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

#351

Post by ikawe » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 1:59 AM UTC

netsharc wrote: post #312

eertami wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I frequently take day (or weekend) trips to other European cities by rail. It is usually quicker than the roads but also crucially you can be productive on the train. If I had to drive my car there then I probably wouldn't bother.

This reminds me of this Swedish office on a train https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbrI3refig , made for a company which had an hour train commute from Stockholm. It's even got 8 telephone line (4 in and 4 out)! I guess a lot of people would use work booths/conference rooms on trains, but the price/profit has to work for both sides (the train company and users). As for trains, the old-fashioned 6 seater compartments…

This is an aside, but I’d never seen that “Beyond 2000” show before.

Retro future is a favorite topic of mine, so thanks for sharing.

Yeeesh though, re: part 2 of that episode, it’s wild to watch people in 1988 articulate the looming threat of global warming, and to hear them say on this 25 year old program “we’ve known about this for 30 years”

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

#352

Post by thehappypm » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:05 AM UTC

dpe82 wrote: post #277

dreadlordbone wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't having a car do this too?

Having a car also entails massive subsidies; when taking that into account the all-in costs per unit traveled are basically always cheaper with rail.

[flagged]

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

#353

Post by kurthr » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:06 AM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #341

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody said that. But if you're gonna spend the public money, you need some way of determining "how much are we willing to pay for this good thing".

Who's "we"? The public is mostly not made up of consultants and do not appreciate consultant logic being applied to everything. People would prefer to define values and then act on those values.

So you would be good with spending more money and even increasing total carbon footprint, if it just felt good?

Seriously, if you're not going to measure anything or use logic, I'm not sure how you can even call them "defined" or "values". It sounds like, "I saw it on TV/internet/billboard so it must be true".

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

#354

Post by intellix » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:12 AM UTC

thrance wrote: post #310

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…

Opening the railways to competition has utterly ruined the UK's rail network. Ticket price has skyrocketed while service quality has fallen. In the 30s, French rail companies begged and lobbied the government to nationalize them, so they could exit the burden that was maintaining a rail network. Rail just isn't profitable, but is vital to society, and will become even more so as gas becomes increasingly expensive/lac…

According to GPT, the price per kilometre for rail travel is between €0.23-0.46 in the UK and €0.13-0.20 in Germany. I'm not able to verify those numbers but from my own personal experience I wouldn't doubt it.

Rail in the UK is just so bad that I stopped using it to go to the airport. Everything is constantly delayed or cancelled like I can plan a journey to arrive 2hrs before my flight and the train will randomly pause for 1hr when I'm half way... also the luggage situation is extremely stressful as the racks are out of sight and generally full, like where else am I meant to put my large suitcase after that?

It seems like trains are much larger in Europe with a lot of double deckers.

If there's two of us it's easier and sometimes cheaper to pay £100 for a taxi to the airport door to door (we're fairly rural)

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

#355

Post by Detrytus » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:14 AM UTC

xyzzy123 wrote: post #347

Aeolun wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do bigger houses make parenting easier, do bigger backyards? I’m inclined towards a large communual yard (a park, if you will) being many times more efficient at keeping them busy, especially if you have a single child. Lugging your children around on public transit builds character that chauffeuring them around in a car does not. They’ll be exposed to a variety of people and situations they’d otherwise never experie…

The other great thing about public transport is you don't have to "lug" / "chauffer" them at all after about 8 or so (what age makes sense depends on area and the kid of course). They can exercise some independence.

Maybe that's true in small, peaceful countries like Denmark, but in the US children "excersising some independence" would likely be kidnapped, raped or killed.

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

#356

Post by xyzzy123 » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:15 AM UTC

Detrytus wrote: post #355

xyzzy123 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other great thing about public transport is you don't have to "lug" / "chauffer" them at all after about 8 or so (what age makes sense depends on area and the kid of course). They can exercise some independence.

Maybe that's true in small, peaceful countries like Denmark, but in the US children "excersising some independence" would likely be kidnapped, raped or killed.

Are you sure that's true? How do you know?

How much does it depend on where in the US you are?

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

#357

Post by gruez » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:22 AM UTC

dpe82 wrote: post #277

dreadlordbone wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't having a car do this too?

Having a car also entails massive subsidies; when taking that into account the all-in costs per unit traveled are basically always cheaper with rail.

Source?

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

#358

Post by next_xibalba » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:23 AM UTC

eertami wrote: post #276

dreadlordbone wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't having a car do this too?

Anecdotally, I frequently take day (or weekend) trips to other European cities by rail. It is usually quicker than the roads but also crucially you can be productive on the train. If I had to drive my car there then I probably wouldn't bother.

Europe is not exactly the standard bearer for productivity though, is it? If one wants to advance an argument for emulating European style passenger rail, this is really not the right argument.

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

#359

Post by bastawhiz » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:24 AM UTC

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #336

jordanb wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"These things aren't important unless you can wedge them into my spreadsheet" is the time of consultant-brained nonsense that got us the world we're living in.

Nobody said that. But if you're gonna spend the public money, you need some way of determining "how much are we willing to pay for this good thing".

We spend public money on things that are almost impossible to put a concrete value on all the time. Parks. NASA. University subsidies. Animal welfare. The list goes on. "How much are we willing to pay" is entirely subjective and can't be produced by a nice clean spreadsheet.

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

#360

Post by gruez » Sun, Oct 13, 2024, 2:26 AM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #138

ccppurcell wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the word subsidy to be a possible weasel word here. I don't know all the details but a railway system has certain costs (fuel, personnel, water, upkeep, the trains themselves and so on) and takes in a certain amount of revenue (fares and subsidies, also food etc). It might be true that the government increased the subsidy in order to support the cheaper tickets. But that's not the same as "requires". Perhaps I…

I’m not sure if it’s the case here with Germany, but typically we refer to transit spending like this as “subsidies” but for some reason we forget that building and maintaining roads and highways and such are subsidies too. In the case of the US and probably everywhere else, the highway subsidies are a little insidious too because not only do you pay a boatload of money for highway expansion you have to then go and b…

>not only do you pay a boatload of money for highway expansion you have to then go and buy an expensive car and fuel too.

the federal excise tax on fuel pays for (at least in part) the "boatload of money for highway expansion "