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Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

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Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#141

Post by andrepd »

gib444 wrote: post #105
andrepd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that 128€ is the monthly price for 100% discount, but 6€ is the monthly price for 40% discount. It brings the prices of rail travel in the Netherlands from "fucking ludicrous" to just "reasonably expensive".

> It brings the prices of rail travel in the Netherlands from "fucking ludicrous" Haha I can't help but feel the Dutch firmly believe rail should be completely free Isn't it fairly common for your employer to pay half to all of your commuting cost too...? (Almost unheard of in the UK for comparison, with people regularly paying £2,000-£10,000/year to commute) And the Netherlands is like 10th in Europe for on-the-day…

> Utrecht to Amsterdam is 20 EUR

Well that's exactly the trip I had in mind. 20€ return for a 35km trip just sounds crazy expensive to me. That's over 25€/100km; driving a car (even at the high gas prices of the Netherlands) should be 10-15€/100km. The balance just seems out of whack.

But then again I'm not Dutch :) I come from a much lower cost-of-living country so that may skew my perspective a bit.

> paying €6/mo to save 40% seems a pretty good deal if you travel a lot off peak

Not really if you "travel a lot", it's just a no-brainer deal if you travel at all. In that one return trip Amsterdam—Utrecht it's already worth it for the entire month :) Plus you can take 3 more people with you and you all get the discount!

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#142

Post by joe_mamba »

CalRobert wrote: post #107
joe_mamba wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I’m from the US and moved to the Netherlands but there are still some things I prefer about the US (bug screens on windows for instance)

>bug screens on windows for instance

You can retrofit those on the cheap even in rentals. Hardly something major.

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#143

Post by asdff »

CalRobert wrote: post #104
asdff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always funny to me how people try and put laws on things for homeless people when the ills people are worried about with homeless people are already illegal but not being enforced. E.g., "we must charge for transit, to keep homeless people off as they could smoke meth on the platform." Never mind smoking meth on the platform is already illegal. Never mind that it isn't getting enforced. Never mind that this lack of e…

This has crossed my mind for other things too, like immigration. People say they don't want immigrants because of crime (whether that's a reasonable concern is a different topic entirely), but it presupposes that laws against crime aren't enforced. If we had stricter law enforcement would people worry about (immigrants, the homeless, etc.) less?

Exactly. Even if you support ICE and its efforts, surely you would consider every nonviolent noncriminal who contributes to society in the form of labor and taxation a massive waste of resources to go after and deport, relative to those who actually do victimize people and are a burden on society?

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#144

Post by CalRobert »

joe_mamba wrote: post #142
CalRobert wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m from the US and moved to the Netherlands but there are still some things I prefer about the US (bug screens on windows for instance)

>bug screens on windows for instance You can retrofit those on the cheap even in rentals. Hardly something major.

Yeah and we have them but it’s annoying when you’re choosing between roasting or getting absolutely eaten alive by bugs in an Airbnb in Killarney.

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#145

Post by [deleted] »

andrepd wrote: post #141
gib444 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It brings the prices of rail travel in the Netherlands from "fucking ludicrous" Haha I can't help but feel the Dutch firmly believe rail should be completely free Isn't it fairly common for your employer to pay half to all of your commuting cost too...? (Almost unheard of in the UK for comparison, with people regularly paying £2,000-£10,000/year to commute) And the Netherlands is like 10th in Europe for on-the-day…

> Utrecht to Amsterdam is 20 EUR Well that's exactly the trip I had in mind. 20€ return for a 35km trip just sounds crazy expensive to me. That's over 25€/100km; driving a car (even at the high gas prices of the Netherlands) should be 10-15€/100km. The balance just seems out of whack. But then again I'm not Dutch :) I come from a much lower cost-of-living country so that may skew my perspective a bit. > paying €6/mo…

[deleted]

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#146

Post by cromka »

vel0city wrote: post #100
cromka wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ecological? You can be sure companies would somehow exploit ut for their services. It should cost at least enough to cover the energy expenses.

If the train was going to run regardless, and there isn't that high of a demand on this level of off-peak, adding the weight of a person or two is practically nothing to the rolling of the train.

You make a lot of assumptions here and it's pure speculation: - demand absolutely rises with free services, as evidenced by other cities that did that, costs do go up - who said "off-peak" in this context? we're talking free service, not "sometimes free" - "adding the weight of a person or two" - again, you don't know that. Also, it's not the weight, it's the demand vs capacity, which inevitably increases the frequency of the service.

I am all for good public transport but a nominal price is better than free. It's a similar issue with public health system: a completely free one gets abused.

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#147

Post by gpvos »

ralferoo wrote: post #123
mytailorisrich wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 co…

Yeah. Yesterday I had to go in for a meeting with my client. I went "off peak" which meant not getting there before 10am. The alternative is "super off peak" which is only for trains arriving after 1pm. That "off peak" was already double the price of "super off peak" and the train wasn't close to being empty, but there were spare seats. If I'd needed to get there for a 9am meeting, it'd have been about double the pri…

Chinese trains must be quite heavily subsidized. In general, I don't like having to book a particular train instead of a route, just because of the extra mental planning overhead, but with the free rebooking it may be bearable.

> if you miss your train, you can still cancel it and rebook a later train with only a 20% penalty, as long as you do it within 24 hours of your scheduled departure.

This, this is amazing. How I wish the SNCF did it like that. (Actually, it happens often enough that all SNCF trains on a route on the same day are booked full so maybe it wouldn't help.) When you are early, can you also up- or downgrade at no cost (other than the price difference), e.g. if only seats are available in a different class than on your ticket?

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#148

Post by muyuu »

stuaxo wrote: post #83
muyuu wrote: post #11

Earlier 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.

Can we get some commitment from Andy Burnham for something like this?

It would be nice, but sadly a much deeper restructuring of the system is needed than just offering cheap season tickets, presumably by heavy subsidies.

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#149

Post by vel0city »

cromka wrote: post #146
vel0city wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the train was going to run regardless, and there isn't that high of a demand on this level of off-peak, adding the weight of a person or two is practically nothing to the rolling of the train.

You make a lot of assumptions here and it's pure speculation: - demand absolutely rises with free services, as evidenced by other cities that did that, costs do go up - who said "off-peak" in this context? we're talking free service, not "sometimes free" - "adding the weight of a person or two" - again, you don't know that. Also, it's not the weight, it's the demand vs capacity, which inevitably increases the frequen…

> You make a lot of assumptions here and it's pure speculation

Both of us are in both of our comments.

> demand absolutely rises with free services

Its not free, its 49 euros a month.

> "adding the weight of a person or two" - again, you don't know that. Also, it's not the weight

My response was to the "It should cost at least enough to cover the energy expenses" part, which the energy cost is practically entirely the weight of the passengers and their cargo. Which for a whole train the marginal energy cost of a person riding a train that was already going to go on that journey and probably already had capacity on board is miniscule. We're talking about a train that weights hundreds of tons and you're adding like I don't doubt it will increase the demand that much, but at the same time its "off-peak". That inherently means there's extra capacity. If a massive amount of people shifted their schedules to meet this new "off-peak" ridership time I'd imagine the "off-peak" schedules would update...otherwise they wouldn't really be on and off peak schedules anymore by definition would they?

Re: Dutch Railways offers unlimited off-peak train travel nationwide for €49/month

#150

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ralferoo wrote: post #123
mytailorisrich wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 co…

Yeah. Yesterday I had to go in for a meeting with my client. I went "off peak" which meant not getting there before 10am. The alternative is "super off peak" which is only for trains arriving after 1pm. That "off peak" was already double the price of "super off peak" and the train wasn't close to being empty, but there were spare seats. If I'd needed to get there for a 9am meeting, it'd have been about double the pri…

Those are intercity trains. Commuter trains and especially subways in China, you probably aren’t getting a seat unless it’s off peak and you plan on going past a transfer station. This is basically why I took a taxi to and from work in Beijing even though I technically lived and worked on the line 10 subway. I just hated life when I had to stand for an hour (line 10 is a huge loop so even if the stations were technically on the line, it still went to them in a round about way). Worked for an emergency though, or if cabs were not available for some reason.
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