9 ms·

€9 Ticket

49 points by def- 4y ago

junon 4y ago
The 9 Euro ticket has been fantastic. Sadly, it is over at the end of this month :/ Wish it stuck around longer.
- loevborg 4y ago
  To me it's very frustrating that (as it looks like) the ticket will run out this month. It was one of the best ideas the German government has had in years. This month I've used the ticket a ton, both in rural areas and cities. It felt like an incredible improvement in the quality of life. It also reduced car traffic by IIRC 2%. While that sounds like a small number, given that the goal is for Europe to go carbon neutral by 2050, this is an instant win. We only need to pass a law to make the subsidies permanent. I'd even say that, at an annual €10 billion, it's a pretty good deal for the state.
  - ShallowCopy 4y ago
    But why tax everyone to subsidise the trains for the ones that use them? Even more so for tourists that barely pay taxes here and would have paid the full price anyway. With the normal ticket prices people pay for that they use, which sounds more fair to me.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      Because we want to encourage people to take the train and discourage them using cars.
      - netsharc 4y ago
        Yeah, the tax could be targeted, e.g. tax on gasoline, or on cars, with ICE cars needing to pay more (even though they're better, public transport is still the better way to prevent the climate catastrophe), but hey, the idea of any tax is probably horrifying tp the libertarians on HN...
    - riedel 4y ago
      That is the basic idea of taxes: to redistribute money. The problem was a bit different though: people that need trains (like disabled people) were pushed out of trains and trams by tourists with bikes. I still really enjoyed not having to care about tickets as well.
    - junon 4y ago
      I lived in SF before I lived in Germany. What you're describing is how BART works and it's trash.
    - solarkraft 4y ago
      Our roads are toll-free too and we want to encourage the use of trains.
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    The problem is that not a single one of those 10 billions buys neither a single additional vehicle-kilometre being operated [1], not a single metre of additional infrastructure, nor deals in any way with the impending maintenance backlog on the national railway network. [1] Actually right now often the difficulty is even actually operating the currently scheduled timetable due to a lack of staff.
    - solarkraft 4y ago
      What they buy is a larger user base, especially of people with enough capital that they're able to make the often financially sensible decision to buy a car instead, leading to a much higher motivation to finally fix the things you mention.
      - iggldiggl 4y ago
        So far it seems that the biggest passenger growth happened within the leisure traffic segment, and indeed it was already known from previous studies (including some smaller scale recent-ish experiments in Germany) that commuting traffic in particular is more sensitive to reliability and journey time and not that extremely price sensitive. I'd think that commuting is simultaneously the biggest driver behind the decision to purchase a car or not, so all in all that leaves me rather sceptic on whether you'd really get people to abandon their cars en masse that way. I'm also sceptical on the political willingness – silently and behind the scenes, some states (Hessen, I'm looking at you) have actually right now reduced their public transport budgets in order to make up Corona-induced budget holes. So the "true national through-ticketing for all public transport"-aspect of the 9 €-Ticket was nice, but beyond that I'd personally still rather see any money that can be scrounged together beyond that to be spent on service and infrastructure improvements. (And what with the staff shortages and energy price increases and possibly a recession on top we might even have to worry about even maintaining current service levels…)
tppiotrowski 4y ago
I used the ticket as a cheap way to travel from Austria to Poland via Germany this summer. Overall the experience was great. Using the DB app you just apply the "Regional trains only" setting and it will plan you an itinerary, telling you what stops to switch trains and what platform number to go to. Ours was 5 trains over the course of 10 hours (Munich to Berlin). Every train was on time. Surprisingly every train was a different model. Most resembled US light rail trains. The Munich train was insanely packed even though we arrived 15 minutes early. The rest we managed to find seats. The vibration and noise were almost non-existent. Would recommend.
ValentineC 4y ago
I was in Germany earlier this month, and made good use of the ticket going around quite a bit of Germany. The best part about it as a frugal traveller is not having to think about ticket prices (a local metro ride could cost something like 2 EUR) and buying them. It's quite liberating, and I'd pay (the rumoured) 69 EUR if they brought it back again next year.
- 7373737373 4y ago
  Yes, and another aspect of this was it being valid all across Germany - instead of scouring the maps and price lists of various regional providers (for whose fractured approach to public transport I have utter disdain and could insert many expletives here), you could just pay, travel, and forget
t6jvcereio 4y ago
.... I'm not an economist, but isn't this counter productive? By making it cheaper people will consume it more. No?
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  If that thing is good, that's good. Less sarcastically - this initiative was launched to reduce the fuel usage of German citizens because fuel prices are exploding and reserves are running low. Trains are operated electrically and can use alternate energy sources. So yes - people were using the train more: Either as an alternative to their personal vehicle (for commuting, visiting friends, going shopping), or as an alternative to taking a plane (going on a holiday, even within Germany).
  - iggldiggl 4y ago
    If really this had been launched to "reduce the fuel usage of German citizens", they wouldn't have also reduced fuel taxes at the same time. This simply came about because the government had to be seen doing something about the rising energy prices – the Liberals proposed temporarily lowering the gas taxes to score popularity points, but because they're in a coalition government with the Green party, the latter wanted something with a more ecological veneer, so after some horse-trading public transport users got thrown a bone, too.
    - solarkraft 4y ago
      GP got the reasoning a bit wrong, it's to lower the impact of the increased energy prices. As far as I'm aware the 9€-Ticket has had a decent lowering impact on measured inflation due to reduced transport costs.
    - ThePadawan 4y ago
      > If really this had been launched to "reduce the fuel usage of German citizens", they wouldn't have also reduced fuel taxes at the same time. Not owning a car, it is my rough understanding that lowering the fuel tax just led to fuel distributors and gas stations keeping their prices the same to increase their profits. So reducing the fuel tax was practically speaking a measure to subsidize oil companies, not humans, without realistically aiming to impact fuel usage.

€9 Ticket

49 points by def- 4y ago

junon 4y ago

The 9 Euro ticket has been fantastic. Sadly, it is over at the end of this month :/ Wish it stuck around longer.

loevborg 4y ago
To me it's very frustrating that (as it looks like) the ticket will run out this month. It was one of the best ideas the German government has had in years. This month I've used the ticket a ton, both in rural areas and cities. It felt like an incredible improvement in the quality of life. It also reduced car traffic by IIRC 2%. While that sounds like a small number, given that the goal is for Europe to go carbon neutral by 2050, this is an instant win. We only need to pass a law to make the subsidies permanent. I'd even say that, at an annual €10 billion, it's a pretty good deal for the state.
- ShallowCopy 4y ago
  But why tax everyone to subsidise the trains for the ones that use them? Even more so for tourists that barely pay taxes here and would have paid the full price anyway. With the normal ticket prices people pay for that they use, which sounds more fair to me.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    Because we want to encourage people to take the train and discourage them using cars.
    - netsharc 4y ago
      Yeah, the tax could be targeted, e.g. tax on gasoline, or on cars, with ICE cars needing to pay more (even though they're better, public transport is still the better way to prevent the climate catastrophe), but hey, the idea of any tax is probably horrifying tp the libertarians on HN...
  - riedel 4y ago
    That is the basic idea of taxes: to redistribute money. The problem was a bit different though: people that need trains (like disabled people) were pushed out of trains and trams by tourists with bikes. I still really enjoyed not having to care about tickets as well.
  - junon 4y ago
    I lived in SF before I lived in Germany. What you're describing is how BART works and it's trash.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    Our roads are toll-free too and we want to encourage the use of trains.
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  The problem is that not a single one of those 10 billions buys neither a single additional vehicle-kilometre being operated [1], not a single metre of additional infrastructure, nor deals in any way with the impending maintenance backlog on the national railway network. [1] Actually right now often the difficulty is even actually operating the currently scheduled timetable due to a lack of staff.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    What they buy is a larger user base, especially of people with enough capital that they're able to make the often financially sensible decision to buy a car instead, leading to a much higher motivation to finally fix the things you mention.
    - iggldiggl 4y ago
      So far it seems that the biggest passenger growth happened within the leisure traffic segment, and indeed it was already known from previous studies (including some smaller scale recent-ish experiments in Germany) that commuting traffic in particular is more sensitive to reliability and journey time and not that extremely price sensitive. I'd think that commuting is simultaneously the biggest driver behind the decision to purchase a car or not, so all in all that leaves me rather sceptic on whether you'd really get people to abandon their cars en masse that way. I'm also sceptical on the political willingness – silently and behind the scenes, some states (Hessen, I'm looking at you) have actually right now reduced their public transport budgets in order to make up Corona-induced budget holes. So the "true national through-ticketing for all public transport"-aspect of the 9 €-Ticket was nice, but beyond that I'd personally still rather see any money that can be scrounged together beyond that to be spent on service and infrastructure improvements. (And what with the staff shortages and energy price increases and possibly a recession on top we might even have to worry about even maintaining current service levels…)

tppiotrowski 4y ago

I used the ticket as a cheap way to travel from Austria to Poland via Germany this summer. Overall the experience was great. Using the DB app you just apply the "Regional trains only" setting and it will plan you an itinerary, telling you what stops to switch trains and what platform number to go to. Ours was 5 trains over the course of 10 hours (Munich to Berlin). Every train was on time. Surprisingly every train was a different model. Most resembled US light rail trains. The Munich train was insanely packed even though we arrived 15 minutes early. The rest we managed to find seats. The vibration and noise were almost non-existent. Would recommend.

ValentineC 4y ago

I was in Germany earlier this month, and made good use of the ticket going around quite a bit of Germany. The best part about it as a frugal traveller is not having to think about ticket prices (a local metro ride could cost something like 2 EUR) and buying them. It's quite liberating, and I'd pay (the rumoured) 69 EUR if they brought it back again next year.

7373737373 4y ago
Yes, and another aspect of this was it being valid all across Germany - instead of scouring the maps and price lists of various regional providers (for whose fractured approach to public transport I have utter disdain and could insert many expletives here), you could just pay, travel, and forget

t6jvcereio 4y ago

.... I'm not an economist, but isn't this counter productive? By making it cheaper people will consume it more. No?

ThePadawan 4y ago
If that thing is good, that's good. Less sarcastically - this initiative was launched to reduce the fuel usage of German citizens because fuel prices are exploding and reserves are running low. Trains are operated electrically and can use alternate energy sources. So yes - people were using the train more: Either as an alternative to their personal vehicle (for commuting, visiting friends, going shopping), or as an alternative to taking a plane (going on a holiday, even within Germany).
- iggldiggl 4y ago
  If really this had been launched to "reduce the fuel usage of German citizens", they wouldn't have also reduced fuel taxes at the same time. This simply came about because the government had to be seen doing something about the rising energy prices – the Liberals proposed temporarily lowering the gas taxes to score popularity points, but because they're in a coalition government with the Green party, the latter wanted something with a more ecological veneer, so after some horse-trading public transport users got thrown a bone, too.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    GP got the reasoning a bit wrong, it's to lower the impact of the increased energy prices. As far as I'm aware the 9€-Ticket has had a decent lowering impact on measured inflation due to reduced transport costs.
  - ThePadawan 4y ago
    > If really this had been launched to "reduce the fuel usage of German citizens", they wouldn't have also reduced fuel taxes at the same time. Not owning a car, it is my rough understanding that lowering the fuel tax just led to fuel distributors and gas stations keeping their prices the same to increase their profits. So reducing the fuel tax was practically speaking a measure to subsidize oil companies, not humans, without realistically aiming to impact fuel usage.