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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

#71
post #50

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the US is a MUCH larger country.

> the US is a MUCH larger country

with much of the population in a few denser areas, where public transport would make a lot of sense.

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

#72
post #37
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? The €9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not originally intended to continue permanently at all. > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel befor…

> If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry. Tourist&foreigners can use the Deutschlandticket, too. But: it's a monthly subscription automatically renewing every month, so one has to cancel it early enough when planning to leave the country. You'll also typically need a smartphone for the ticket.

Well, on mobile they make you think you need the app, but it's region locked. I happened to email them about how this is annoying for tourists yesterday and got a very German response,

"Downloading the Deutschlandticket.de app from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store is only possible in certain countries." (ikr, it's THE problem)

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

#73
post #68
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vegans? Veg[a..z1..9A..Z]ns? Are there any vegyns out there who object to being put on the meat/no-meat spectrum? Are you afraid HN will censure you if you spell out the complete word?

Really now. It's obviously veg.+ns: vegans and vegetarians.

Oh aha thanks for pointing that out. Now that you mention it that does seem obvious. I definitely didn't catch that from the first use though. There should be a better word to capture both those meanings that doesn't confuse my poor regex sensibilities like that. :|

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

#74

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as so…

Surprised how positive you're writivg about the German public transport. The Deutsche Bahn doesn't have a good reputation in central Europe.

I guess my frame of reference isn't average, given I live in Switzerland.

Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!

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

#75
I really really would like to see Labour in the UK to use their sizeable majority + Parliamentary sovereignty to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure, including more train subsidies, but they seem very cautious and also terrified of raising taxes. Such a waste that the UK is one of the few places where Parliament could just ram shit through and yet building anything in the UK is so hampered by self-imposed red tape.

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

#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 externalities, but I don't know how to price any of them.

https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/ghg-abatement...

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

#77

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, It is for that reason I'd love it. Accessible, universal, sustainable, resilient technology! I once got stuck in Nuremberg overnight. The ticket office was open all night and an official looked up all my options from memory and timetable books and wrote me a diagram with pen and paper that perfectly showed me how to get to my destination. I'll never forget that…

There simply has to be a web page about this somewhere...

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

#78
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry. Tourist&foreigners can use the Deutschlandticket, too. But: it's a monthly subscription automatically renewing every month, so one has to cancel it early enough when planning to leave the country. You'll also typically need a smartphone for the ticket.

Well, on mobile they make you think you need the app, but it's region locked. I happened to email them about how this is annoying for tourists yesterday and got a very German response, "Downloading the Deutschlandticket.de app from the Google Play Store and Apple App Store is only possible in certain countries." (ikr, it's THE problem)

The ticket is available by other apps, too.

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

#79
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the US is a MUCH larger country.

There’s a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn’t meet it at all. I can’t even take a bus from my neighborhood in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner and it’s often cancelled

Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the population density is lower than in European cities. (It's definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.)

But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC, so expectations are low.

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

#80

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…

One fun experience, arriving in München and trying to buy ticket for the airport train online. The app requires your birthdate. The date selector starts from present and only allows to go back one month at a time. So if you're 40 years old, you would need to click 480 times... We bought paper tickets from a machine . Machines work well compared to other countries though.

I thought the same thing first, but if you click on the year you can choose from a list.
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