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For anyone wondering why 9€? Not 10€ or 15€ or ... - its consistent with 101 consumer psychology. First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. Free would

For anyone wondering why 9€? Not 10€ or 15€ or ... - its consistent with 101 consumer psychology. First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. Free would suggest for some "not worth it". Not you, most likely, but this is why some free offers are not taken (seriously). If you want to see what free does, look for the Luxemburg experient: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/tickets/free-transport/ https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/tickets/free-transport/ Second: Higher price point would make a difference for less subsidy payments for the state, but the psychology is "not even 10 bucks". I know that some will argue that 10 Euros will be hard for low income/poor/out of the system people - but again, this is seen as an experiment and a simple message. The data from the usage will help to understand how one can/might change public transportation on a grand scale. Third: Its during the summer holidays. People with children in school have to book vacation during that time and so the traffic volume in every year before was less than usual on average. In reverse, a lot of people are on the autobahn and the high speed trains on the first and last days of each school holiday, which are different in each federal state.

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago
Sweden does something similar, they offer unlimited regional rail passes for 1-2 month period during the summer - theirs are quite a bit more expensive than this though. I think closer to 100-150 euro for 2 months if I remember correctly.
- felurx 4y ago
  I think most federal states in Germany have regional tickets for students for the summer vacations. It's probably going to vary a good bit, but here in BW it's 25~30€ for the ~1.5 months.
rad_gruchalski 4y ago
> First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. „The state“ doesn’t have its „own money“. It is subsided by the taxpayer.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  > It is subsided by the taxpayer. That used to be completely true, but seeing the US government consistently spending 150% of its revenue every year make me doubt that. Money printer and price go brr At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new drone missiles.
  - freeflight 4y ago
    > At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new drone missiles. Germany is actually getting both, train tickets and armed drones [0] [0] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-germany-buys-140-israeli-made-armed-drones/ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-germany-buys-140-...
  - 0x008 4y ago
    Germany increased their military spending by 100 billion this year which is tripling it compared to last year. Still a lot less than US but German economy is also a lot smaller.
- bromuro 4y ago
  And where does the taxpayer money come from? :) The state (or in this case the european central bank) owns and distribuites the money, then the tax payers give it back.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    ECB does not issue funds to individual countries. It does so only to stabilise the economy which is moving funds from one place to another. Eventually, by creating debt. But on point. ECB manufactures banknotes. As in, it prints them and hands over to individual countries. ECB is owned by central banks of all 27 countries. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me/html/who-owns-the-ecb.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me... Taxpayers money comes from the work they execute. For example, when I do a contract for someone, I get paid for the service I did. If I don’t do the work, I don’t get paid and “the state” doesn’t give me anything. Furthermore, if I do a lot of work in a year and the next year I have a misfortune of falling ill and can’t sustain working, I’m screwed because “the state” wants its share in case of future profits, and just takes it from my account leaving me with a hole. “The state” doesn’t care. I remember such a conversation I had once with a representative of “the state”: “you don’t have our money?”, to which my immediate thought was “yeah, because we were sitting nights together trying delivering those projects”.
krrrh 4y ago
One interesting thing about the Berlin metro system (which is covered by this pass) is that it is one of the few metro transit systems that is nearly or fully supported through ticket fees. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, but it was something people talked about when I lived there.
- derhuerst 4y ago
  https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe#Finanzen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe#Fina... the 2020 results are probably not very represenative, but you can find them on page 19: https://unternehmen.bvg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BVG-Geschaeftsbericht-2020-neu.pdf https://unternehmen.bvg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BVG-Ge...

SOLAR_FIELDS 4y ago

Sweden does something similar, they offer unlimited regional rail passes for 1-2 month period during the summer - theirs are quite a bit more expensive than this though. I think closer to 100-150 euro for 2 months if I remember correctly.

felurx 4y ago
I think most federal states in Germany have regional tickets for students for the summer vacations. It's probably going to vary a good bit, but here in BW it's 25~30€ for the ~1.5 months.

rad_gruchalski 4y ago

> First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. „The state“ doesn’t have its „own money“. It is subsided by the taxpayer.

Aperocky 4y ago
> It is subsided by the taxpayer. That used to be completely true, but seeing the US government consistently spending 150% of its revenue every year make me doubt that. Money printer and price go brr At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new drone missiles.
- freeflight 4y ago
  > At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new drone missiles. Germany is actually getting both, train tickets and armed drones [0] [0] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-germany-buys-140-israeli-made-armed-drones/ https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220408-germany-buys-140-...
- 0x008 4y ago
  Germany increased their military spending by 100 billion this year which is tripling it compared to last year. Still a lot less than US but German economy is also a lot smaller.
bromuro 4y ago
And where does the taxpayer money come from? :) The state (or in this case the european central bank) owns and distribuites the money, then the tax payers give it back.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  ECB does not issue funds to individual countries. It does so only to stabilise the economy which is moving funds from one place to another. Eventually, by creating debt. But on point. ECB manufactures banknotes. As in, it prints them and hands over to individual countries. ECB is owned by central banks of all 27 countries. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me/html/who-owns-the-ecb.en.html https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/educational/explainers/tell-me... Taxpayers money comes from the work they execute. For example, when I do a contract for someone, I get paid for the service I did. If I don’t do the work, I don’t get paid and “the state” doesn’t give me anything. Furthermore, if I do a lot of work in a year and the next year I have a misfortune of falling ill and can’t sustain working, I’m screwed because “the state” wants its share in case of future profits, and just takes it from my account leaving me with a hole. “The state” doesn’t care. I remember such a conversation I had once with a representative of “the state”: “you don’t have our money?”, to which my immediate thought was “yeah, because we were sitting nights together trying delivering those projects”.

krrrh 4y ago

One interesting thing about the Berlin metro system (which is covered by this pass) is that it is one of the few metro transit systems that is nearly or fully supported through ticket fees. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, but it was something people talked about when I lived there.

derhuerst 4y ago
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe#Finanzen https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe#Fina... the 2020 results are probably not very represenative, but you can find them on page 19: https://unternehmen.bvg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BVG-Geschaeftsbericht-2020-neu.pdf https://unternehmen.bvg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BVG-Ge...