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

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

#831

Post by CydeWeys »

jjav wrote: post #807
CydeWeys wrote: post #794

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not that much free space available. It's a maximum of 10%. Almost everyone who was ever going to be able to go here is able to do so, they're just paying more for the privilege and they aren't wasting as much time driving around creating traffic trying to find parking.

Let's say there are 500 parking spots. With free parking and a vibrant area, all spots are taken and there are N people circling around looking for parking. Not sure what N is but let's say 50 (seems reasonable). If after the price increase there are 10% (50) parking spots open, that means at least a 100 people went elsewhere (20%). That's a pretty significant drop in business to the local stores. And speculation asi…

> If after the price increase there are 10% (50) parking spots open, that means at least a 100 people went elsewhere (20%).

Your math ain't mathing.

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

#832

Post by Swizec »

chii wrote: post #401
spacebanana7 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s important to distinguish between an operational cost and capital investment here. If rail usage continues once the spending stops then it’s an investment. Otherwise is an operating subsidy.

paying for part of the ticket is not an investment, as there's no residual value from this payment. An investment must have some sort of residual value, which over time, is recouped and perhaps even makes a return (hopefully).

> paying for part of the ticket is not an investment, as there's no residual value from this payment

Disagree. There is a lot of residual value in reducing congestion and road usage. Roads need fewer repairs, CO2 impacts the atmosphere less, cities move more efficiently, etc.

There’s residual value also in people spending more time on tax-paying activities and running the economy instead of being stuck alone in their cars. Etc.

If you pay $50 more in taxes because you got a $40 train ticket subsidy that’s a huge win. I don’t know if that’s how the numbers shake out, but governments are def not doing stuff like this just to throw money in the furnace.

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

#833

Post by consteval »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #693
dunefox wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the next elections, I fully expect it (and cannabis) to be reversed by the CDU, who will win without a doubt.

It is somewhat popular, so I doubt they will kill it outright. Rather I would guess they "reform" it: lots of variants, much higher price, beaurocratic hoops... and then when people stop using it, say "see, it wasn't so great after all". Same playbook in the UK, where people like the NHS but certain parties don't. Same playbook in the US, where "big government" has to be bad, so anything that does currently work well…

A lot of times it's even worse than this, because what will happen is well-run public services will be sold off to the private sector. Who then runs away with extreme greed granted from the privilege of an inelastic market. So prices soar and quality plummets.

Then, we can point and say "see? Look at how bad it is! It would only be worse if the government ran it!"

Extra points if you're able to extract public funds to waste on such private endeavors. See: private schools in America (Yes, they get public funds!)

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

#834

Post by consteval »

caseyy wrote: post #793
zelphirkalt wrote: post #39

Well, of course, if we didn't have traffic ministers again and again, who do everything they can to make rail less attractive and road more attractive, then we could probably have a great system. But automobile lobby is so strong, they buy all the politicians in that role, probably even before they land in that role, so I guess normal people will have to keep suffering, so that those politicians can have a life of lu…

Quite many "normal people" also enjoy the freedom of the automobile. It has contributed significantly to the culture of autonomy, unity on large scales (beyond one's local town), and cosmopolitanism. Online, it is acceptable to be cynical about cars, but in the real world, among common people, this mindset is not that prevalent. Even in European countries lauded for great public transport, people own and enjoy cars.…

"Normal people" are often short-sighted. They only know what they know. They're heavily advertised to, and they lack imagination.

In the US people are dropping like flies from obesity and disease. But even their day-to-day quality of life is awful, because naturally they don't feel good. A portion of this is directly because of a pro-car culture. When you can't walk anywhere ever that has an effect.

People in the US are still very pro-car. They can't, or maybe don't want to, connect the dots on the consequences of that. American individualism is so extreme that people are happy to kill themselves, so long as they're the one who pulls the trigger.

Their words may not be reliable. This is why we need data. How much money are average people spending? How healthy are average people? Etc etc. That should influence our decisions around public policy.

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

#835

Post by _cenw »

greyw wrote: post #760
jamil7 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For people less familiar. Germany privatised its national rail company in the 90s but the federal government is the only shareholder. It’s a weird model that doesn’t make much sense. DB is a monopoly so the rules of competition don’t apply (and don’t work with railways anyway) it’s led to perverse cost cutting incentives and fat bonus programs for C level employees. Combine that with a conservative government’s auste…

So it is still a state enterprise in all but in name. The swiss federal railyway has the exact same model (a company fully owned by the federal government) and it works very well. Blaming the ownership model for the DB's woes is just wrong in my opinion. German railways have been chronically underfunded, overburdening the company with below cost ticket and the company has some perverse incentives with respect to rail…

If the state had any control over DB, they wouldn't have been invested in Arriva (a bus company) until a few months ago, and they wouldn't make most of their cargo revenue with trucks (DB Schenker).

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

#836

Post by account42 »

consteval wrote: post #834
caseyy wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite many "normal people" also enjoy the freedom of the automobile. It has contributed significantly to the culture of autonomy, unity on large scales (beyond one's local town), and cosmopolitanism. Online, it is acceptable to be cynical about cars, but in the real world, among common people, this mindset is not that prevalent. Even in European countries lauded for great public transport, people own and enjoy cars.…

"Normal people" are often short-sighted. They only know what they know. They're heavily advertised to, and they lack imagination. In the US people are dropping like flies from obesity and disease. But even their day-to-day quality of life is awful, because naturally they don't feel good. A portion of this is directly because of a pro-car culture. When you can't walk anywhere ever that has an effect. People in the US…

"Normal people" have been on overcrowded trains with spotty service. They know what putting someone else in charge of how, when and where they can travel inevitably turns out.

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

#837

Post by account42 »

finikytou wrote: post #590
looofooo0 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare cost also decline, and people become less sick because you have to walk some amount to get to the train.

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.

Yes, even just 15 or 30 minutes more spent on commute every day is a significan quality of life decrease.

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

#838

Post by weinzierl »

black_puppydog wrote: post #472
weinzierl wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But even the basic UX is terrible. The most blatant example of this is the choice to make the first text input on the search the target station." This is just your preference and not terrible UX. In fact I find this the more intuitive way.

It might be more intuitive if this was the first travel app every developed. But I don't personally any other transit UI that uses this pattern, and that makes using the sncf search "the weird one" and not in a good way.

Google maps and Apple maps all work like SNCF. The first thing you enter is your destination and then you can optionally change the point of departure if it is not your current or default location.

I would say this is a pretty familiar and useful pattern in general: Necessary and mandatory info first, optional data which has sensible defaults later.

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

#839

Post by consteval »

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

I think even high rates don't get close to breaking even.

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

#840

Post by consteval »

eru wrote: post #824
fennecfoxy wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I'm not going back to Singapore until they treat gay men like myself better. I've been there; Singapore is a private money pit/playground for Western and Asian high business, much like Dubai.

When have you last been? They have recently improved the de jure treatment of gay people. (The de facto treatment hasn't changed.) I agree that the laws about homosexuality are weird, but they are also democratic: it's broadly in line with what the population wants as far as I can tell.

That's not what democratic means. If the people did not vote on them, it's not democratic, even if it appears as though they would hypothetically vote for it.
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