the train I can read and air conditioning actually works and train cars are usually not crazy full like subway ones.

TL:DR that's how trains work they are not supposed to solve every commuting problem but the solvable ones

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#24

Post by Sakos »

pjmlp wrote: post #5

Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option.

It helped anybody and everybody that wanted to travel for any reason. It meant I could go to the nearest big city to catch a movie at an IMAX theatre, something that was significantly more expensive before. You don't need a big train station hub to have trains, and you only need a few trains or buses to make up for the cost and make it worth it. Since, you know, it applies to buses as well. I live in a small shithole town, and it's extremely convenient to have the Deutschlandticket because it means I can take the bus to anywhere in the area, including the nearest train station, and I can take a train to anywhere I want from nearby towns to cities hours away. Even though I own a car again, I still have the ticket because of how useful it is and how much money it saves.

I don't understand how anybody can paint this as a bad thing. Are you also against universal health care by any chance?

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#25

Post by eesmith »

pjmlp wrote: post #5

Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option.

Just about all of which used to have train service, right?

I mean, in the US I've been to a lot of small towns where there is no train service, but the old station is still there, with the rails all torn out and replaced with houses, or roads, or bike paths.

And in the UK, the infamous Beeching cuts in the 1960s removed lines based on a profitability model which wasn't applied to roads, causing many communities to lose rail service and essentially require everyone there to shift to cars (replacing trains with bus service failed.)

How much of Germany is like that, where the people in the country insisted on good roads for their cars, causing the rail system to be decommissioned, and now they are stuck with that decades-old decision to prioritize the more environment destroying option?

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#26

Post by jonp888 »

server_man3000 wrote: post #2

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached?

The €9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not originally intended to continue permanently at all.

> I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled.

The ticket is subsidised by the German government(beyond the amount that all rail infrastructure and most services are subsidised) for the purpose what is covered in the article - encouraging permanent modal shift of regular travellers(primarily commuters) from road to rail. If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#27

Post by lispm »

weinzierl wrote: post #19
server_man3000 wrote: post #2

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

"I LOVE the German transit system" I have some experience with the public transport systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common balkanization. The DB Navi…

> Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized.

That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now.

> The DB Navigator is so terrible

It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives me a 50% discount on all trains.

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#28

Post by juliangmp »

server_man3000 wrote: post #2

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

>I LOVE the German transit system

What? How? I have the ticket and despite that I never use any regional train because they're generally awful. (Local busses and trams on the other hand work pretty well)

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#29

Post by sadcherry »

jonp888 wrote: post #26
server_man3000 wrote: post #2

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? The €9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not originally intended to continue permanently at all. > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel befor…

Airtravel is also subsidised by the German tax payer. Much more than the 49 EUR ticket. No matter if you are a tourist or not. (Arguably mostly for tourists actually.)

Re: Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail

#30

Post by ryandrake »

Larrikin wrote: post #16
geraldwhen wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany is smaller than California. The United States is very, very large place, mostly unpopulated. It’s hard to apply whatever Germany, a small, densely populated country does to the US, which is largely empty land.

Why do we have to pretend that routes between Montana and South Dakota have to come up when discussing ways of improving rail usage in the US? We could treat routes between Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis like Germany. We could treat high speed rail in California or the Northeast like Japan. Choosing to live in an extremely rural area shouldn't just be a "well it doesn't help" me trump card to defeat things that…

Exactly. Always somebody trots out invalid arguments about size and population density. There are smaller states in the USA that are about as dense as Germany, like Maryland and Connecticut. So, why don't those states have great state-wide public transit systems?
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