Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 435 posts

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

#311

Post by prawn »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #160
bahnkenner wrote: post #43

The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g.,…

Exactly. The new ticket is an excellent example of when national government can be superior to more local government: when the national government forces coordination to solve fragmentation problems, where local agencies lacked the... motivation to solve things on their own. On a technical level, it was always possible for different transit agencies to cooperate to simplify things for consumers, but they didn't, and…

Probably an advantage many places would have over somewhere like the US which is quite fragmented and struggles to consistently coordinate in solving broad problems. I always remember just 2-3 years ago, driving onto a toll road in the eastern USA and there was an attendant at the booth. You paid them in notes/coins, and the attendant got the coins in their hand, leant out of their box and deposited them in a payment slot to raise the boom gate. I'm sure there was some rationale, but it was pretty bizarre.

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

#312

Post by jcranmer »

prawn wrote: post #311
TulliusCicero wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The new ticket is an excellent example of when national government can be superior to more local government: when the national government forces coordination to solve fragmentation problems, where local agencies lacked the... motivation to solve things on their own. On a technical level, it was always possible for different transit agencies to cooperate to simplify things for consumers, but they didn't, and…

Probably an advantage many places would have over somewhere like the US which is quite fragmented and struggles to consistently coordinate in solving broad problems. I always remember just 2-3 years ago, driving onto a toll road in the eastern USA and there was an attendant at the booth. You paid them in notes/coins, and the attendant got the coins in their hand, leant out of their box and deposited them in a payment…

That's not really a coordination problem, that's just a toll road that's not yet moved to all-electronic tolling.

Of course, toll roads in the US do provide a coordination problem, and that's in the existence of noncompatible electronic toll systems. You have essentially three islands of interoperability in the US: the Northeast and Midwest are all using E-ZPass, the Southeast has some interoperability, and Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas all have a compatible system, with several other states having systems interoperable with no one else. There actually was a law passed in 2012 that required all the toll systems to be compatible by 2016, but obviously, we're 7 years past that deadline and all that happened was Minnesota, North Carolina, and Florida joined E-ZPass as well (and Georgia is coming soon™ for a few years now).

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

#313

Post by callalex »

wpietri wrote: post #235
inferiorhuman wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The SF Bay Area really did the right thing here. No, no they really didn't. They spent millions rebranding it, there is (was?) a huge lag between adding value and posting the value depending on how you added value. The original card readers were incredibly unreliable, and because Clipper/TransLink did absolutely nothing to unify* the fare structure across the twenty-four different systems you could be set up for a na…

It's not a perfect thing, sure. But it's a big step forward. It's hugely better than having to deal with each system separately; I've had days when I've used 4 systems, for example. As you note with the pricing complexity, there is just a wide divergence of views and interests on how to run a transit system. And I get it; I think there are legitimate reasons people picked those different pricing systems. But they fig…

Apparently it’s time for a reminder that the flag/downmod button is absolutely not a disagree button. This comment definitely contributes to the conversation.

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

#314

Post by prawn »

jcranmer wrote: post #312
prawn wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably an advantage many places would have over somewhere like the US which is quite fragmented and struggles to consistently coordinate in solving broad problems. I always remember just 2-3 years ago, driving onto a toll road in the eastern USA and there was an attendant at the booth. You paid them in notes/coins, and the attendant got the coins in their hand, leant out of their box and deposited them in a payment…

That's not really a coordination problem, that's just a toll road that's not yet moved to all-electronic tolling. Of course, toll roads in the US do provide a coordination problem, and that's in the existence of noncompatible electronic toll systems. You have essentially three islands of interoperability in the US: the Northeast and Midwest are all using E-ZPass, the Southeast has some interoperability, and Kansas, O…

Yes, bit of a mixture. Sorry, I should've mentioned that (from memory) it was because they didn't have banknote readers or credit card payment and the US is still using dollar bills. So unless you had a bucket of very low denomination coins, you had to pay a physical person to then convert to coins and reach around to deposit them.

I once used a toll bridge in the Eastern US that had no indication of payment options (outside of a pass like the one you mentioned), no lane to escape once it was clear you had no alternatives, and then no method of paying the toll online after the fact. The only option I had was to wait to be issued a charge via the rental agency ($30+) and pay that once back in Australia.

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

#315

Post by JCharante »

ghaff wrote: post #111
bahnkenner wrote: post #43

The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g.,…

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.

What language should they accomodate? Internationally the "standard" is just local language + English. Should they choose Spanish? If they wanted to choose the language with the most speakers they would rightfully choose a dialect of Chinese.

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

#316

Post by Pamar »

danhor wrote: post #218
fweimer wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or worse, you can still buy the ticket, but it's not valid for any trains actually in service. This stuff is really non-obvious. For example, train operators can license certain Deutsche Bahn trademarks without accepting Deutsche Bahn tickets.

Where? As far as I know, all the Deutsche Bahn Tickets for regional traffic use the Deutschlandtarif, which is accepted in all "normal" (excluding heritage trains and the likes) regional trains in all of Germany.

Is the Metronom (Hamburg-Bremen) covered by the 49€ ticket, too?

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

#317

Post by Pamar »

tcptomato wrote: post #264
moltar wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are so right! I was just in Munich and had some of the most confusing experience in any public transport system I’ve ever used. And I’ve seen many! It was so shocking. The UIs of the ticket machines are horrendously slow and confusing. Stop names are always in German even when switching languages. This, of course, doesn’t align with Google Maps half the time, as my GM is set to English.

What stop names are translated?

I suppose HbfCentral Station, but apart from that yeah, can't think of other examples

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

#318

Post by dehrmann »

Something I really appreciate in Taiwan is a single card works for all transit. What I found cool in Sydney was metro turnstiles would read contactless credit cards. And I'm shocked and thrilled that the Bay Area consolidated on one system.

The US is pretty split up and doesn't use trains outside the NE corridor, so it's not as useful, but it'd be nice if congress would start work on unifying transit payments across the country over the next decade. Also unifying car toll payments. These balkanized systems are just silly.

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

#319

Post by barbazoo »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #160
bahnkenner wrote: post #43

The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g.,…

Exactly. The new ticket is an excellent example of when national government can be superior to more local government: when the national government forces coordination to solve fragmentation problems, where local agencies lacked the... motivation to solve things on their own. On a technical level, it was always possible for different transit agencies to cooperate to simplify things for consumers, but they didn't, and…

> On a technical level, it was always possible for different transit agencies to cooperate to simplify things for consumers, but they didn't, and likely never would, at least not on this level

In Germany that did happen, for sure. I used to live in the area between Mainz and Frankfurt and the multiple public transport authorities (RMV, MVB, RNN etc.) worked together to better support the transitional zones.

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

#320

Post by xputer »

dehrmann wrote: post #318

Something I really appreciate in Taiwan is a single card works for all transit. What I found cool in Sydney was metro turnstiles would read contactless credit cards. And I'm shocked and thrilled that the Bay Area consolidated on one system. The US is pretty split up and doesn't use trains outside the NE corridor, so it's not as useful, but it'd be nice if congress would start work on unifying transit payments across…

Doesn't Kaohsiung have it's own card system?
Post reply on HN