What I don't understand about initiatives like this is... why bother charging at all? wouldn't the system be more efficient without a fare process? at that point you don't have to maintain an entire money handling system.
Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
21–30 of 151 posts
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#22Nice pass. Would be perfect for my wife and I since we don't commute for work. There is something similar here in Switzerland but not as good. Funny fact: there are cities here that have tried to make public transport free. But the constitution says public transport must have a "reasonable charge". It's obvious that law was created to not overcharge but the courts have ruled that it also means that there can't be no…
People who use it more really should contribute something vs those who never use it.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#23Nice pass. Would be perfect for my wife and I since we don't commute for work. There is something similar here in Switzerland but not as good. Funny fact: there are cities here that have tried to make public transport free. But the constitution says public transport must have a "reasonable charge". It's obvious that law was created to not overcharge but the courts have ruled that it also means that there can't be no…
My understanding of that ruling is that, the intent of the constitutional clause is not only to prevent ticket prices from being raised unfairly, but also to prevent ticket prices from being so low that they no longer cover the cost of running the network, which would shift that cost to the general taxpayer. Still frustrating (if the taxpayers want it, might as well let them have it), but not purely a semantic techni…
Does the Swiss rail not receive public funding? It seems to me that undercharging would only necessitate more public funding, not some fundamental change where taxpayers suddenly have to pay for something they didn't before.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#24Nice pass. Would be perfect for my wife and I since we don't commute for work. There is something similar here in Switzerland but not as good. Funny fact: there are cities here that have tried to make public transport free. But the constitution says public transport must have a "reasonable charge". It's obvious that law was created to not overcharge but the courts have ruled that it also means that there can't be no…
People who use it more really should contribute something vs those who never use it.
Should people who use roads more contribute something vs those who don't?
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
having a nominal charge would probably lead to less abuse of the system, and any contribution to the upkeep/maintenance would be welcome, I'd imagine
What kind of abuse are you thinking of?
i've seen this argument before, normally they're talking about homeless people sleeping on trains or in stations
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#26Not for visitors AIUI. You need some kind of card only locals can get.
Yes you need a card (ov-chipkaart or ov-pas) but you don't need to be a local to get one. You just order one online for 7.5/5 euros. You do need an address for it to be delivered to, but its valid for 5 years so if you visit the Netherlands again you can reuse it.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#27Not for visitors AIUI. You need some kind of card only locals can get.
I think everyone can get the card, though maybe you need a dutch address to sent it to.
No, you need a dutch bank account to pay plus a dutch address to receive the card. That's not going to work for 99% of visitors.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#28Significantly worse than the Deutschland ticket
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even at that price, the British mind cannot comprehend such good a deal. An equivalent pass in the UK would be easily 10x that to even cover just a much smaller region than The Netherlands.
For sure. I currently live in the US (fairly rural) and I would kill to have my transportation-related costs reduced to about $150/mo. But where I live, I simply need to have a car to do any basic thing since the moment I step off my driveway, there aren’t even footpaths.
I live in the Netherlands and have absolutely no need for this ticket. When I need to go somewhere, I just walk or bike there, never takes more than 20 minutes. I cannot even imagine living in American suburbia
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#30What I don't understand about initiatives like this is... why bother charging at all? wouldn't the system be more efficient without a fare process? at that point you don't have to maintain an entire money handling system.
"money handling system" scales quite well, and more money is good to have if it's affordable enough for many people?