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

mcc-berlin.net

121–130 of 910 posts

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

#121
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> already substantial subsidies for the rail industry Though to be fair, there are also substantial subsidies for the whole road network.

Roads are much more efficient with fewer cars.

A German study from 2021 says road traffic created 70 billion euros costs per year. Of that 45 billion had to be paid from general taxes.

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

#122

Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to €447 per tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement methods cost well under $100 per tonne. I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other positive externa…

> requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn I suspect the key is to find ways to run railways cheaper. It has been a long time since railways were under severe cost competition encouraging people to look for efficiencies. I think the main one would be to find a way for railways to operate with no staff. Just like a typical road operates most of the time with no staff. That means you need to redesign everything that c…

I doubt that moves the needle a lot unless you're making _everything_ fully automatic, i.e. including the infrastructure creation & maintenance and streamline that extremely well.

If you take a ride from Hamburg to Berlin with the ICE, there's maybe 8 staff on board, 200-300 passengers, it takes ~2 hours and the average ticket price is 77€ according to some travel app.

Even if you get rid of all 8 of them, the price per ticket isn't going to be lowered significantly.

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

#124
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> already substantial subsidies for the rail industry Though to be fair, there are also substantial subsidies for the whole road network.

Roads are much more efficient with fewer cars.

This was phrased poorly if I understand the meaning.

"If there is limited use, roads are more efficient than rail"

That's probably true as roads tend to cost less per mile than rail and you don't have transfer problems.

When heavily utilized the opposite is true: rail is more efficient than roads.

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

#125

Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to €447 per tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement methods cost well under $100 per tonne. I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other positive externa…

> requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn I suspect the key is to find ways to run railways cheaper. It has been a long time since railways were under severe cost competition encouraging people to look for efficiencies. I think the main one would be to find a way for railways to operate with no staff. Just like a typical road operates most of the time with no staff. That means you need to redesign everything that c…

In Japan, rail companies also own the land around the station. There is often a mall or office right on top of the station. So they capture a more of the value of having public transport.

In western countries land lords benefit a lot from nearby public transport for free and maybe only contribute in taxes.

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

#126

Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to €447 per tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement methods cost well under $100 per tonne. I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other positive externa…

I find the word subsidy to be a possible weasel word here. I don't know all the details but a railway system has certain costs (fuel, personnel, water, upkeep, the trains themselves and so on) and takes in a certain amount of revenue (fares and subsidies, also food etc). It might be true that the government increased the subsidy in order to support the cheaper tickets. But that's not the same as "requires". Perhaps I…

Here’s another way to think about it: Germany invested N billion into shifting behavior to rail.

How many billions in subsidies has OpenAI gotten to build us a chatbot?

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

#127
post #120

It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time. First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months. People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket. But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€. Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

> Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

Depends. In my city "poor" people pay less. Just 19 € per month. Pupils don't pay at all. Students pay 29.40 €.

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

#128
post #50

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.

The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state, Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger.

Do any states have something equivalent to this?

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

#129

Providing these €49 tickets requires an annual subsidy of around €3bn, on top of already substantial subsidies for the rail industry. If we accept that it reduces carbon emissions by 6.7 million tonnes per year, then that works out to €447 per tonne. That really isn't good value - most carbon abatement methods cost well under $100 per tonne. I do recognise that modal shift towards rail may have other positive externa…

The system simply doesn't have more capacity right now.

Germany neglected or even removed their rail infrastructure, especially for the past 25 or so years, after privatization. These "subsidies" are a course correction.

These investments also make it a real pain to use the system right now, because a lot of lines are closing months at a time and the alternatives are already overloaded. I'd rather have a car for the next 5-10 years too - and I live very central with many connections.

Here's a map of disruptions for reference: https://www.zuginfo.nrw/map.html#!P|HimSearch!histId|1!histK...

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

#130
post #120

It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time. First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months. People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket. But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€. Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

It's still super affordable for the average worker using these tickets to commute.
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