Please, this is the dutch government, who believes or trust them still? The price will be raised to 200 euro and they will make it sound like it's a good thing for you. There is this weird propoganda thing about the netherlands, where it looks like this amazing utopia from the outside, but, it's far from it. Look at the housing crisis, the immigration crisis, the incredibly stupid tax on unrealized gains, the cost of living, and the list just continues.
Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
111–120 of 151 posts
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's the largest-value coin in circulation ? Charge one of those. Drop a coin in the gumball machine, get a token.
Is this a knowing joke? Switzerland's largest (very much in both senses) coin is 5Fr, around 6 USD. Not a token amount by any means, though it wouldn't even cover most public transport journeys in cities.
Oh wow, that bites. No, it was not a "knowing joke". Just a failure to anticipate Swiss ways.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public transport is not sustainable from ticket prices alone anywhere in Europe.
Citation needed. Public transport in larger cities is generally profitable as the seats are well-filled. Commercial companies pay the government for the privilege of being allowed to operate the services. Public transport is indeed not very profitable in rural areas, as you're running a bunch of mostly-empty buses in order to provide the bare minimum of usable connectivity. The companies operating them are paid by th…
Full seats don't mean much revenue in the cities I frequent. In Vienna for example the ticket for the whole year was 365€ until very recently. Now I live in a smaller city where it's 280€ per year for residents.
I love it and I am perfectly happy with my taxes subsidizing this for others but there's no way they're making money off this.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Public transport is not sustainable from ticket prices alone anywhere in Europe.
True for local lines of everyday transportation. But actually high speed trains are sustainable, at least in France. But also they are super expensive.
Prohibitively expensive! A 1.5h train ride from paris can set me back more than 100EUR some times.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#115As an Australian, why are European train prices so high? Obviously it's due to a lack of subsidies, but why are they not subsidised? For instance, a train from London to Edinburgh (about 4 hours) is about $120 while an equivalent trip in Australia (Melbourne to Albury) is about $10 (it used to be about $40, but that's still much cheaper). Sydney to Melbourne is 900 kilometers and $80, Berlin to Paris is minimum $172.…
Railway is national and cross border is always expensive. For a similar distance you can check Hamburg - Munich. Europe is too poor to subsidiase long travel trains :p EU policy is more to introduce more competitions into the system / partly privatise it (like it works in Italy)
HSR in France, Italy, Spain can be very cheap. Also, they have generous discounts for 'young people' (up to 30 I think) and 60+.
Living in NL, I have fond memories of the kind of travel enabled by Ouigo when I lived in FR.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#116That’s the introductory price. It’ll be €127,95 after that period is over. Kids travel for free, though, so that’s pretty nice. In hindsight, I think I underestimated the value of my OV card while I was a student: travel whenever, using all types of public transport, for free.
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.
To be a little provocative, yes British train prices are very expensive in comparison but they perhaps also show that heavy subisidies to make tickets dirt cheap may not be the most useful use of resources: People can pay and will pay more than a few tens of euros per month. As long as that holds true what is the case for more subsidies?
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#117Earlier 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.
To be a little provocative, yes British train prices are very expensive in comparison but they perhaps also show that heavy subisidies to make tickets dirt cheap may not be the most useful use of resources: People can pay and will pay more than a few tens of euros per month. As long as that holds true what is the case for more subsidies?
As a resident of the UK, and reasonably well off, I can definitely attest that the price definitely changes my usage.
I will always get the slow 2 hour train into London rather than the faster 1.25 hour train because it's 1/2 to 1/3 the price. The peak hours slow train is approximately double the price, the peak hours fast train is about triple the price compared to off peak.
The local train to the next city (20 miles away) is £7.50 return if you want to arrive any time before 7.15pm. After that it's £3.50 for the same journey.
Almost every time I travel on British trains, it feels like I'm being ripped off. And then to add insult to injury, probably 50% of the times I travel, there's some problem that causes the trains to be delayed or cancelled. Or then there's often the first off-peak train of the day that is so full, it's not only standing room only, it's so packed you can't even move in the aisle. It's just 2 hours of standing, hoping that the train doesn't break down again and that the aircon keeps working.
And then you go abroad, everything seems to run on time, everything is cheap - often priced by kilometre of track travelled regardless what time of day it is, and the experience just feels pleasant.
As long as that happens what is the case for reaming the customer for as much as they can afford to pay, possibly forcing some customers to choose not travel at all even when there are plenty of empty seats?
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Railway is national and cross border is always expensive. For a similar distance you can check Hamburg - Munich. Europe is too poor to subsidiase long travel trains :p EU policy is more to introduce more competitions into the system / partly privatise it (like it works in Italy)
HSR in France, Italy, Spain can be very cheap. Also, they have generous discounts for 'young people' (up to 30 I think) and 60+. Living in NL, I have fond memories of the kind of travel enabled by Ouigo when I lived in FR.
Another reason is that these routes operate an airfare model where all tickets are for a specific seat on a specific service, with increasing prices as the seats sell out. It allows for more efficient train loading, with the downside that you can't turn up to the station and assume you can take the next train.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Time, too - they print a card with your photo on it and it takes a couple weeks to show up.
Usually days. I've had one take ~5 working days and another one ~3.
Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be a little provocative, yes British train prices are very expensive in comparison but they perhaps also show that heavy subisidies to make tickets dirt cheap may not be the most useful use of resources: People can pay and will pay more than a few tens of euros per month. As long as that holds true what is the case for more subsidies?
As a resident of the UK, and reasonably well off, I can definitely attest that the price definitely changes my usage. I will always get the slow 2 hour train into London rather than the faster 1.25 hour train because it's 1/2 to 1/3 the price. The peak hours slow train is approximately double the price, the peak hours fast train is about triple the price compared to off peak. The local train to the next city (20 mile…
> I will always get the slow 2 hour train into London rather than the faster 1.25 hour train because it's 1/2 to 1/3 the price. The peak hours slow train is approximately double the price, the peak hours fast train is about triple the price compared to off peak.
So you still take the train?
Fast trains into London (which are indeed very expensive, I won't dare state the price not to shock our European friends) are completely packed at rush hour and busy all the time, in my experience.
My point is that there is quite a bit of elasticity, especially for commute so that as long as people can afford the tickets and do use the service then subsidies to lower the price drastically probably aren't a productive use of resources when taxpayer's money could be put to better use because nothing is actually free ("because cheaper tickets" is not a valid justification for subsidies).
There may be a sweet spot but I really think that beyond a certain point taxes and subsidies to reduce prices are just a waste and don't make any differences, and I think we are in that territory in a number of locations in Europe.