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I'm extremely not excited about how insanely rammed the public transportation is going to be for the next three months Already here in Hamburg the busses are n

I'm extremely not excited about how insanely rammed the public transportation is going to be for the next three months Already here in Hamburg the busses are not at all empty!

sascha_sl 4y ago
And I can't wait for the usual politicians from FDP and Union to draw the conclusion that free or cheaper public transport will forever be unfeasible, not that we need to invest more into the rail network.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Here in Hamburg it's really the busses that get overwhelmed. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn are rarely overly full compared to the busses.
  - sascha_sl 4y ago
    I'm from the south of Hamburg. The lines served by Metronom are probably the most tightly scheduled around. They don't even have time to stop at the terminus most of the time, so they carry delays forward throughout the entire day. The reason no S-Bahn goes far south is also that Dostos can still carry more people despite the slow acceleration/breaking.
  - rawbot 4y ago
    And public transport here is so expensive. For a return trip, it is cheaper, and faster, to take a car (both petrol and parking costs). The only thing that taking public transport saves you is the hassle of traffic (so you can do something else on your ride), and parking, which can be real bad in some areas of the city. The S-Bahn and U-bahn are usually only crowded on peak hours (2 or 3 hour intervals in the morning and evening).
dx034 4y ago
If there's such an uptick in demand it would show that price was what kept people from using public transport. In that case I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure to make travel more affordable. So far, many claimed that a lack of availability was the reason public transport wasn't used more. I guess the next three months are a good way to validate that.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  I don't think that would show that. It would show that some people don't want to make the investment for a monthly ticket if they aren't sure that they will use it. Now everyone will use the public transport at all times, without thinking about it. Even if the price for a monthly ticket was half its current price it still wouldn't be a no brainer to get one
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  A few years ago they already did some smaller-scale experiments in a few cities regarding fares and service offerings and the conclusion was clearly that better service was more effective in attracting additional passengers. Also according to https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck-gratis-oepnv/was-bringt-kostenloser-oeffentlicher-transport https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck-gratis-oepnv/was-bring..., while some smaller cities who have experimented with free public transport have seen substantial increases in passenger numbers (but still often only a limited number of conversions from car drivers), the biggest city that tried this so far (Tallinn) only saw an increase in passenger numbers of 8 %. In the recent case of Luxembourg, unfortunately the effects of Covid make it rather difficult to draw any valid conclusions. While I am not opposed to some moderate fare reductions, it should be kept in mind that in Germany, the average farebox recovery ration for local and regional public transport before Covid was around 75 %. Making public transport completely free would therefore mean quadrupling operating subsidies – and if through some miracle politics was really committed to spend that much more and for the long term, I'd much rather see the majority of that amount being spend on better services.

I'm extremely not excited about how insanely rammed the public transportation is going to be for the next three months Already here in Hamburg the busses are not at all empty!

sascha_sl 4y ago

And I can't wait for the usual politicians from FDP and Union to draw the conclusion that free or cheaper public transport will forever be unfeasible, not that we need to invest more into the rail network.

bowsamic 4y ago
Here in Hamburg it's really the busses that get overwhelmed. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn are rarely overly full compared to the busses.
- sascha_sl 4y ago
  I'm from the south of Hamburg. The lines served by Metronom are probably the most tightly scheduled around. They don't even have time to stop at the terminus most of the time, so they carry delays forward throughout the entire day. The reason no S-Bahn goes far south is also that Dostos can still carry more people despite the slow acceleration/breaking.
- rawbot 4y ago
  And public transport here is so expensive. For a return trip, it is cheaper, and faster, to take a car (both petrol and parking costs). The only thing that taking public transport saves you is the hassle of traffic (so you can do something else on your ride), and parking, which can be real bad in some areas of the city. The S-Bahn and U-bahn are usually only crowded on peak hours (2 or 3 hour intervals in the morning and evening).

dx034 4y ago

If there's such an uptick in demand it would show that price was what kept people from using public transport. In that case I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure to make travel more affordable. So far, many claimed that a lack of availability was the reason public transport wasn't used more. I guess the next three months are a good way to validate that.

bowsamic 4y ago
I don't think that would show that. It would show that some people don't want to make the investment for a monthly ticket if they aren't sure that they will use it. Now everyone will use the public transport at all times, without thinking about it. Even if the price for a monthly ticket was half its current price it still wouldn't be a no brainer to get one
iggldiggl 4y ago
A few years ago they already did some smaller-scale experiments in a few cities regarding fares and service offerings and the conclusion was clearly that better service was more effective in attracting additional passengers. Also according to https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck-gratis-oepnv/was-bringt-kostenloser-oeffentlicher-transport https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck-gratis-oepnv/was-bring..., while some smaller cities who have experimented with free public transport have seen substantial increases in passenger numbers (but still often only a limited number of conversions from car drivers), the biggest city that tried this so far (Tallinn) only saw an increase in passenger numbers of 8 %. In the recent case of Luxembourg, unfortunately the effects of Covid make it rather difficult to draw any valid conclusions. While I am not opposed to some moderate fare reductions, it should be kept in mind that in Germany, the average farebox recovery ration for local and regional public transport before Covid was around 75 %. Making public transport completely free would therefore mean quadrupling operating subsidies – and if through some miracle politics was really committed to spend that much more and for the long term, I'd much rather see the majority of that amount being spend on better services.