Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

mcc-berlin.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 910 posts

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

#41

Post by pjmlp »

lispm wrote: post #22
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.

There is a big difference between doing 1h with car, and 3h with public transport.

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

#42

Post by pjmlp »

orra wrote: post #10
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.

Well, no, it's primarily about regional travel, so it clearly helps folks near to smaller stations. Plus: your point, caller? Investing in roads only helps folks with cars. There are plenty of people for whom public transport is the only option.

1h car, 3h public transport, that is the point.

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

#43

Post by consp »

lispm wrote: post #18
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? That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing energy use amid the 2021–2022 global energy crisis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket It influenced the idea to come up with a permanent ticket: the "Deutschlandticket". It started 1. Mai 2023. https://en.wikip…

> Every pupil has free access to all of the country's local&regional public transport system... I find that kind of mind-blowing.

We've had this since the 1990s for higher education students. One of the known effects is that students who got it, used the public transport systems more often after wards as they were more familiar with it. I would not be surprised if Germany has a simmilar effect. The problem with these effect is they far outgrow the attention span of polititians as they take years to come to full force.

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

#44

Post by eptcyka »

lispm wrote: post #27
weinzierl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

I couldn't pay for my ubahn with a credit card on the bahn, and the app required me to use some kind of a paypal derivative. I did not pay.

Regardless of whether it is digitized or not, regional trains suck. To pay on the train, I think I was forced to use cash.

Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan them in and then send in via email. Or was it snail mail? I didn't attempt it, I just saw that my train was delayed for hours with no explanation for what can I do about it, realized I'm missing my connection and then booked a plane ticket and got home faster than if I had traveled by rail without any delays. 10/10, will fly whenever possible from now on.

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

#45

Post by nik736 »

stavros wrote: post #11
Roritharr wrote: post #3

As someone that avoids the german rail at all costs I applaud this move, the freer the roads and airports are for me, the better.

Why do you avoid the rail system?

Only 62,7% of the trains were in time (and by in time they use a rigged system to count what is in time and what is not). So it's basically a 50% chance if you will be delayed at your destination or in time. Also note, that if you have to change trains mid travel you have that chance again. That means you will be late very very often. If you travel as an individual and you don't value your time at all this is a great deal, if you travel for business purposes good luck to you.

Apart from that, it's a lot more stressful (and time consuming) to go to a train station and leave at a train station instead of just driving by car.

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

#47

Post by elpocko »

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

I want to buy a ticket every now and then. I want that process to be straight forward: cash money for one-time ticket. I don't want your app on my phone, I don't want a subscription, and I don't want to be tracked.

Paper based offline processes forever, please.

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

#48

Post by pjmlp »

Glawen wrote: post #13
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.

Germany is a dense country with a developed rail network, you are never far from a train station. Bear in mind that this includes also city transportation, which makes it a great deal. My gripe with the ticket is that traveling with bikes in regional train became a gamble, you never know if you can get in as there is so many people inside already (and even more when the previous train got cancelled, which happens a l…

Yeah, but doesn't make the Bahn more punctual, or reduce those comute times from 3h down to the 1h that is possible by car, not having to jump across four connections, with related delays and dropped connections.

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

#49

Post by black_puppydog »

jonp888 wrote: post #31
weinzierl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the German leg of my international travels from one of the other countries apps whenever possible. > For a counter example look at the French SNCF Connect app. It is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution. I am extremely surprised that you would write this. The SNCF Connect app has a lot of problems. Just for starters, it can't cope with any journey with…

So much this. I often use DB navigator to plan trips within france. As soon as you're not going to or from Paris, the sncf offer and app are just terrible. Often, sncf-connect will refuse to offer me TER-only (regional train) trips, because one of the legs can also be done by TGV. Basically impossible to plan this kind of thing with the SNCF apps.

But even the basic UX is terrible. The most blatant example of this is the choice to make the first text input on the search the target station. If you do limit yourself to a single text input as the entry point to the search, I see the intuition. but the result is that they are the only transit search mask I know where I have to first type where I'm going, and then where I'm coming from. I hate it.

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

#50

Post by hilux »

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'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the US is a MUCH larger country.
Post reply on HN