7 ms·

We had cities with free public transport in Germany. One example was the city of Templin in Brandenburg. The project was eventually abandoned because lots of

• johnday 4y ago
  It seems like an almost-free, unlimited-use ticket would suffer the same way.
  • johannes1234321 4y ago
    Well, they can distinguish homeless people without ticket from others. And therefore throw some homeless out (until people realize that is happening and donate tickets ....)
  • Aperocky 4y ago
    Speaking only for myself, my laziness is really the only reason that I've not been doing whatever things I could be doing. And that has been consistent throughout changes in my economic situation.
  • cbmuser 4y ago
    That’s actually what’s expected to happen in Germany with the 9-Euro-Ticket.
• black_puppydog 4y ago
  Nothing you said was factually wrong, but the last sentence makes it sound like "bored bums" were the reason it was abandoned. Here's the relevant part from the article you linked: > And not every trip seems to have been truly necessary for the passengers. "On rainy days the kids would take the bus out of boredom" says Templin's mayor Detlef Tabbert (Die Linke ["The Left" political party]) to manager-magazin.de. Groups of men with a crate of beer were also not uncommon. "If something is for free, it will be used - whether it makes sense or not", says [marketing responsible of the local transit provider][marketing responsible of the local transit provider] Pohlan In the end they went back to paid tickets, but charged 44EUR for an annual ticket that can even be transferred between people as needed. That still leaves them subsidizing public transit, but that's a political decision based on what the alternatives would be: pollution, road infrastructure (another form of subsidy), better quality of life, ... A decision that, as you might be able to tell, I personally happen to strongly agree with. Edit: forgot to paste the translated paragraph :P
  • cbmuser 4y ago
    > Nothing you said was factually wrong, but the last sentence makes it sound like "bored bums" were the reason it was abandoned. No, that was just your fantasy reading words I never said. I said people were riding out of boredom, not homeless people sleeping on the bus. It doesn’t matter anyway who was riding. The point is simply that people were riding the bus without actually needing to.
• trompetenaccoun 4y ago
  First thing I thought of even though I never heard of this example: It's a terrible idea if you think about it with an economic mind. There are very few scenarios where making things "free" can actually provide a long term benefit for the public. The reason Communist economies don't work isn't because there's not enough wealth in society to guarantee a modest income for everyone. It's because once you take the incentives away people behave differently than they would normally. In the case of a guaranteed workplace with no profit sharing for example you get rampant corruption at the top and workers who don't see the point in doing their job properly because they neither get rewarded for working hard nor can they get fired. So they just show up and do the bare minimum.
  • Archelaos 4y ago
    > there's not enough wealth in society to guarantee a modest income for everyone One should notice that there a no Communist economies anymore in Europe for more than 30 years. Democratic wellfare states provide in my opinion the best balance between individual incentives and social responsibility. I would argue that a lot of state-managed sectors in various European countries work a lot better than in the US (health care, higher education, correction, ...). One has to look into the details to see what works better in which sector. Extent and details are, of course, something that needs to be permanently evaluated. But in general there is enough wealth produced each year to provide everyone with an at least modest standard of living. However, the differences between the countries are still very large: GDP per capita in the EU is aprox. EUR 32.000, ranging from Luxemburg's EUR 114,000 to Bulgaria's EUR 10,000.
    • pph 4y ago
      (This may be an aside, but I want to add this) While it is true that there is quite a difference in GDP per capita between different EU countries, please consider that Luxembourg has a very particular standing and as an outlier is not representative of the "wealthier" EU members. Most of those are in the range of 40k-50k, with only three above this: 114,370 Luxembourg 83,990 Ireland 57,140 Denmark See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_European_Union
• dorgo 4y ago
  What is the difference to normal paid tickets? Once the ticket is paid I can ride busses out of boredom the whole day.
  • wreath 4y ago
    No you cant because the ticket is scoped with time and/or destination/direction
    • bombcar 4y ago
      Many places offer a "one day" transit pass that lets you ride anywhere you want, for that day. Random example, MTS: https://www.sdmts.com/fares/fare-chart https://www.sdmts.com/fares/fare-chart - the 1-day pass is priced just above a round-trip ticket cost.
    • illiac786 4y ago
      Yes you can with an annual ticket. That's why it's called "annual".
  • hetspookjee 4y ago
    Indeed you can but appearantly just that slight inconvenience is enough to offset the truly bored ones.
  • cbmuser 4y ago
    The difference is that you have to pay for it and money is usually a limiting factor. If you can afford buying a ticket to ride the bus for no reason every day, no one is going to stop you. However, most people won’t spend money on things they don’t actually need.
• stkdump 4y ago
  The term 'Schutzgebühr' comes to mind. No idea what the english term is. Basically a price people have to pay, for the sole purpose to prevent people wasting it if they don't really need it.
  • herewulf 4y ago
    "anti-abuse fee" sounds fitting. Not a direct translation obviously.