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Very important caveat for all of you who are thinking, “woo hoo, no need to buy that EuRail pass! Or to buy an expensive ICE ticket!” These tickets are good fo

Very important caveat for all of you who are thinking, “woo hoo, no need to buy that EuRail pass! Or to buy an expensive ICE ticket!” These tickets are good for all “Nah- und Regionalverkehr,” explicitly excluding ICE, IC, EC (international) and long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich) If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way. This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, not the kind of people who blithely paid 60 EUR to take the ICE. There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but remember, you’re not the target market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with fuel prices…)

butterlesstoast 4y ago
For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment.
- mbg721 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, for people who live in small towns/villages in Germany, how much driving is expected on a typical day? Most Americans commute about half an hour, twice a day, right?
  - soco 4y ago
    Not German, I live in a Swiss village and drive zero km a day. But I spend almost an hour/leg in public transport traveling door-to-door to the office when I go there (well, before covid much more often). I can also work in the train most of the time - 45 minutes of said hour - so that it counts as work time too. So, no reason to drive at all. I only take the car at weekends for doing shopping or doing some visits, even then not always.
    - mbg721 4y ago
      The reason I ask is that there's a stereotype that German-speaking Europeans especially all go everywhere with hyper-efficient trains that come every three minutes and are only a little bit less on-time than the ones in Japan, and that can't actually be true out in the countryside.
      - rsynnott 4y ago
        I mean, I think that most people understand that rural villages rarely have metro service; I don't think anyone was claiming that.
      - soco 4y ago
        And yet, it is true. Not everywhere trains obviously, but you'll have bus links to every dump - at least 5-6 a day and the closer you get to civilization the more often (up to every half an hour or whenever you have the train to the nearby station). They do come within a few minutes of schedule, no legend here - sometimes they even come a bit earlier and sometimes also wait hehe. Edit: my village has trains to the main city every half an hour and I can walk 10 minutes to the station or take a bus if the weather is nasty.
        mbg721 4y ago
        I'm from a medium-sized city on the US midwest, so my experience is that bus drivers sometimes decide "Fuck it, I'm not coming today," on a route where the schedule says they should be there every 30 minutes. I think most Americans outside of large cities have a similar experience. I was really struck going on vacation to San Francisco how together the bus schedule was, compared to how "meh" laid-back the city institutions I interacted with were about everything else.
        jyounker 4y ago
        > I was really struck going on vacation to San Francisco how together the bus schedule was, Wow. Things must have improved incredibly in the last ten years.
  - archi42 4y ago
    Anecdata: A lot of people I know take about 20m (suburb to a major city) or about 30m (rural countryside), one way. My dad drives ~1h because in the country side he doesn't find a job in his area of expertise (now that we kids have left, they think about selling the house and moving to a better location). Better data: https://de.statista.com/infografik/13644/laenge-von-arbeitswegen/ https://de.statista.com/infografik/13644/laenge-von-arbeitsw... Can't find how to change the language, even though it's an international page. The graph shows minutes per single way. The pie diagram seems to be a popular vote on "maximum acceptable time".
    - tyingq 4y ago
      The report seems to be sourced from here, which has more detail: https://www.stepstone.de/ueber-stepstone/press/mobilitaetsreport/ https://www.stepstone.de/ueber-stepstone/press/mobilitaetsre...
  - hibbelig 4y ago
    I live in a small city and work in a nearby larger city.° The distance is 45km and it takes me about 45mins to drive the car, door to door. Public transport is pretty good on this connection, but overall it takes me 75-90 mins, because I need to change twice and there are wait times. ° Well, I'm working from home now... I used to live in a different, larger, city, and worked on the opposite side of the same city. Distance 13km. Driving commute 30 mins (middle of the night) to 45 mins (rush hour) each way. Public transport 90 mins...
  - Tomte 4y ago
    If you're living in the surrounding area of a larger city where you're working, I'd say half an hour to an hour is normal/average. With traffic jams sometimes double that.
  - User23 4y ago
    I've lived in a village in Germany and I never drove. The village center and Straßenbahn stop were a five minute walk from my apartment. And that tiny little village had more independent butchers and bakers than most large American cities. It also had everything else you might need day to day. So the only real reason to take the train besides entertainment was commuting. Depending on where you worked that would be about 10-30 minutes one way by transit.
  - nani8ot 4y ago
    I live in a village 15km from the next big city (33th in terms of population). If I take the bus it'll take 40min because they take the longest route and stop at every little village with multiple stops each. The next town is 5km from my village and about the same from the city and the train takes 7-13min, depending on whether it's an RB or RE (they have more stops). Both train and bus arrive on a 30 min schedule from roughly 05:00 to 01:00. Edit: As a student I pay 90€ for a "semester ticket" once every 6 months.
- pavlov 4y ago
  Your math is off by 50%. A gallon is 3.785 litres, and the euro is roughly $1.05. So 2 euros per litre = one gallon costs $8.
  - butterlesstoast 4y ago
    Thank you for the correction. I should have done my math a bit better. I do appreciate this community for calling out incorrect data. One of the very few communities left that call errors out in a thought out way.
  - arghwhat 4y ago
    *US liquid gallon A US liquid gallon is defined as 3.785411784 liters, the US dry gallon is 4.40488377086 liters, while the imperial gallon is 4.54609 liters. And that's just the currently used definitions... If I ask Google for "1 gallon in liters", it assumes Imperial gallons which would account for a good chunk of the error.
    - oh_sigh 4y ago
      To be fair, even google gets this wrong sometimes - "1 gallon in gallons" = 1.2: https://www.google.com/search?q=1+gallon+in+gallons https://www.google.com/search?q=1+gallon+in+gallons
      - fabioborellini 4y ago
        This seems to be localised, for me it highlights 3,78 litres
  - kmonsen 4y ago
    It’s above $6/gallon here in the bar area even for the cheapest gas so the prices are not that different.
    - User23 4y ago
      This is partly because California law requires special gas that not all refineries produce.
- april_22 4y ago
  Yes it is extremely expensive. However I don't think most people who have a car will use it. The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you will probably have to change a couple of times. I think people will just prefer using their car instead of having to stand in crowded trains for hours.
  - gspr 4y ago
    > The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you will probably have to change a couple of times. That's not true at all. There's lots of direct service to notable destinations. It's rather if you want to go to un-notable destinations (which is of course something that people do a lot in their daily lives) that you can expect to have to transfer.
- Escapado 4y ago
  When I was still in school about a decade ago an exchange student from the US was flabbergasted at our gas prices when she found out that the signs at the gas station would display the prices in €/l and not €/gallon. Quick googling shows that €/$ was 1.45 around that time and gas prices were around 1.42€/l which would be a little over 2.06$/l or 7.79$/gallon. At the time the gas prices in the US was 2.79$/gallon.
Scarblac 4y ago
Our Dutch Scouts of age 15-17 also plan their own camps and do so on a shoestring budget, and it turns out that yes you can get from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic with all your camping gear using only like fifteen different German regional trains :-)
- april_22 4y ago
  Especially for traveling across Germany, this ticket isn't quite useful, however I feel like it is marketed as "free traveling across Germany for a month" which isn't really the case. Am wondering how everything will play out next couple of months.
  - rob74 4y ago
    Well, you can travel across Germany if you don't mind changing trains several times. And the "free traveling across Germany" means that one ticket is valid for all regional trains and all public transport in all Germany (as opposed to e.g. a ticket bought in Munich only being valid in the Munich region), which is quite a good offer anyway...
  - pflenker 4y ago
    It's not uncommon to travel through Germany using only the regional trains. There are several tickets tailored to this, like the "Quer durch's Land Ticket", which is valid for a full day. I, for one, used to travel a lot through Germany using only the Wochenendticket, which is the predecessor of the "Quer durch's Land" - Ticket and was only valid on Saturday or Sunday.
    - llampx 4y ago
      Its really too bad that they got rid of the Schönes Wochenende ticket.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    DB always had weekend or summer tickets that were heavily discounted and only allowed regional trains. Especially young adults and teenagers use those every year, they’re perfect if you’ve got more time than money.
germanier 4y ago
> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good A few days ago Deutsche Bahn has started to label some trains with an RE number (e.g. running Norddeich-Bremen or Stuttgart-Singen) with "9-Euro-ticket not valid".
- Aeolun 4y ago
  That seems to defeat the point. Any idea why they’d do that?
  - germanier 4y ago
    These are all[0] long-distance trains that due to an agreement with the local transit commissioning authority accept regional train tickets and therefore got assigned an RE train number (some even added some stops due to such an agreement). [0]: I know of one exception, though it looks like an honest mistake.
- rob74 4y ago
  [citation needed]... I'm not putting it above DB to do that, but that really sounds like more trouble than it's worth: endless hassle with passengers who think that the ticket is valid in all regional trains (which has been repeated endlessly in the media for the last month, and also on the page we are commenting on), need to adapt the route planner to exclude these trains (an option "only regional trains" is already available) etc. etc.
  - germanier 4y ago
    Just search for any Norddeich-Bremen connection in the affected three months on the DB route planner with "only local transport" ticked and you will see the label on every second train. Well, after clicking "Show more information" and carefully reading the grey on white text. Edit: I tried in English and the warning didn't show up... Hopefully this link works as an example: https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/traininfo.exe/en/45678/209023/175986/72767/80?ld=4394&protocol=https:&seqnr=7&ident=ar.01392594.1653053149&date=08.06.22&station_evaId=8007768&station_type=dep&currentReferrer=tp&rt=1&rtMode=DB-HYBRID&&time=15:37&currentJourneyClass=2& https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/traininfo.exe/en/45678/209...
johannes1234321 4y ago
Somewhat off topic, but still: > long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich) Zurich is too deep in Switzerland to be covered anyways. (Salzburg, Kufstein, Basel Bad Bf, etc. however are in Austria/Switzerland but part of German rail rates and included in 9€ tickets) And that DB bus doesn't exist anymore since the new electrified railway line to Lindau was opened two years ago, as Munucih-Zurich got way faster by train. (I guess Flixbus still offers it but Flix isn't part of 9€ either)
- ptspts 4y ago
  From Zürich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it way faster. By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 minutes late.
  - 2143 4y ago
    (I haven't yet had the good fortune of visiting Europe). I can see why you said the train takes 221 minutes. However, "225 minutes" for bus? I know y'all are known for punctuality, but are buses in Switzerland/Germany that precise?! Also, is it customary to tell such durations in minutes, as opposed to something like "4 hour 45 minutes" or "4 and 3-quarter hours"? Where I'm at, nothing runs on time unfortunately. Over here I sometimes feel arrival times of trains should just say "morning" instead of showing an actual time like 8:20 am.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - rootsandstones 4y ago
      In 2021 91.9 percent of the trains in Switzerland were on time (tolerance is 3 minutes) Source: https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zweitbestes-resultat-in-der-geschichte-der-sbb https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zweit...
      - 4y ago
jstummbillig 4y ago
> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way. Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow ones, comparatively. Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin options: - By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20 - Regional Trains (the ones you can use with 9-eur-ticket): 4h10, including 1-3 train changes depending on connection - All trains: 1h50 with no change Given that going by car will be considerably more expensive than a regional ticket (even the none-9-eur version) I would say that +1h might be a reasonable trade-off for a lot of people.
- kuschku 4y ago
  Actually, the Hamburg-Berlin IRE should be covered by this ticket as well, which requires no changes at all.
  - april_22 4y ago
    There is a RE from Hamburg to Berlin?
    - end0r 4y ago
      No, RE stands for 'Regional Express'. There is RE between Hamburg and Bargteheide for example, but Berlin is too far away. REs are rather for commuters from nearby towns.
    - kuschku 4y ago
      There used to be an IRE, which stands for inter-regio-express. But apparently it was discontinued during covid.
    - dathinab 4y ago
      No you have to switch trains at least once. Also the travel takes ~4h15m (RE->RE) instead of ~1h50m (ICE). If your traveling at a time where the RE is not over crowded and you can spend the time well it's okay. If not, especially if the train is overcrowded in parts of the travel and it's really hot it's shit.
macleginn 4y ago
One does not need a car to enjoy this. I live in a suburb of a big city and have to cross two zones to get to work. However, the yearly pass does not make sense for me because I cycle to the office half of the time and work from home on some days, so I'm quite happy that for three months my monthly commute will cost the same as a single round-trip ticket.
metacritic12 4y ago
Thank you for the disclaimer of the speed. Useful for travelers to note the time difference! Yet there is no need to guilt people into it being "German only". The ticket is priced on the slow trains so it already selects for people who care more about money than time. Anyone who chooses a 9 Euro, 4-hour train over a dozens of Euro 1.5 hour train is already not the "upper class".
- MandieD 4y ago
  Hmmm, didn’t realize it was coming off as “German only” - I wanted people to realize that this was designed for the benefit of less-wealthy residents of Germany, not the convenience of tourists, but that there’s nothing stopping anyone from using it. Since it’s not obvious, I’m not German, merely a permanent resident (US citizen).
DeathArrow 4y ago
>This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous for my Eastern European country. I know we should support the war and sanctions and all those nice things, but some poor people depend on transportation for their living. If it costs too much, they might not be able to work. Already surges in food prices and utilities prices made life very hard for the most unfortunate of my countrymen.
- snovv_crash 4y ago
  Germany is a rich country with poor people.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    I'd argue that poor people in poor countries are even poorer, although being poor is not a nice contest to have.
  - freeflight 4y ago
    Easy fix, just don't count the poor people [0] [0] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbericht-der-bundesregierung-wer-arm-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbe...
    - ruune 4y ago
      Article is about the government, consisting of CDU and SPD at the time (2017), removing important parts of their report on poverty. Affected were passages about the growing low-wage sector, wage inequality and inequality of wealth overall, as well as reports on how poverty affects political influence and the growth of the economy. It appears as if the government had a disregard about the social and democratic implecations of poverty. The previous government of CDU and FDP did something similar in 2012 and was criticized for it by the SPD
  - llampx 4y ago
    Just look at the median wealth of the population. Many people don't own a home, and that kills the wealth statistics. A few BMW heirs, Aldi brothers and Lidl owner push up the average vastly.
tinus_hn 4y ago
Germany has since forever had the Schönes Wochenende ticket which is a similar deal that can be used during the weekend. No need to be a resident or whatever. This is just a similar ticket that can be used during the summer holidays. It’s very nice because as long as you don’t mind it taking a lot of time you can take the train on holidays for very little money.
generationP 4y ago
It's also for the benefit of hikers, sightseers and whoever else needs places that aren't served by the IC/EC/ICE network. I have a BahnCard 50 (a subscription that halves the price of each trip) and yet it would have saved me over 100€ last summer. Note that some of the local bus associations aren't particularly cheap; it's not just the trains. My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon...
- hutzlibu 4y ago
  "My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon..." My train ticket inspector vents to everyone how they do not. (they get the heat) I think it will work out, but will be very crowded at times. Or rather, even more crowded. They are already bad at scaling up or down, at a sunny sunday for example. Also this is, because they have allmost nothing to scale up. This is a long term investment.
roystonvassey 4y ago
Given how notoriously unreliable even the IC and ICEs have gotten over the last few years ( i rarely travel but the three times I tried, the train was either substantially delayed or worse, canceled) , this is really a good deal.
User23 4y ago
This is still a screaming deal. It's been a while, but this is like getting multiple Monatskarten for for single Tageskarte prices.
unjustified 4y ago
> This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel It's also for people normally using public transport. There's a city in northern Germany where a ticket for one day public transportation costs nearly 9€.
misja111 4y ago
> There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but remember, you’re not the target market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with fuel prices…) I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Do you mean that non Germans should refrain from buying these tickets?
- MandieD 4y ago
  I’m trying to say that although anyone is free to buy them, they’re not designed for city-to-city tourist convenience or even as a good substitute for the IC/ICE product for long-distance, car-comparable-speed travel. They’re for making short, local trips more affordable in a country that has a lot of people struggling with fuel and inflation, and for encouraging drivers to consider transit instead more often, and long-distance trips to the sea shore and mountains are a nice side benefit that is a pleasant thing to discuss when we all feel like there’s a shortage of pleasant things to discuss. That they’ll make local transit uncomplicated for visitors (no trying to work out where to buy a given city’s tickets, or exactly which fare you need for a particular subway ride!) is also a nice incidental, and I, a taxpayer here, will be happy to see tourists using them, but that’s not why the Bundestag is spending 2.5 billion EUR on this.
  - magicroot75 4y ago
    The reasons why a national legislature enact a law that brings forth a program like this are complex and multifaceted. It's completely possible that slow-tourism generated by these tickets will greatly benefit small towns who otherwise might not garner the interest of foreign capital.
    - omnimus 4y ago
      Excactly these are very common in surrounding countries. These trains have to run anyways because of legislation and laws allowing people movement with public transport. There arent that many travelers in summer so By making it cheaper you promote tourism and people appretiate it. The “you shouldnt nuy it its not for you” people just have no idea and probably dont even use trains or live in the area.
steven_pack 4y ago
Did this 20 years ago, it was called Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte "Good weekend" ticket. You could get all over the country, but real slow. I met loads of people and got invited to people's homes, because they didn't typically see an Aussie backpacker on a local train. Great times, go do it.
- not2b 4y ago
  Yes, did that also. I live in California, but at the time my company had a group in Aachen that I worked with and I visited about four times a year. I often played tourist on the weekend and took trains all over the Rhineland. I used the cheap weekend ticket several times. But I usually didn't go that far, given my time constraints.
  - Bromeo 4y ago
    Coming from Aachen and now living in California, I hope you had a good time! I think Aachen already has a quite "cute city" vibe to it, and there's many nice places to reach within a few hours, like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn, and even parts of the Netherlands and Belgium!
- nick_meister 4y ago
  Yes! I went from Stuttgart to Berlin using the Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte like 20 year ago, it took some time but since we were a group of friends, it was fun actually :) Ahh.. good memories
dathinab 4y ago
> struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, Yes, exactly. The main benefits are in context of in and around city travel. Like e.g. a regular in-city ticket (area A,B not C) in Berlin cost 86€/month (but there are many ways to get it cheaper). Now for this 3 month it's 9€ per month and covers all areas and you can even use it to get to day trip locations close to Berlin (like the "Spreewalt"). So it's really a grate deal for locals. But if you want to travel longer distances IC/ICE are still the choice to go (if you can afford it), like Berlin->Kiel with IC/ICE is ~3.5h switching trains 1 time but with only using RB/RE it's >6h with switching 5 times.
itronitron 4y ago
I am thankful that fuel prices are high because it makes the cost of my regular car maintenance seem remarkably inexpensive.
mrzool 4y ago
I live here, I’m not struggling with fuel prices since I don’t own a car, but I’m sure happy to be able to get a Monatskarte for 9€ instead of the usual 89€ (I live in Berlin).
TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
> struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel I converted this for Americans like me: 2 EUR/liter is about $8.02/gallon A 17-gallon tank costs $136.74 to fill. (Using exchange rate of 1.06 and 3.785 liters per gallon)

butterlesstoast 4y ago

For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment.

mbg721 4y ago
Out of curiosity, for people who live in small towns/villages in Germany, how much driving is expected on a typical day? Most Americans commute about half an hour, twice a day, right?
- soco 4y ago
  Not German, I live in a Swiss village and drive zero km a day. But I spend almost an hour/leg in public transport traveling door-to-door to the office when I go there (well, before covid much more often). I can also work in the train most of the time - 45 minutes of said hour - so that it counts as work time too. So, no reason to drive at all. I only take the car at weekends for doing shopping or doing some visits, even then not always.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    The reason I ask is that there's a stereotype that German-speaking Europeans especially all go everywhere with hyper-efficient trains that come every three minutes and are only a little bit less on-time than the ones in Japan, and that can't actually be true out in the countryside.
    - rsynnott 4y ago
      I mean, I think that most people understand that rural villages rarely have metro service; I don't think anyone was claiming that.
    - soco 4y ago
      And yet, it is true. Not everywhere trains obviously, but you'll have bus links to every dump - at least 5-6 a day and the closer you get to civilization the more often (up to every half an hour or whenever you have the train to the nearby station). They do come within a few minutes of schedule, no legend here - sometimes they even come a bit earlier and sometimes also wait hehe. Edit: my village has trains to the main city every half an hour and I can walk 10 minutes to the station or take a bus if the weather is nasty.
      - mbg721 4y ago
        I'm from a medium-sized city on the US midwest, so my experience is that bus drivers sometimes decide "Fuck it, I'm not coming today," on a route where the schedule says they should be there every 30 minutes. I think most Americans outside of large cities have a similar experience. I was really struck going on vacation to San Francisco how together the bus schedule was, compared to how "meh" laid-back the city institutions I interacted with were about everything else.
        jyounker 4y ago
        > I was really struck going on vacation to San Francisco how together the bus schedule was, Wow. Things must have improved incredibly in the last ten years.
- archi42 4y ago
  Anecdata: A lot of people I know take about 20m (suburb to a major city) or about 30m (rural countryside), one way. My dad drives ~1h because in the country side he doesn't find a job in his area of expertise (now that we kids have left, they think about selling the house and moving to a better location). Better data: https://de.statista.com/infografik/13644/laenge-von-arbeitswegen/ https://de.statista.com/infografik/13644/laenge-von-arbeitsw... Can't find how to change the language, even though it's an international page. The graph shows minutes per single way. The pie diagram seems to be a popular vote on "maximum acceptable time".
  - tyingq 4y ago
    The report seems to be sourced from here, which has more detail: https://www.stepstone.de/ueber-stepstone/press/mobilitaetsreport/ https://www.stepstone.de/ueber-stepstone/press/mobilitaetsre...
- hibbelig 4y ago
  I live in a small city and work in a nearby larger city.° The distance is 45km and it takes me about 45mins to drive the car, door to door. Public transport is pretty good on this connection, but overall it takes me 75-90 mins, because I need to change twice and there are wait times. ° Well, I'm working from home now... I used to live in a different, larger, city, and worked on the opposite side of the same city. Distance 13km. Driving commute 30 mins (middle of the night) to 45 mins (rush hour) each way. Public transport 90 mins...
- Tomte 4y ago
  If you're living in the surrounding area of a larger city where you're working, I'd say half an hour to an hour is normal/average. With traffic jams sometimes double that.
- User23 4y ago
  I've lived in a village in Germany and I never drove. The village center and Straßenbahn stop were a five minute walk from my apartment. And that tiny little village had more independent butchers and bakers than most large American cities. It also had everything else you might need day to day. So the only real reason to take the train besides entertainment was commuting. Depending on where you worked that would be about 10-30 minutes one way by transit.
- nani8ot 4y ago
  I live in a village 15km from the next big city (33th in terms of population). If I take the bus it'll take 40min because they take the longest route and stop at every little village with multiple stops each. The next town is 5km from my village and about the same from the city and the train takes 7-13min, depending on whether it's an RB or RE (they have more stops). Both train and bus arrive on a 30 min schedule from roughly 05:00 to 01:00. Edit: As a student I pay 90€ for a "semester ticket" once every 6 months.
pavlov 4y ago
Your math is off by 50%. A gallon is 3.785 litres, and the euro is roughly $1.05. So 2 euros per litre = one gallon costs $8.
- butterlesstoast 4y ago
  Thank you for the correction. I should have done my math a bit better. I do appreciate this community for calling out incorrect data. One of the very few communities left that call errors out in a thought out way.
- arghwhat 4y ago
  *US liquid gallon A US liquid gallon is defined as 3.785411784 liters, the US dry gallon is 4.40488377086 liters, while the imperial gallon is 4.54609 liters. And that's just the currently used definitions... If I ask Google for "1 gallon in liters", it assumes Imperial gallons which would account for a good chunk of the error.
  - oh_sigh 4y ago
    To be fair, even google gets this wrong sometimes - "1 gallon in gallons" = 1.2: https://www.google.com/search?q=1+gallon+in+gallons https://www.google.com/search?q=1+gallon+in+gallons
    - fabioborellini 4y ago
      This seems to be localised, for me it highlights 3,78 litres
- kmonsen 4y ago
  It’s above $6/gallon here in the bar area even for the cheapest gas so the prices are not that different.
  - User23 4y ago
    This is partly because California law requires special gas that not all refineries produce.
april_22 4y ago
Yes it is extremely expensive. However I don't think most people who have a car will use it. The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you will probably have to change a couple of times. I think people will just prefer using their car instead of having to stand in crowded trains for hours.
- gspr 4y ago
  > The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you will probably have to change a couple of times. That's not true at all. There's lots of direct service to notable destinations. It's rather if you want to go to un-notable destinations (which is of course something that people do a lot in their daily lives) that you can expect to have to transfer.
Escapado 4y ago
When I was still in school about a decade ago an exchange student from the US was flabbergasted at our gas prices when she found out that the signs at the gas station would display the prices in €/l and not €/gallon. Quick googling shows that €/$ was 1.45 around that time and gas prices were around 1.42€/l which would be a little over 2.06$/l or 7.79$/gallon. At the time the gas prices in the US was 2.79$/gallon.

Scarblac 4y ago

Our Dutch Scouts of age 15-17 also plan their own camps and do so on a shoestring budget, and it turns out that yes you can get from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic with all your camping gear using only like fifteen different German regional trains :-)

april_22 4y ago
Especially for traveling across Germany, this ticket isn't quite useful, however I feel like it is marketed as "free traveling across Germany for a month" which isn't really the case. Am wondering how everything will play out next couple of months.
- rob74 4y ago
  Well, you can travel across Germany if you don't mind changing trains several times. And the "free traveling across Germany" means that one ticket is valid for all regional trains and all public transport in all Germany (as opposed to e.g. a ticket bought in Munich only being valid in the Munich region), which is quite a good offer anyway...
- pflenker 4y ago
  It's not uncommon to travel through Germany using only the regional trains. There are several tickets tailored to this, like the "Quer durch's Land Ticket", which is valid for a full day. I, for one, used to travel a lot through Germany using only the Wochenendticket, which is the predecessor of the "Quer durch's Land" - Ticket and was only valid on Saturday or Sunday.
  - llampx 4y ago
    Its really too bad that they got rid of the Schönes Wochenende ticket.
- kuschku 4y ago
  DB always had weekend or summer tickets that were heavily discounted and only allowed regional trains. Especially young adults and teenagers use those every year, they’re perfect if you’ve got more time than money.

germanier 4y ago

> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good A few days ago Deutsche Bahn has started to label some trains with an RE number (e.g. running Norddeich-Bremen or Stuttgart-Singen) with "9-Euro-ticket not valid".

Aeolun 4y ago
That seems to defeat the point. Any idea why they’d do that?
- germanier 4y ago
  These are all[0] long-distance trains that due to an agreement with the local transit commissioning authority accept regional train tickets and therefore got assigned an RE train number (some even added some stops due to such an agreement). [0]: I know of one exception, though it looks like an honest mistake.
rob74 4y ago
[citation needed]... I'm not putting it above DB to do that, but that really sounds like more trouble than it's worth: endless hassle with passengers who think that the ticket is valid in all regional trains (which has been repeated endlessly in the media for the last month, and also on the page we are commenting on), need to adapt the route planner to exclude these trains (an option "only regional trains" is already available) etc. etc.
- germanier 4y ago
  Just search for any Norddeich-Bremen connection in the affected three months on the DB route planner with "only local transport" ticked and you will see the label on every second train. Well, after clicking "Show more information" and carefully reading the grey on white text. Edit: I tried in English and the warning didn't show up... Hopefully this link works as an example: https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/traininfo.exe/en/45678/209023/175986/72767/80?ld=4394&protocol=https:&seqnr=7&ident=ar.01392594.1653053149&date=08.06.22&station_evaId=8007768&station_type=dep&currentReferrer=tp&rt=1&rtMode=DB-HYBRID&&time=15:37&currentJourneyClass=2& https://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/traininfo.exe/en/45678/209...

johannes1234321 4y ago

Somewhat off topic, but still: > long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich) Zurich is too deep in Switzerland to be covered anyways. (Salzburg, Kufstein, Basel Bad Bf, etc. however are in Austria/Switzerland but part of German rail rates and included in 9€ tickets) And that DB bus doesn't exist anymore since the new electrified railway line to Lindau was opened two years ago, as Munucih-Zurich got way faster by train. (I guess Flixbus still offers it but Flix isn't part of 9€ either)

ptspts 4y ago
From Zürich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it way faster. By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 minutes late.
- 2143 4y ago
  (I haven't yet had the good fortune of visiting Europe). I can see why you said the train takes 221 minutes. However, "225 minutes" for bus? I know y'all are known for punctuality, but are buses in Switzerland/Germany that precise?! Also, is it customary to tell such durations in minutes, as opposed to something like "4 hour 45 minutes" or "4 and 3-quarter hours"? Where I'm at, nothing runs on time unfortunately. Over here I sometimes feel arrival times of trains should just say "morning" instead of showing an actual time like 8:20 am.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rootsandstones 4y ago
    In 2021 91.9 percent of the trains in Switzerland were on time (tolerance is 3 minutes) Source: https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zweitbestes-resultat-in-der-geschichte-der-sbb https://news.sbb.ch/artikel/109510/puenktlichkeit-2021-zweit...
    - 4y ago

jstummbillig 4y ago

> If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way. Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow ones, comparatively. Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin options: - By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20 - Regional Trains (the ones you can use with 9-eur-ticket): 4h10, including 1-3 train changes depending on connection - All trains: 1h50 with no change Given that going by car will be considerably more expensive than a regional ticket (even the none-9-eur version) I would say that +1h might be a reasonable trade-off for a lot of people.

kuschku 4y ago
Actually, the Hamburg-Berlin IRE should be covered by this ticket as well, which requires no changes at all.
- april_22 4y ago
  There is a RE from Hamburg to Berlin?
  - end0r 4y ago
    No, RE stands for 'Regional Express'. There is RE between Hamburg and Bargteheide for example, but Berlin is too far away. REs are rather for commuters from nearby towns.
  - kuschku 4y ago
    There used to be an IRE, which stands for inter-regio-express. But apparently it was discontinued during covid.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    No you have to switch trains at least once. Also the travel takes ~4h15m (RE->RE) instead of ~1h50m (ICE). If your traveling at a time where the RE is not over crowded and you can spend the time well it's okay. If not, especially if the train is overcrowded in parts of the travel and it's really hot it's shit.

macleginn 4y ago

One does not need a car to enjoy this. I live in a suburb of a big city and have to cross two zones to get to work. However, the yearly pass does not make sense for me because I cycle to the office half of the time and work from home on some days, so I'm quite happy that for three months my monthly commute will cost the same as a single round-trip ticket.

metacritic12 4y ago

Thank you for the disclaimer of the speed. Useful for travelers to note the time difference! Yet there is no need to guilt people into it being "German only". The ticket is priced on the slow trains so it already selects for people who care more about money than time. Anyone who chooses a 9 Euro, 4-hour train over a dozens of Euro 1.5 hour train is already not the "upper class".

MandieD 4y ago
Hmmm, didn’t realize it was coming off as “German only” - I wanted people to realize that this was designed for the benefit of less-wealthy residents of Germany, not the convenience of tourists, but that there’s nothing stopping anyone from using it. Since it’s not obvious, I’m not German, merely a permanent resident (US citizen).

DeathArrow 4y ago

>This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous for my Eastern European country. I know we should support the war and sanctions and all those nice things, but some poor people depend on transportation for their living. If it costs too much, they might not be able to work. Already surges in food prices and utilities prices made life very hard for the most unfortunate of my countrymen.

snovv_crash 4y ago
Germany is a rich country with poor people.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  I'd argue that poor people in poor countries are even poorer, although being poor is not a nice contest to have.
- freeflight 4y ago
  Easy fix, just don't count the poor people [0] [0] https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbericht-der-bundesregierung-wer-arm-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de/der-geschoente-armutsbe...
  - ruune 4y ago
    Article is about the government, consisting of CDU and SPD at the time (2017), removing important parts of their report on poverty. Affected were passages about the growing low-wage sector, wage inequality and inequality of wealth overall, as well as reports on how poverty affects political influence and the growth of the economy. It appears as if the government had a disregard about the social and democratic implecations of poverty. The previous government of CDU and FDP did something similar in 2012 and was criticized for it by the SPD
- llampx 4y ago
  Just look at the median wealth of the population. Many people don't own a home, and that kills the wealth statistics. A few BMW heirs, Aldi brothers and Lidl owner push up the average vastly.

tinus_hn 4y ago

Germany has since forever had the Schönes Wochenende ticket which is a similar deal that can be used during the weekend. No need to be a resident or whatever. This is just a similar ticket that can be used during the summer holidays. It’s very nice because as long as you don’t mind it taking a lot of time you can take the train on holidays for very little money.

generationP 4y ago

It's also for the benefit of hikers, sightseers and whoever else needs places that aren't served by the IC/EC/ICE network. I have a BahnCard 50 (a subscription that halves the price of each trip) and yet it would have saved me over 100€ last summer. Note that some of the local bus associations aren't particularly cheap; it's not just the trains. My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon...

hutzlibu 4y ago
"My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon..." My train ticket inspector vents to everyone how they do not. (they get the heat) I think it will work out, but will be very crowded at times. Or rather, even more crowded. They are already bad at scaling up or down, at a sunny sunday for example. Also this is, because they have allmost nothing to scale up. This is a long term investment.

roystonvassey 4y ago

Given how notoriously unreliable even the IC and ICEs have gotten over the last few years ( i rarely travel but the three times I tried, the train was either substantially delayed or worse, canceled) , this is really a good deal.

User23 4y ago

This is still a screaming deal. It's been a while, but this is like getting multiple Monatskarten for for single Tageskarte prices.

unjustified 4y ago

> This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel It's also for people normally using public transport. There's a city in northern Germany where a ticket for one day public transportation costs nearly 9€.

misja111 4y ago

> There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but remember, you’re not the target market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with fuel prices…) I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Do you mean that non Germans should refrain from buying these tickets?

MandieD 4y ago
I’m trying to say that although anyone is free to buy them, they’re not designed for city-to-city tourist convenience or even as a good substitute for the IC/ICE product for long-distance, car-comparable-speed travel. They’re for making short, local trips more affordable in a country that has a lot of people struggling with fuel and inflation, and for encouraging drivers to consider transit instead more often, and long-distance trips to the sea shore and mountains are a nice side benefit that is a pleasant thing to discuss when we all feel like there’s a shortage of pleasant things to discuss. That they’ll make local transit uncomplicated for visitors (no trying to work out where to buy a given city’s tickets, or exactly which fare you need for a particular subway ride!) is also a nice incidental, and I, a taxpayer here, will be happy to see tourists using them, but that’s not why the Bundestag is spending 2.5 billion EUR on this.
- magicroot75 4y ago
  The reasons why a national legislature enact a law that brings forth a program like this are complex and multifaceted. It's completely possible that slow-tourism generated by these tickets will greatly benefit small towns who otherwise might not garner the interest of foreign capital.
  - omnimus 4y ago
    Excactly these are very common in surrounding countries. These trains have to run anyways because of legislation and laws allowing people movement with public transport. There arent that many travelers in summer so By making it cheaper you promote tourism and people appretiate it. The “you shouldnt nuy it its not for you” people just have no idea and probably dont even use trains or live in the area.

steven_pack 4y ago

Did this 20 years ago, it was called Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte "Good weekend" ticket. You could get all over the country, but real slow. I met loads of people and got invited to people's homes, because they didn't typically see an Aussie backpacker on a local train. Great times, go do it.

not2b 4y ago
Yes, did that also. I live in California, but at the time my company had a group in Aachen that I worked with and I visited about four times a year. I often played tourist on the weekend and took trains all over the Rhineland. I used the cheap weekend ticket several times. But I usually didn't go that far, given my time constraints.
- Bromeo 4y ago
  Coming from Aachen and now living in California, I hope you had a good time! I think Aachen already has a quite "cute city" vibe to it, and there's many nice places to reach within a few hours, like Cologne, Düsseldorf, Bonn, and even parts of the Netherlands and Belgium!
nick_meister 4y ago
Yes! I went from Stuttgart to Berlin using the Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte like 20 year ago, it took some time but since we were a group of friends, it was fun actually :) Ahh.. good memories

dathinab 4y ago

> struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, Yes, exactly. The main benefits are in context of in and around city travel. Like e.g. a regular in-city ticket (area A,B not C) in Berlin cost 86€/month (but there are many ways to get it cheaper). Now for this 3 month it's 9€ per month and covers all areas and you can even use it to get to day trip locations close to Berlin (like the "Spreewalt"). So it's really a grate deal for locals. But if you want to travel longer distances IC/ICE are still the choice to go (if you can afford it), like Berlin->Kiel with IC/ICE is ~3.5h switching trains 1 time but with only using RB/RE it's >6h with switching 5 times.

itronitron 4y ago

I am thankful that fuel prices are high because it makes the cost of my regular car maintenance seem remarkably inexpensive.

mrzool 4y ago

I live here, I’m not struggling with fuel prices since I don’t own a car, but I’m sure happy to be able to get a Monatskarte for 9€ instead of the usual 89€ (I live in Berlin).

TedDoesntTalk 4y ago

> struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel I converted this for Americans like me: 2 EUR/liter is about $8.02/gallon A 17-gallon tank costs $136.74 to fill. (Using exchange rate of 1.06 and 3.785 liters per gallon)