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Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

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Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#161

Post by cbmuser »

hannob wrote: post #37
bleep_bloop wrote: post #2

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport association has its own ticketing system, and they really like to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step…

> One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. > The 49 euro ticket is a step in the right direction here, ...

Errm, you do see the contradiction here, no?

The 49 Euro ticket is actually heavily subsidized which means more tax payer money is wasted that could be invested into the infrastructure of public transport.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#162

Post by cbmuser »

redprince wrote: post #67
hannob wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport association has its own ticketing system, and they really like to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step…

> It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. Well... sort of, but the incentives are broken. Simplified version of what has happened so far: In 1994 the Deutsche Bundesbahn was fused with the eastern Reichbahn and converted into the Deutsche Bahn AG. The German state is the owner of this company but the corporation is run as it were publicly traded. Getting it onto the stock market at least in pa…

Japanese railway is all privatized and easily beats everything they have in Switzerland.

It's not a matter of private vs. public.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#163

Post by cbmuser »

Demonto wrote: post #121
hannob wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport association has its own ticketing system, and they really like to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step…

It's just stupidity. It should have no issue at all to align German wide but they never did it. The Munich MVG for example is doing an experiment were you can pay by an app from some us company were you just start and stop your journey with a button and the app gives you the best price. They could have instead just created some German wide software company sponsored by all the local public transport agencies and just…

> They could have instead just created some German wide software company sponsored by all the local public transport agencies and just do it themselves.

But that already works with the »DB Navigator« app by Deutsche Bahn.

You can buy tickets for many local public transport companies. No need to download a custom app.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#164

Post by woodpanel »

kelnos wrote: post #144
woodpanel wrote: post #60

As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying tickets across German transportation systems: I’ve been working on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue (by people like us - the E-Mail caste). Eve…

Is that really true? The only people who need/want to regularly travel across local transit boundaries are tech people? That seems unlikely, especially nowadays.

Where did I write „tech-people“? Yes, all tech people are part of the E-Mail-Caste, but not all of said Caste are techies.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#165

Post by TulliusCicero »

cbmuser wrote: post #156
3D30497420 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good example of this complexity is Berlin. Many people have monthly passes for just A and B zones, which comprise the bulk of central Berlin. However, the new airport is just over the border in zone C, which requires an additional ticket. The transit authority knows this and will catch and fine people who neglected or forgot to buy a B to C ticket.

If you think that Berlin's zone system is complex, you haven't seen the public transport in many other cities like Munich which has 6 zones or Japanese cities where trains are operated by different companies. Berlin's system is rather simple and comparably cheap.

Yeah but these days Japanese trains can all use the suica (and similar) cards to tap in and out, right? You don't actually need to understand the different rail companies or zones or whatever, you just get your one card and put money on it and then tap.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#166

Post by cbmuser »

thanatos519 wrote: post #5
bleep_bloop wrote: post #2

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.

> Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.

A lot of public transport runs on fossil fuels. Especially, since Germany was so »smart« to shutdown all nuclear reactors so that coal has become the most important source of electricity again.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#167

Post by Scoundreller »

bombcar wrote: post #157
ghaff wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And for visitors who may not even speak the primary language, public transit is awful in most places in terms of onboarding jet lagged visitors. Apparently no one does UX trials of people who have zero familiarity with the system and don't speak the language--though at least they maybe accommodate major Western languages. But, in general, it's pretty awful and you at least should do some research in advance.

Every transit system should have a “tourist day pass” that is moderately expensive but allows you to use anything for 24 hours or so.

Integrate it into my visa (stamp).

I’m also surprised airports don’t integrate it into their passenger fees and boarding passes. But maybe that’s getting a little too multi-modal to handle.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#168

Post by wunderland »

bleep_bloop wrote: post #2

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

Not controversial in the handful of countries where public transportation is efficient and ubiquitous. Americans are fed constant propaganda about how publicly owned anything isn’t possible, sold to them by the very people whose profits rely on this being true.

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#169

Post by splatzone »

woodpanel wrote: post #60

As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying tickets across German transportation systems: I’ve been working on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue (by people like us - the E-Mail caste). Eve…

What do you mean by email caste? Do you mean people with internet access?

Re: Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

#170

Post by throwaway60607 »

okr wrote: post #78
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And to finance it, everyone should serve a year of their life for public services like that. To people who argue like this, I often argued in the past that if I were to contribute on an open source project for one year instead, this would do a lot more good for the public welfare.

As far as i can see it, we need muscle power, that is not well paid, as it does not scale well. Less software. Software is just fine.

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