Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail • Hacker News Board

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

#251

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:25 PM UTC

enaaem wrote: post #125

londons_explore wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A Georgist Land Value Tax would fix this!

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

#252

Post by weinzierl » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:26 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #27

weinzierl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I LOVE the German transit system" I have some experience with the public transport systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common balkanization. The DB Navi…

> Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now. > The DB Navigator is so terrible It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives me a 50% discount on all trains.

> Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized.

That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now.

I did a more complicated trip with multiple legs. Booked via SNCF, bc DB-Navigator would not let me book some of the border crossing legs, I tried. The only leg that required a paper ticket was in Germany. In 2023, not last century.

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

#253

Post by reshlo » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:28 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #240

kortilla wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a weasel word, it’s a word used to describe any program provided by the government that does not bring in enough revenue on its own to pay for itself. The same word applies to roads that do not pay for themselves through gas tax and/or tolls. If the government pays for something through a general fund from income/property/corporate taxes, it’s subsidized. It’s important to call these out whenever they are be…

> the program is not sustainable on its own So arrest, investigation prosecution and imprisonment of anyone who steals from Amazon is a massive subsidy, since Amazon pays no tax.

Not to mention the money spent on funding food stamps for Amazon’s underpaid employees.

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

#254

Post by weinzierl » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:29 PM UTC

lispm wrote: post #107

eptcyka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people who did that. Granted, we are europeans, not Germans living in Germany. Paying before just isn't always practical, but I understand that such limitations are often a non-issue for locals.

> The DB app? Definitely was not an option for the people who did that. Yeah, it's in the app. > Paying before just isn't always practical, but I understand that such limitations are often a non-issue for locals. That's how it works. Typical here for local trains: there are no barriers in train and bus stations. One can just enter the train and bus without any ticket check. But you have to make sure that you have a t…

That's how it works.

That's how it works in Germany. Everywhere else I just swipe my mobile and I am done.

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

#255

Post by panick21_ » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:31 PM UTC

eesmith wrote: post #25

pjmlp wrote: post #5

Except this only helped the folks living close to big train station hubs, across the country there are plenty of places where the car is the only viable option.

Just about all of which used to have train service, right? I mean, in the US I've been to a lot of small towns where there is no train service, but the old station is still there, with the rails all torn out and replaced with houses, or roads, or bike paths. And in the UK, the infamous Beeching cuts in the 1960s removed lines based on a profitability model which wasn't applied to roads, causing many communities to lo…

People talk a lot of nonsense about 'Beeching cuts' without really understanding the history. 'Beeching' has simply become a political buzzword anybody who knows even a little about rail likes to bandy about.

Lines started closing around the 1930s and after WW2 this continued. Beeching was only working on this topic a short time and produced a report that suggested lots of things. Some of those things were done, others weren't. Cuts happened before Beeching and after him. And they happened during various different railroads organization schemes.

That it was strictly about profitability is also false. If anything it was about cost. They believed in future buses (and yes cars) would take car of those communities. At that time bus services were often government run.

And Beeching was actually correct in many cases. The British rail system was simply not rationally build. It was basically built by partly speculation driven rush. While this is not a bad and certainly gave Britain a great rail system, once you have centralized control it does actually make sense to reevaluate. Lots of lines didn't make rational sense to continue.

Now of course I agree that to many lines were closed that shouldn't have been closed. But that is only a small part of the issue with the rail system. Britain still has a pretty high rail density.

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

#256

Post by andrepd » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:32 PM UTC

Ferret7446 wrote: post #189

barrkel wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars also have a huge subsidy in the form of roads

There are generally taxes (e.g., car or gas taxes) that cover the costs. I don't know about Germany's situation, but it is not impossible to make that net zero.

If you would even attempt it to make it net zero you would get truly ungodly amounts of pushback, I don't think you understand how bad it would be. Truly, for those used to a privilege, fairness is an attack.

Furthermore: you have a state of affairs where you are pretty much forced to own and drive a car to e.g. get to work or move around. You make it reflect its true cost making it impossible to afford for anyone except the rich. What now?

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

#257

Post by wkat4242 » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:33 PM UTC

tourmalinetaco wrote: post #179

moffkalast wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it's not just a carbon credit, it also provides subsidized public transport to everyone, reduces congestion, improves city air and likely cuts road deaths. Arguably tax dollars extremely well spent.

Except that due to this cheaper ticket congestion on trains is horrible and since the infrastructure is poorly maintained it’s quite common to be late by 1-2 hours while being packed in a sardine tin.

That's a matter of train infrastructure and frequency keeping up with demand. There's a big lag there. You don't just buy 100 new trains overnight. It's a symptom of ramping up. Not of high usage.

I live in Barcelona and here the metro comes every 2-3 minutes. Even during the night it might be 7 minutes. This helps so much with congestion but also trip planning: no need to check train times before you go. Id imagine busy routes in Germany could do similar.

The big benefit of this is also not needing a car. Not having to worry about maintenance, write-off, finding parking and the cost thereof, summer and winter tyres, damage, no-claim bonus, travelling while having drunk, going back from a different place than you arrived. It's so incredibly more convenient than having a car. All at a flat rate of 21€ here.I hope never having to need one again.

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

#258

Post by weinzierl » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:36 PM UTC

hagbard_c wrote: post #92

weinzierl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I LOVE the German transit system" I have some experience with the public transport systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common balkanization. The DB Navi…

> The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the German leg of my international travels from one of the other countries apps whenever possible. While DB Navigator does leave something to be desired the sheer width/breadth of the DB booking system makes it my go-to choice for international train travel. They're also quite forthcoming in paying back 25% to 50% of the ticket price when delayed more than 1 or 2 h…

They're also quite forthcoming in paying back 25% to 50% of the ticket price when delayed more than 1 or 2 hours

There is nothing forthcoming about that, they are required to to that by regulations. No bonus points for DB here whatsoever.

which is a frequent occurrence on the longer trips

That is something we can agree upon.

reserve seats and sometimes actually choose which seats I want

SNCF-Connects lets you specify the exact seat configuration. You can choose single, double (window or not), quadruple (next to each other or face-to-face). In addition to that you can express your preference for family area and if you do not want to sit facing against the driving direction.

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

#259

Post by immibis » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:38 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #240

kortilla wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a weasel word, it’s a word used to describe any program provided by the government that does not bring in enough revenue on its own to pay for itself. The same word applies to roads that do not pay for themselves through gas tax and/or tolls. If the government pays for something through a general fund from income/property/corporate taxes, it’s subsidized. It’s important to call these out whenever they are be…

> the program is not sustainable on its own So arrest, investigation prosecution and imprisonment of anyone who steals from Amazon is a massive subsidy, since Amazon pays no tax.

Yes. The government massively subsidises owning physical property.

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

#260

Post by FooBarBizBazz » Sat, Oct 12, 2024, 11:38 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #106

jdietrich wrote: post #76

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…

Yeah, it seems that "self-driving trains" are a much, much more tractable problem than self-driving cars. On the other hand, the cost of the driver is amortized over many passengers, and much of the labor isn't driving but rather serving as conductor, etc, so it may not even matter too much.

> automated cleaning of trains inside and out)

For the outside, you can imagine a carwash.

For the inside, my brain goes to scary dystopian places. Like, "what if we make the inside out of chemically-inert glass-based materials, and clean it by immersion in pirhana solution?" One would just need to recycle the solution, and recharge it with hydrogen peroxide. This would rule out the use of plastics in the interior, however.

Maybe something more like a dishwasher could also work, but I'm not sure it'd be Strong Enough for Tough Stains. It could even just make a mess. I've heard stories of Roombas that encounter dog poop; they say it goes badly...