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

mcc-berlin.net

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

#661

Post by graemep »

SECProto wrote: post #428
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…

Funding road repairs, construction, and expansion from general tax revenues is similarly subsidizing a different mode of transit, and it's likely a much higher value than the 3b€ you mention (and likely more than overall railway sector subsidizing, tho I'm not familiar with Germany's budget). Also recognizing that other positive externalities exist, but pricing them at $0, seems silly.

I do not know about Germany, but most countries have taxes on car ownership and fuel, so you need to offset those against the expenditure on roads. Road construction and maintenance also benefits other road users - transport vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians and emergency vehicles etc.

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

#662

Post by dunefox »

Aachen wrote: post #222
k__ wrote: post #120

It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time. First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months. People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket. But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€. Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

Remember that it cost a small rent to get this subscription until the 9€ experiment. Flat fee national transport, I don't remember the exact price but it's multiple hundreds a month in both the Netherlands (NS altijd/trein vrij) and Germany (Bahnkarte 100). Even my local subscription to go ~10km between two cities in Germany (NRW) cost 90€ a month until that experiment A nationwide subscription for 60 euros is a stea…

Except for people who simply don't have 60€ a month easily, so they're left out. Also, it will absolutely not stay at 60€, it will become more expensive each year until the local tickets are cheaper again - defeating the whole purpose (if it won't be reverted outright after the next election, which the conservatives will win).

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

#663

Post by dunefox »

RealStickman_ wrote: post #519
k__ wrote: post #120

It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time. First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months. People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket. But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€. Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

The Swiss ride anywhere ticket is 4000 CHF annually [1]. (330 CHF/month -> 350 EUR/month) That's still less than an average car. A commonly quoted figure is 10'000 CHF per year. [2] [1] https://www.sbb.ch/de/billette-angebote/abos/ga/ga-preise.ht... [2] https://www.comparis.ch/carfinder/autofahren/auto-kosten

They earn A LOT more money in Switzerland than in Germany.

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

#664

Post by dunefox »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #313
k__ wrote: post #120

It's pretty awesome, but it gets more expensive all the time. First it started as 9€ ticket for 3 months. People loved it, and the government talked about doing a permanent 29€ ticket. But now we pay 49€ and it's already planned to become 59€. Really sad, as it isn't affordable for poor people anymore.

For a developed country, 59 EUR is not all that expensive if it helps you get to a job. Having it be too cheap would probably degrade the quality of service for busier routes and make it harder for future projects to pay themselves off.

In a highly developed and wealthy country it should be free.

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

#665

Post by ossobuco »

_19qg wrote: post #529
lagrange77 wrote: post #283

Am i a communist when i prefer a government to operate and provide basic services like the public transport system, the postal system, the telecommunication/internet service or prisons either paid by taxes or by fees, that don't generate profit beyond paying the costs, instead of using taxes to rescue bankrupt banks and companies? EDIT: Oh and hospitals!

Otto von Bismarck introduced much of the social safety net in Germany, incl. health insurance (in 1883). He definitely was not a communist. He once called it "practical christianity" ("praktisches Christentum").

After all Jesus was a proto-socialist, wasn't he?

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

#666

Post by locallost »

weinzierl wrote: post #258
hagbard_c wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.

You can do all that in the DB app. You can manually select which seats you want or just say the types of seats you want (e.g. compartment or open area, isle or window, table or no table, quiet area or not, family area etc).

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

#667

Post by locallost »

weinzierl wrote: post #266
elpocko wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes I want to buy a ticket every now and then. I want that process to be straight forward: cash money for one-time ticket. I don't want your app on my phone, I don't want a subscription, and I don't want to be tracked. Paper based offline processes forever, please.

I don't want your app on my phone, I don't want a subscription, and I don't want to be tracked. Exactly, no one wants that, no one needs that, but you should recognize that most people don't want to handle cash money either, nowadays. Just let me swipe my card or phone and done. If you insist on privacy we should be able to use a pre-paid card or temporary credit card (like Revolut), but I have not tried that and I d…

You can use a card on every ticket machine.

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

#668

Post by PaulHoule »

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…

It’s arguable that $100 per ton is a real carbon price.

It translates to about $1 a gallon tax on gasoline which is (a) not enough to change people’s behavior (at its peak gas was almost $2 more than it is now and I drove just the same) but (b) people in 2024 will complain bitterly about it anyway. That is, polities are hypersensitized to that sort of imposed solution right now: for a long time people in the US accepted fluctuations in the gas price because it was seen as a market price so we only had riots whenever a black person was shot by the cops; in “normal” countries (including France and Egypt) you have riots when the price of petroleum goes up because it is seen as being controlled by the state. I think the US has gotten more “normal” post COVID-19 and with GHG controls on the horizon. $1 a gallon is not quite going to make EVs beat gas but it certainly happens at a price below $500 a tonne.

Favorable CCS from industrial sources is quoted around $100 a tonne but that is (c) from a plant that runs 24-7 (e.g. if your natural gas plant runs 20% of the time the capital cost of CCS is multiplied 5x at least disregarding that the plant might not run well when it is starting up and shutting down) and (d) has few realizations.

The biggest positive externality of rail is suppressed traffic congestion, it is a big quality of life thing if you can avoid sitting in a traffic jam. (Reminds me of posters I saw in Germany that said Zukunft onhe Stau)

I find rail tourism to be luxurious compared to motortourism in that one gets to the center of town and doesn’t need to stress about parking, traffic and all that. Contrast that to the fight to refuel your rental car at the airport.

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

#669

Post by PaulHoule »

neither_color wrote: post #619
finikytou wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in Paris (and pretty sure that applies to pretty much any big western city, new york for instance is worse in a few of the criterias ill reference) subway increase stress, frequent delays(if you have 2-3 train as part of your commute you will experience it daily), pollution down under is high, virus/covid transmission is high, pickpockets are everywhere if not worse, bedbug, pee smell, junkies. Id take a car any day.

This is much less of a problem in large Asian cities. They're only really stressful in rush hour crowds. But in places like NY the public seems much less interested in the initial policing, maintenance, and cultural attitude shifts that would be required to make it happen. Like, you could still have the artists, street performers, and other so-called charming quirks while still making sure the problematic passengers…

It is easy to say but not easy to do.

Post Szasz and Reagan we’ve had the policy of deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. Thus you have a lot of people with schizophrenia who have no insight into their condition who are very hard to manage. Even in a town where services are relatively available there are many people who take years to accept a diagnosis which can get them on disability and receiving permanent help.

Probably the best we can do for these people is get them stabilized on an antipsychotic drug and then get them in the clinic every few months for a depot injection but even that is pretty hard.

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

#670

Post by TheCoelacanth »

finikytou wrote: post #592
andrepd wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. Next time you see a free parking spot mentally calculate the rent of ~10m² on that part of the city to understand how much of a subsidy that is. Then multiply by 50 parking spots in a street. Then think how many thousands there are all over the city...

do you have free parking? cities are making money out of parking spots. a lot of money. so much than one would say they have an incentive to reduce parking space to increase price and reduce expenses

They make money because they don't have to pay for the true value of the land. It's free to them.

It's still a subsidy because they are charging less than the market value of the most valuable possible use.

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