17 ms·

Deutschlandticket for regional bus and rail services to be offered for €49/month

302 points by taubek 4y ago

openpaycard 4y ago
[flagged]
johndoe0815 4y ago
This is outdated, currently the planned start date is May 1st. However, there seem to be still discussions about implementation details (availability only in an app vs. as a chip card or on paper, use of a subscription model). It's a horrible mess - and still too expensive for people with low incomes. In hindsight, it is amazing that the 9 Euro ticket experiment last year worked at all.
- smcl 4y ago
  It's at least good that they're moving in this direction at all. Maybe the pricing isn't spot-on, or the capacity isn't there, or there are debates over the ticketing or there are some other issues. But it seems to me that Germany has recognised the importance of encouraging rail travel, and they're taking the first steps in doing so.
  - Aachen 4y ago
    I earn enough to afford the current "BahnCard 100", but the pricing versus value is such that I'm not remotely considering it. That means that taking public transport is a hassle: - always need to buy a ticket: talk to a driver (who usually acts annoyed on behalf of the whole bus that you are holding up) or waste time trying to figure out ticket machines when you should be catching a connection; - always need to carry cash (fun fact: there's a line from DE into NL with a big warning sign where there'd usually be ads, saying that in DE you can pay with cash only and in NL by card only, so come prepared!); - need to check whether your ticket from city A to C is valid when taking a route that goes through city B where you'd like to make an intermediate stop (I called support for this once and could not for the life of me get a straight yes/no answer, she kept saying (iirc) wenn es auf dem direkten Weg ist which... is an intermediate stop direct ever? I'm pretty sure the answer for ticket validity is yes but she sounded like no, I'm still not sure 3 years later and I still commute between those towns, just usually via a different connection that doesn't stop in B); - in many regions, you can't buy a ticket online via the national rail company, you need to separately deal with the local line operators to make your trip planning even more fun! In NL I've got a chipcard plus a 2€/month subscription which gives me 40% off on weekends but, more importantly, lets me beep in and out of any mode of transport without wasting anyone's time and it automatically bills my bank account (instead of having to top it up prepaid, as is the default without subscription). I go where I please and don't have to deal with billing. That's why I'll be getting the 49€ subscription straight away. I want to use public transport, but besides the limitations of the system (how fast you get from A to B), it's currently additionally a hassle to deal with billing. Even if the poorest aren't helped, everyone else now has less of an excuse not to use it. I'm much more okay getting an extra ticket for the long distant transport (intercity) that is usually just one leg and is not a spontaneous journey anyway.
    - lispm 4y ago
      > always need to buy a ticket I buy all my tickets online. That's largely possible in Germany. I can't remember when I last needed to buy a physical ticket.
      - Aachen 4y ago
        Bahn afaik isn't allowed to sell you tickets when the start and destination are within a regional operator, and my regional operator (to get to work) doesn't have a web shop. The bus drivers are comically confused when I try to buy "einen Viererkahrte zu Aachen, drei Stück" so that I don't have to deal with it every other office day (this I can pay with a convenient 50€ bill and lasts about a month, give or take). Then I still have to stamp them per trip and will be last in line for a seat, but at least I don't have to bother the driver most days.
        lispm 4y ago
        When I book a train ticket, the regional trains are already included. My local public transport system (HVV) has online & smart phone ticketing for many many years now. A regional operator where the ticket can't be bought online or via a smartphone should be really really rare in Germany by now. Which operator is it, which has no online payment option?
        Aachen 4y ago
        AVV.de, the menu options for ticket buying are "am Automat" and "Vorverkaufstellen" which is a list of physical stores. ...which I guess is why I never looked further and saw they have an app now. Never heard of Naveo before, maybe it was introduced recently? Either way, that looks like it might now be possible! Why did no driver ever mention / did the buses/stations not advertise this before it's ripe for being replaced with the 50 euro subscription?!
        gerl1ng 4y ago
        Well, you could of course use some tickets from other operators in the same region. In NRW there is the handy eezy NRW[0] ticket system where you just pay the kilometers travelled "how the bird flies". So even the connections that would be expensive otherwise could be cheap. I use it sometimes for the last bit of my long distance travel if I visit my parents (not directly in VRR region but in Regionalverkehr Münsterland (RMV)). It states that it works for all stops within NRW - which is annoying as one of the busses I could take actually goes to Osnabrück (Niedersachsen) and I cannot use - even though it's actually operated by the NRW regional transit provider. Overall public transit is / was a mess in germany and 9€ Ticket really was an eye opener on how easy it could be to hop on and off of everything that's moving however you like. [0] https://www.vrr.de/de/fahrplan-mobilitaet/eezy-vrr/ https://www.vrr.de/de/fahrplan-mobilitaet/eezy-vrr/
- eastbound 4y ago
  > still too expensive for people with low incomes It can be said about anything. 49€ per month for transportation in all cities is 5% of a low-income salary; Saying that this effort is not enough validates the theorem that no government is left enough for a leftist to stop saying “It’s not really left”.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    It’s more that the 9€-ticket did some serious price anchoring.
  - Aachen 4y ago
    Do we have to polarize this simple question of whether 50 euros for transportation is affordable for specific income groups as a leftist versus rightist theory thing?
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    There are unfortunately too many people in Germany, who will struggle even with 49€, though it is a huge improvement for many. I am thinking mostly about retired people with a small pension, which struggle to just pay for food towards the end of the month. For them, the 9€ ticket was a game-changer, I hope there will be some support programs to make the 49€ ticket available for all retired people. The fact, that it covers regional trains all over Germany means a lot for their mobility.
  - projektfu 4y ago
    If 49€ is too much, how are they getting to work now? If they can walk or bike to work, they don't need rail. If their current fare is less, they presumably can continue using it. In my area, lower-income workers still usually need cars. They spend at least this much on gas each month. There's a lack of reliable transit options which makes a vicious cycle of low ridership and fewer options. I wish we could build out the bus/rail system we need and promote it. The city's not that big and everywhere could be within 30 minutes if buses and trains were as frequent as they are in other countries. I think the German transit authorities are looking at the situation and saying that there are a lot of people who currently drive that could be given a little incentive to take rail. Sometimes when you make something free, people stop valuing it. If the goal is to boost ridership, a nominal cost makes people want to get their money's worth by riding. But at free, they might continue to drive and keep the train just for days when the car is in the shop. People are weird like that.
- dathinab 4y ago
  It's not really that bad. Practically for most areas in Germany it can be available from May the 1st as an in-app only ticket. That is what matters. --- PS: No idea why anyone is discussion chip card, it's not an option. Every public transport system in Germany (should) have the capability to scan QR codes from APP or paper. Partially due to DB RE/RB/IC/ICE trickets having "include local transportation at start/destination" options. (And I think roughly that system was also used for the 9€ ticket.). Chip cards on the other hand can not be read by many public transportation systems and even if it would be a mess due to how such systems work, i.e. chip card systems (as used by public transportation) are generally not build to be accessed across disjoint independent systems and are much less flexible. They have their benefits, but non of the benefits matter for a person bound monthly fix price ticket in the context of how public transportation works in Germany. So integrating chip cards would be just a grate wast of resources IMHO.
  - abliefern 4y ago
    What do you mean it's not an option? I already ordered the ticket as a chip card here in Berlin.
    - dathinab 4y ago
      I did that now, too .... I seem to have had very wrong information.
  - anticensor 4y ago
    Contactless paper tickets exist (MiFare Ultralight and others). Those cold be utilised to generate a non-refillable start/destination ticket.
valenterry 4y ago
Mind that the ticket excludes all fast trains, it's only for local trains. Still pretty good, but you shouldn't get the wrong idea and think you can suddenly use every train.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
  Is “fast” here just the higher-speed inter-city services, or would some intra-city services also be excluded?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - sokols 4y ago
    It excludes ICE and IC trains, other regional trains like RE or RB and local means of transport (Trams, Buses ad U-Bahn) are included.
  - pph 4y ago
    "Fernverkehr" (long-distance: ICE, IC, EC) is excluded, "Nahverkehr" (RB, RE, S, U, Bus) included.
    - fock 4y ago
      still you can for example go from Berlin to Munich in about 10h with the latter option. (was 50€/day last time I tried for fun...)
      - moooo99 4y ago
        Its also worth mentioning that there are express connections between big cities that are relatively close. For example, there is a sprinter connection between Nürnberg and Munich that takes about 90 minutes using a regional train instead of the 60 minutes it would take with an ICE.
        4y ago
TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
That's half the price of what my region of Sweden charges for a comparable ticket, and it covers the whole country, not just one region. Not bad.
- morelisp 4y ago
  It's nearly half of what a monthly ticket for just Berlin's public transit costs.
  - patrickmcnamara 4y ago
    Berlin currently has a 29 € ticket which is much more interesting if you don't travel the rest of Germany often. Hopefully it gets extended beyond April.
    - arianvanp 4y ago
      The 29 ticket is not a per month ticket. You need to pay 1 year upfront lump sum. Otherwise you pay 60 per month.
      - lm28469 4y ago
        Well yeah it's for people who actually live here, tourists can pay the full price
      - whstl 4y ago
        You don't have to pay upfront. I got my card in February and I only have a 29 euro transaction in my bank statement for February, and then another for March. It is also possible to cancel at any time.
        arianvanp 4y ago
        That's not what it says here though ? https://www.bvg.de/de/abos-und-tickets/alle-abos/vbb-umweltkarte https://www.bvg.de/de/abos-und-tickets/alle-abos/vbb-umweltk... Says i need to pay 1 year upfront for the discount otherwise it's 63 euro per month Edit: okay their website is just a nightmare and eventhough they say it's 63 euro they bill 29 euro
vr46 4y ago
By way of comparison, 5 days of all-day, all-zone tickets in Hamburg currently costs €91, so this is a YUGE saving. I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication.
- realworldperson 4y ago
  [dead]
- lispm 4y ago
  I was travelling this week three times in Germany with long-distance trains. No problem. Both of the ICEs I had were very modern. Four of the regional trans were modern. One train was older. > I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication. Many times it is not a problem.
  - majewsky 4y ago
    A big part of why there are so wildly differing accounts regarding punctuality of German trains is that a lot of the delay is limited to a few specific lines that are overloaded even on the regular schedule. Most of these lines are on the dense part of the long-distance network [1], around the Ruhr area and the Frankfurt area. By contrast, I usually use routes in Eastern Germany, such as Dresden-Berlin-Hamburg/Rostock. These lines have been recently built and are not overloaded, so services are nearly always on time (or, at most, 10 minutes delayed) and connections are very reliable. [1] https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d5-70d925a271d4/220127_Liniennetz%20ICE%20IC%202022-korr.pdf https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d...
  - vr46 4y ago
    It's not consistent across the entire country, sure, but my wife had difficulty on trips to Munich and Graz in the last few weeks, my nephew on his trip from Berlin to Hamburg last weekend and don't get me started on trying to get to Brussels or even the local closures in Hamburg of the S-Bahn U-Bahn. The issue is as much comms as it Engineering work. They know they're doing engineering work, but do they allow for it? No. The bus goes, oh I can't go any further, all passengers get out and continue on the S-Bahn. Walk into S-Bahn, platforms all closed. Arrive at HBF, 15 minute delay. Keeps changing. Keeps going up. No reasons given. Journey to X, shortly before arrival, oh, the station is shut we're going to stop early. No notice in order to help friends and relatives reorganize. Fuck me, the UK is bad at a lot of things with public transport, but it is better coordinated than this. The roads are the same, random closures, no diversions set up, no planning with other closures to check they're not trapping people inside loops. It's the focus on cost rather than correctness that is frustrating.
the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
I'm somewhat surprised that they go for this model. It's 49 Euro per month with restrictions to regional services. However that ticket is available for tourists, students, pensioners, workers and regular people at the same price point. I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners. The way the Austrian ticket works (91 Euro per month for regulars, 68.5 Euro for teenagers/students/pensioners) is interesting. It's a yearly subscription, but you can cancel monthly. It includes all services, but train companies can sell you goodies on top (upgrade to 1st class, seat reservations etc.). I think that sort of system is more reasonable because it also enables some level of competition and it lets the rail companies charge higher prices for tourists.
- morelisp 4y ago
  It is "subscription-only" with a monthly cancellation, meaning the purchase options in practice limit it to long-term residents since you need to order by mail to a residence. It is cheaper than the existing discounted options for students/seniors, previously those have been managed by the regional companies and I think they have an uncertain future. People on social services still have other options, e.g. Berlin has a 9 eur ticket.
  - the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
    Which is precisely what it's trying to accomplish. This is BTW a very common theme for rail pricing in Europe. For instance there is INTERRAIL which is only available to EU residents and then there is EURAIL which has different prices and ticket types for non EU tourists.
    - laurencerowe 4y ago
      Most of it seems to be pricing things more cheaply for tourists than for residents (Interail is not available in the EU country you are resident in.) And Eurail seems to be even cheaper than Interail: Interail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class €352 Eurail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class $282 (€265) I considered buying an Eurail ticket last time I went back to Britain though for my trips it made little difference to the total cost after factoring in the supplements for intercity trains as I was travelling off peak anyway.
febeling 4y ago
So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas. It's a good idea to make them valid across regions. If they can make it work, that is. There is still the task to distribute revenue in some adequate way, and currently politicians like to in indulge in wishful thinking and disconnect from reality in Germany, so let's wait if anyone has bothered to solve the hidden problems behind this. Could play out like the disastrous Energiewende (energy turnaround), which made people wonder if they have heating in winter. It's probably not as impossible as a full socialist central planning economy, but it's the same spirit.
- lispm 4y ago
  > So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas It isn't. It is a ticket for all of Germany.
  - febeling 4y ago
    True, I meant say local public transport.
    - _ph_ 4y ago
      Germany is a small country, area-wise. You can reach large parts well with regional trains which are included in the ticket.
- Zetobal 4y ago
  In most of Germany urban areas and metropolitan cities are just a 30-45min train ride away. At the normal ticket pricing you will pay 32 euros for the roundtrip. Now you pay 49 for the whole month. It's a game changer for a lot of people living in rural areas despite everyone without any knowledge living in those areas arguing against it but it's Germany of course everyone and their mom will argue against it with arguments that have no meaning for the people it really effects.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    And most people do live in the cities and don't do such round trips too often. And many people doing a lot of city jumping fall into a more high income area and use IC/ICE trains not covered by the ticket (faster, and more convenient). And that is grate! Because it part of what enabled the push for such a ticket. Now we get a ticket which mostly is just about having a 49€ ticket for you local public transportation, while also having the convenience of not having to bother when taking some week end trips to close by lakes or similar, while being a big benefit for the people living in the "countryside" which is overdue IMHO, while also giving people more options to live outside/close by a city which can take a bit pressure from the housing market. And to top it off it makes it easier to sell it to better earning car focused people hopefully helping with a shift away from people owning/using cars all the time.
sprkwd 4y ago
Wish the UK would do this.
- OJFord 4y ago
  How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use!
  - lol768 4y ago
    > How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use! Nah, we're just getting rid of return fares instead :-)
  - srpm 4y ago
    I paid £34 one-way from London to Winchester yesterday. It's a bit more than 100km and a ~1hr ride. For 2 people doing that round trip, it's cheaper to rent a car for the day. I also paid €30 for a plane ticket to Norway recently. How is rail so ridiculously expensive/uncompetitive here???
adithyasrin 4y ago
I switched to this ticket in Berlin and the process was (surprisingly) straight forward, could do it in online so I wrote about it. They did try to make the digital ticket default instead of a physical card. https://www.arbeitnow.com/blog/bvg-monthly-ticket-to-deutschland-ticket https://www.arbeitnow.com/blog/bvg-monthly-ticket-to-deutsch... You can already apply for your monthly subscription to change to this ticket. That's what I did. So instead of 66 euros for Berlin (VBB area) a month from May, I'll be paying 49 and can access the local networks across the country
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- em-bee 4y ago
  i find this the most appealing aspect of the new ticket, that it competes with and underbids the local and regional monthly tickets. i expect in the long term many of these local offers will disappear or drastically be reduced in price. i remember some time ago when i lived in NRW the monthly ticket for the city i was in was open to all of NRW on weekends which i thought was awesome. and now the whole country for the same price, that just adds so much more flexibility especially for those commuting across regional borders.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    Interestingly the ticket the OP owns will not disappear and can still be monetarily beneficial in some cases. While the 49€ ticket is cheaper and has (way) more reach the "VBB Umweltkarte" has some additional benefits. Like: - in the evening (20:00) and on week ends you can take an additional adult as well as a child along for free - it's not person bound so you can pass it to other people This means that e.g. for a family of two parents and one child a single card is enough to cover all weekend family trips and when the child is to old to be covered it also normal has a "school ticket" which I think is free since some years(?). Similar there are still other tickets of relevance, e.g. a ticket to be able to take your bike on the train (in areas where it's allowed and a separate ticket is needed). But by itself I agree, especially for people crossing regional boarders in a unlucky way this ticket is a blessing. E.g. if you live close idk ~30min by care close to Berlin you often would have to get a Berlin ABC (or BC) + 2 regions ticket which is just supper expensive to a point where many people will not even consider it and just take a car. But this isn't because it need to be that expensive but because they have no lobby behind them which negotiated better tariffs. This was shown e.g. by Potsdam universities which negotiated a Berlin ABC + "ALL regions and cities in Brandenburg" ticket at a normal student ticket price. Anyway I love it.
lispm 4y ago
Here in Hamburg the local Transit district (HVV = Hamburger Verkehrs Verbund for 3.67 Million people) is also offering a version where the employer pays a share of the 49 Euros. Thus the monthly cost for a Germany-wide regional transport ticket (local trains, regional trains, bus, ferries, ...) then is reduced to 34,50 Euro and the owner needs only to pay for months when it is actually needed.
JanSt 4y ago
My wife had a daily 45km rail+2km bus trip to work which was 200€ per month. That's massive savings for many people who choose not to drive with cars. Her colleagues drive to work with cars for 2 km trips and ask her whether she does not own a car (we do). Taking the train is a) cheaper b) more relaxed (can read) c) better for the environment d) it's even faster in her case The €49 ticket could give public transportation a massive boost - worst case is, no additional people use trains and buses but people who can't afford cars or use public transport for enviromental reasons save quite some money.
- siva7 4y ago
  That's not quite in the interest of the car manufacturers that public transportation is cheaper than cars which is one of the reasons this took so long.
  - hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
    That's why it's even more impressive it took off in Germany which is normally very protective of its car industry.
    - iforgotpassword 4y ago
      I'm still surprised by that, but personally a bit disappointed it ended up at 50 bucks, I think it was increased multiple times during the planning and discussions about extending the 9€ ticket. At least it's not 70, which I think was also on the table at some point. Still, a huge win for people who can use it daily for commute, which is unfortunately not me. I had the 9€ one and occasionally took the train into the green for hiking or other events, but didn't even come close to 50€ in fares.
    - lytefm 4y ago
      We still have massive subsidies for providing leased new cars, mostly selected from German car manufacturers, to employees (about 3 bn per year [1]). Few people in the upper middle class and above will use public transport instead of their car, if it's provided by their employer. The results from the 9€ Ticket also indicate that people aren't using their car that less often. They are just using the ticket to do additional journeys [2]. But I suppose that having this ticket available for longer than 3 months will motivate some households to get rid of/ not purchase a second car. Also, it will probably convince younger adults in metropolitan areas (like me) to not buy a car - or to delay it until it's needed for family reasons. [1]: https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-why-we-should-ban-cars-altogether/ https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-why-we-should-b... [2]: https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/9-euro-ticket-hasnt-changed-how-much-people-use-their-cars-studies https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/9-euro-...
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
I can ride all the regional trains in my region in Italy for 35 euros/month (full price, before reductions for eligible categories) Italy is more complicated than Germany railroad wise, but I would also argue that beyond the region you live in, slow regional trains are much less useful. In Rome I pay 10 euros/month (the subscription is paid annually though) to use every public transport including buses, subway and trains that start and stop in a train stations inside Rome area, even if they are directed to or come from a different city/region/country. By showing the card I can also park for free in several selected parking lots around the city. Many people don't know about the advantages public transport provides, but they are real.
- dathinab 4y ago
  yes Germany is NOT leading the push to make public transportation more affordable and easier to use through they did jump on/followed the push and it get's more international press attention, probably due to the not always correct image people have about the German train network, and because it having one of the larger train networks in the EU
wslh 4y ago
I read the text but for me it was not clear the following: does this include intercity trips or "only" a plain ticket within the city?
- arianvanp 4y ago
  Inter-City Trips are covered as long as you take the slower "regional-Bahn". They usually don't go long stretches so you have go change multiple times on long legs . The actual high speed intercity lines are not covered.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- licebmi__at__ 4y ago
  I have read is the successor of the 9 euro ticket. You travel between cities but only on certain RB trains, not on IC nor ICE.
- MrJohz 4y ago
  It include any trips using regional trains or city public transport (so, broadly, any train with an "R" or "S" in the name). That includes travel between cities, but it won't include the fast intercity trains (IC, ICE, EC) that most people use to travel longer distances. So essentially you can get across most of Germany with this ticket, but for longer distances you'd probably be looking at a significantly longer and more complicated journey than if you just took a more direct intercity route.
mk_stjames 4y ago
Traveling short, local trips via public transport most places in Europe is getting very economical, while I feel traveling distances outside those local zones is getting prohibitively expensive compared to air travel. I used to be able to get from my home in western France to Amsterdam via trains for much less than flying or driving, whereas last fall I priced train tickets and it was going to run me over 350€ round trip. I could fly for less. Except I don't live near a major airport and thus no direct flying. Its getting to the point where for long trips I could drive for much less than the train (especially if I go longer routes and avoid some tolls) which I feel is the exact opposite of what needs to be promoted. I wish there was more high speed, affordable long distance train travel so I could avoid flying all the time. But it is only getting significantly more expensive.
- ben_w 4y ago
  Prices can be all over the place. My cheapest ever flight was either £9.99 (or €9.99?) for a one way from Berlin to London Gatwick, the train onward from Gatwick to Havant cost twice that. I've also had round-trip air tickets on the same route for about 300. Also, at the start of December I had a week long trip to the UK, and my flight back from Stansted was cancelled while I was on the runway and the first replacement flight Ryanair's website listed was a week later, so (after further nonsense I will not repeat here) I took the train to Portsmouth, the ferry to Cean, and then a train to Berlin. The combined cost of all of those and the hotel in Cean was about a third the cost of any earlier direct flight from any airline listed on Skyscanner.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Its sad really, each country and the EU itself all have the totally wrong approach to high speed rail. The EU seems hell bent on turning Europe in England for some reason. France and Spain believes that High-Speed rail is basically an airline. They miss basic stuff like one line should connect to the other, and are bad in terms of connecting high speed rail the rest of the infrastructure. German has political problem building out a rational designed overall network and is vastly under-funding lots of rail infrastructure projects that are total non-brainers. But because its all politics with little planning. I am extremely pissed that Switzerland build a huge tunnel threw a mountain, only for Italy and Germany to basically do nothing. Everybody expected Italy to be behind, but Germany is still not done its part. Switzerland on the other hand basically doesn't believe in high speed rail at all and that is kind of a problem if we ever want a real European high speed network that doesn't suck. Thankful some people are pushing for such a line. We basically need a line Genf-St.Gallen, and Basel to Lugano. And then connect those to the high speed lines of the nations around us. Britain in the meanwhile is actually building high speed rail, but constantly trying to cut it down, and at the same time they are not connecting their net with Europe because of stupid immigration policies. Belgium has the slowest high speed rail ever. Netherlands and Germany can't seem to figure out basic East-West connections. We have long way to go in Europe to actual get high speed rail correct.
robertwt7 4y ago
I wish Australia also has this :(, we have different cards for different states lol. what a joke, also its very expensive!
fabian2k 4y ago
Apart from the significant cost savings for people that use local public transport a lot the biggest benefit is probably that it removes a lot of the unnecessary complexity around buying tickets for many people. The German public transport network is divided into many small providers with different tickets and rules. This can make it rather confusing and annoying at times.
taylorius 4y ago
I wish the UK would do something like this. Our rail prices are the stuff of nightmares.
fxde 4y ago
Let's see if this will have a noticeable impact on university enrollments. Personally, I know a few people who re-enrolled after finishing university, including one person who even got a PhD, solely to get the ticket for their full-time job. It would not surprise me if universities experience a significant drop in enrollment due to this issue, especially at larger universities. An article from 2019 estimates that at one university, up to 9k out of 36k students may enroll without any academic intention.
- lytefm 4y ago
  I guess it will have a small effect. There are more reasons for a „fake enrollment“ than just the ticket. - child support money - free public health insurance - private insurance is often also related to „kids being in education“ Especially if the kid under 25 just wants to travel around, play fortnight at home or work on the next big thing. My bachelor programme (maths + cs in a small German city) pretty much only exists due to that. Great student/tutor ratio because most only enroll for the student status (low fees, no public transport ticket).
- dathinab 4y ago
  > 9k out of 36k students may enroll without any academic intention. but this isn't just because of the "semester ticket" students get, at least where I live the ticket is the least relevant reason of multiple ones why someone might sign up for university. Other reasons include: - healthy insurance/tax, especially until you are 25(??) you can be health insured through your parents, even afterwards the health insurance flat rate can be nice in some situations. And the tax model of student side jobs is nice too, through with some long term drawbacks people tend to overlook - not being officially unemployed, when spending a year for yourself e.g. traveling the world - having an excuse for your family and similar when you have absolutely no idea what you want from live - forcing parents in broken families to pay child support longer - using healthy insurance and tax of students to (pre-) bootstrap a one man self employment company and try out various side jobs to find yourself - starting with the intend to study but then losing that intent due to you realizing that is not what you want to do and not finding a way forward for year or more - abusing BAföG - officially studing one topic "for fun, taxes, health, etc." while waiting for a spot in the study track you care for to open up, (that was a thing I have seen quite often) - study for fun for people which don't need to work and a bored (thats how sometimes 60+ year old people appear in as students). As a side note, in my experience most, nearly all times, when people sign up for a study track without the intention to get a Bachelor/Master they sign up for tracks which always have free "left over" spots each semester. On one hand because this makes it nearly guaranteed they get in, on the other hand because it would be pretty shitty if you prevent people which want to study from getting a spot when you have no intent to study.
msavio 4y ago
> But the Deutschlandticket is not the end of the story: to make it still more attractive, German Rail is also planning to introduce more modern and faster trains. According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, this will create almost 20,000 new seats on long-distance services. The mentioned trains are ICE long-distance trains. Exactly those that are not included in the ticket the article is about. It does not make sense to even mention them here, and is wrong to conclude that "it" gets more attractive.
- MattRix 4y ago
  It’s a very confusingly written sentence, but I believe the “it” is meant to refer to “German Rail” and not the Deutschlandticket.
- gbear605 4y ago
  The new ICE trains are still helpful for local transit because if non-Deutschlandticket trips switch from regional rail to ICE that will clear up seats on the regional rail lines for Deutschlandticket uses.
- tmalsburg2 4y ago
  We don't need faster trains in Germany. We need trains that are more or less on time. Punctuality is a complete disaster and probably the main reason why people hate taking the train in Germany. If you have a connection that requires changing to another train, the chance that you miss your connection is too damn high.
  - kitkat_new 4y ago
    fast is important, too For instance, 1:30-2h by car takes 3h train + 1h cycling for me when the trains are on time.
  - kmlx 4y ago
    > We need trains that are more or less on time. i keep seeing these kinds of comments. 10 years ago i made the mistake of crossing the whole of germany by train. was a complete waste of my time. since trains are basically a solved problem (see japan, china etc), i don't get why these issues still happen in developed nations.
lnsru 4y ago
I will buy this. Current ticket costs 165€ a month. My employer is forcing to come to the office 4 days a week. Living at the last train station I will get a seat in a train and can use my commute time as working time. By car it’s twice faster of course, but then commute time isn’t working time.
bilekas 4y ago
This is a great idea in general. Yeah for cost savings for sure but the convenience of actually only having to deal with 1 ticket system around the entire country is a game changer.
3rd3 4y ago
Sadly, this will likely not provide much incentives for infrastructure improvements. Local commuter trains around here have deteriorated substantially over the past decades. The trains have become dirty and unreliable. More passengers will only stress the infrastructure more, so it will become even less attractive. Maybe it would be wiser to spur the competition between various commuting alternatives such as shared cars and buses, and thereby putting pressure on the railway operators to improve their infrastructure, offering it at a more reasonable price and with more transparent pricing schemes.
- f6v 4y ago
  Berlin(the biggest city) is miserable in this regard. My former tram line(M4) used to be 50:50 with old and new trams. In the last year before I moved, they had almost 100% old trams in there. Same goes for S-bahn, even new carriages are not equipped to deal with the weather. I dreaded using them in summer. The city has an excellent network in terms of coverage, but the trains are outdated.
- fundatus 4y ago
  Regional trains in Germany are not run for-profit. For each route there is a public tender for subsidies every 10 years or so. Private companies that win these contracts have to fulfill whatever local authorities put into these tenders (like timetables, capacity of trains etc). So your suggestion simply wouldn't work. Instead, your local authorities must improve whatever they require from the companies (and then also increase the subsidy accordingly of course).
- panick21_ 4y ago
  Or maybe it would be wiser to actual invest in your infrastructure. Railways don't get magically more efficient just because the is competition from a bus. Investment is political not depending on competition.
w-m 4y ago
It’s a fantastic step forward, making commuting with public transport much more affordable for many. But another nice thing about the 9€ ticket was that it got rid of all other tickets for occasional users, too. If you’re using public transport just a few times each month, 49€ is too high, and you will still have to deal with 4x tickets short tickets, AB/BC/ABC zones, day tickets and whatnot. Which is unfortunate, as that’s annoying, and they have to keep the complicated ticket vending infrastructure in place as well.
- alexanderchr 4y ago
  Would be nice if it was complemented with a €2 hour ticket, a €5 day ticket and a €20 week ticket, then they could probably get rid of the other tickets.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    Nice yes, but... Part of the reason why the 49€ ticket is that cheap (compared to a lot of other monthy more limited local tickets) is because you commit to it for a month. This ticket is meant to make abandoning cars easier for Germans and be also a nice pressure reduction for some of the people hit hardest by inflation (low income, can't afford a car anyway(1), but not (nearly) no income in which case the state pays your ticker anyway (oversimplified)). Providing a hour, day or week ticket would defeat that purpose. It's explicitly not meant to reduce cost for people which have a car and just from time to time buy a ticker or tourists (through it's still grate for tourists which tour multiple cities in Germany if they stay ~2 weeks even through they "lose" 2 weeks).
    - w-m 4y ago
      I disagree wholeheartedly. People who have a car should absolutely have cheaper and less complicated ticket options, so that they leave their car at home more often.
      - dathinab 4y ago
        well that is why some argue that buying the 49€ ticket should be mandatory for anyone owning a car. Funnily the people I know who say so are car owners which mostly use cars and hardly ever the train, but they are also rather well off.
_cenw 4y ago
I have a love-hate relationship with this. I love it conceptually and I think it's the right model, but it has a lot of problems. For one, people on unemployment benefits don't even have close to 49 Euros allocated to them for transport. They'll likely be overpaying for local trips and continue to not be able to afford long distance trips. And two, the infrastructure here is just not ready for more passengers. The 3 months where the 9-Euro ticket existed, public transport was unusable. I upgraded to long distance trains (which were deserted) several times to bypass the hours of delays and the overfilled trains (where masking mandates could not be upheld). I don't have a car and I didn't plan to ever have one (until now, maybe), so I fear my only mode of transport is going to be even more hellish than usual.
- diffeomorphism 4y ago
  > for one,... Obvious problem, so obviously gets addressed, but no reason to include all details in this short overview. TLDR: they pay much less. > infrastructure not ready. Agreed, but chicken/egg and time limited and basically free is very, very different than permanent and 49.
- dathinab 4y ago
  Handling of very low income situations is separate (and exists in all?/most? areas of Germany), and most areas have their own very low income ticket for much less then 49€. This ticket was never targeting income groups which are already get income related social benefits (through Germany could make a low-income/social version of this ticket in the future). > The 3 months where the 9-Euro ticket existed, This was a very unusual situation where there where a lot of dynamics making people take advantage of the ticket at least once in exactly 3 month. Some people did things they normally wouldn't have done because they felt they would else wise lose out. Additionally the month before that time many people did feel constrained and used that time to compensate for the month before. I wouldn't expect this to be a problem as the dynamics around it are very different. Not limited to 3 month, not that much cheaper then your normal monthly ticket (and especially more expensive then one or two full-day tickets), not hyped up that much, not the first time something like that was possible, etc. The 9€ ticket was a special event, the 49€ ticket is more an improvement of the daily live expenses and convenience. I expect many people to buy the 49€ ticket, I don't expect a massive increase in local transportation usage short term (but a constant slow incremental increase due to people slowly changing habits).
dav_Oz 4y ago
Don't expect German "Pünktlichkeit" on German railways, though.[0] The Austrian and especially the Swiss railroad systems are far superior. Since the "Bahnreform" of 1994 the infrastructure progressively deteriorated from the passenger's perspective. One hard fact: about 20% of the railroad network has been dismantled since 1994 (44.600km to 33.400km [1]). Way too much. Reasons for this are a confluence of excessive bureaucracy, brutal management style, powerful industry interests (think e.g. "Autobahn"), lobbying. Today's "Deutsche Bahn" as an entity is split into eight distinct divisions [2]; DB Schenker (global logistics and freight transport company) is by far the most profitable of the bunch and single-handedly lifts the whole DB group out of the red on the regular basis, it accounts for about 50% of the total revenue.[3] [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCmPLWZKd8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCmPLWZKd8 [1]https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/schienennetz/ https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/schi... [2]https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2021/en/group-management-report/db-group/organizational-structure/ https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2021/en/group-management-repor... [3]https://images.app.goo.gl/EwYJsvbHFxaWifbQ6 https://images.app.goo.gl/EwYJsvbHFxaWifbQ6
- Haga 4y ago
  Nonsense, Schenker is there to produce tax deductible losses on demand, the DB life's mainly from Central city area holdings sold off for development.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- konha 4y ago
  > The Austrian and especially the Swiss railroad systems are far superior. At this point Switzerland regularly makes German trains wait at the border because they are delayed and would mess up their schedules.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pjmlp 4y ago
The price reduction is very welcome, but they better work up that pontuality, specially in regards to missing connections.
photochemsyn 4y ago
As oil & gas prices blast off, it looks like importers (Germany and others) will be doing all they can to minimize domestic demand for fossil fuels: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60502451 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60502451 "Oil hits seven-year high but shares rebound on Russian war 24 Feb 2022" https://splash247.com/european-gas-prices-soar-following-damage-to-nord-stream-pipelines/ https://splash247.com/european-gas-prices-soar-following-dam... "European gas prices soar following damage to Nord Stream pipelines Sep 28 2022" Accelerating the transition off fossil fuels is good news, and better access to electrified public transit systems are right in line with that goal.
anonyfox 4y ago
The important point is not with rails, but with local public transport (s-bahn, metro, buses, streetcars, ...), and that the tariff zones are basically eliminated with that. iE in hamburg where I live, a monthly subscription costs around 120+€ per month, assuming you only need the "center" of the city area. If you live a bit more outside, or even in some adjacent village, you have to pay for every single tariff zone you pass through, this can _multiply_ the original costs. so this is a massive financial benefit for everyone who doesn't want to commute by car (gas is getting expensive, parking spots can cost 100€+ per month near work, ...). yes, sometimes it takes significantly longer to commute, but financially it totally makes sense now to NOT use a car for that. Having the option to travel by train into more distant targets for free is a cherry ontop of that. even better: you can use public transport in your destination city for free now! but for me, the single biggest benefit now is to not having to deal with these tariff zones at all, they are a huge mental energy drain. Would pay double the price just for the convenience of not having to think about this.
- that_guy_iain 4y ago
  In Berlin, the monthly ticket is 89 euros for the two main zones. It goes to 107 euros for all zones. Basically, halfs your monthly outgoings just for Berlin travel. Then add in the ability to travel it's looking really good. Can't wait for it to be available.
- em-bee 4y ago
  you can pay double: 236.40€ gets you 5 rings which is most of the whole area if i read the map correctly. the outer rings beyond that are some small regions or selected lines only anyways.
dunefox 4y ago
It's already been delayed to 1.5. and next year it's going to increase in price. Ridiculous.
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
They are going to make a lot of money with this. When NYC first rolled out the unlimited metrocards it was $50/m to travel anywhere in the NYC area by bus or subway. Suddenly all the places that people didn’t go because they didn’t want to spend the subway fare were now on equal footing. Fast forward twenty years and that same pass now costs $200/m and they say now they are going to start adding a transit fee to everyone’s income tax as well. Not nearly as good a deal. But somehow I think Germany will avoid that fate.
kybernetyk 4y ago
Sorry, but still not worth is. Public transport in Germany is a mess. I've been commuting with the Deutsche Bahn for over one year. Not one week where something didn't go wrong. (Train way too late, train not coming at all, train not stopping at destination, train stopping way before destination + transit bus). I'm so happy with having a car again.
Abimelex 4y ago
> The start date for the offer has yet to be finally fixed; currently it is set for 1 April 2023. That appears to be outdated or wrong information. The first date was supposed to be the 1st of January, but it has been pushed to the 1st of May since not all questions regarding the financials had been cleared.

302 points by taubek 4y ago

[flagged]

This is outdated, currently the planned start date is May 1st. However, there seem to be still discussions about implementation details (availability only in an app vs. as a chip card or on paper, use of a subscription model). It's a horrible mess - and still too expensive for people with low incomes. In hindsight, it is amazing that the 9 Euro ticket experiment last year worked at all.

smcl 4y ago
It's at least good that they're moving in this direction at all. Maybe the pricing isn't spot-on, or the capacity isn't there, or there are debates over the ticketing or there are some other issues. But it seems to me that Germany has recognised the importance of encouraging rail travel, and they're taking the first steps in doing so.
- Aachen 4y ago
  I earn enough to afford the current "BahnCard 100", but the pricing versus value is such that I'm not remotely considering it. That means that taking public transport is a hassle: - always need to buy a ticket: talk to a driver (who usually acts annoyed on behalf of the whole bus that you are holding up) or waste time trying to figure out ticket machines when you should be catching a connection; - always need to carry cash (fun fact: there's a line from DE into NL with a big warning sign where there'd usually be ads, saying that in DE you can pay with cash only and in NL by card only, so come prepared!); - need to check whether your ticket from city A to C is valid when taking a route that goes through city B where you'd like to make an intermediate stop (I called support for this once and could not for the life of me get a straight yes/no answer, she kept saying (iirc) wenn es auf dem direkten Weg ist which... is an intermediate stop direct ever? I'm pretty sure the answer for ticket validity is yes but she sounded like no, I'm still not sure 3 years later and I still commute between those towns, just usually via a different connection that doesn't stop in B); - in many regions, you can't buy a ticket online via the national rail company, you need to separately deal with the local line operators to make your trip planning even more fun! In NL I've got a chipcard plus a 2€/month subscription which gives me 40% off on weekends but, more importantly, lets me beep in and out of any mode of transport without wasting anyone's time and it automatically bills my bank account (instead of having to top it up prepaid, as is the default without subscription). I go where I please and don't have to deal with billing. That's why I'll be getting the 49€ subscription straight away. I want to use public transport, but besides the limitations of the system (how fast you get from A to B), it's currently additionally a hassle to deal with billing. Even if the poorest aren't helped, everyone else now has less of an excuse not to use it. I'm much more okay getting an extra ticket for the long distant transport (intercity) that is usually just one leg and is not a spontaneous journey anyway.
  - lispm 4y ago
    > always need to buy a ticket I buy all my tickets online. That's largely possible in Germany. I can't remember when I last needed to buy a physical ticket.
    - Aachen 4y ago
      Bahn afaik isn't allowed to sell you tickets when the start and destination are within a regional operator, and my regional operator (to get to work) doesn't have a web shop. The bus drivers are comically confused when I try to buy "einen Viererkahrte zu Aachen, drei Stück" so that I don't have to deal with it every other office day (this I can pay with a convenient 50€ bill and lasts about a month, give or take). Then I still have to stamp them per trip and will be last in line for a seat, but at least I don't have to bother the driver most days.
      - lispm 4y ago
        When I book a train ticket, the regional trains are already included. My local public transport system (HVV) has online & smart phone ticketing for many many years now. A regional operator where the ticket can't be bought online or via a smartphone should be really really rare in Germany by now. Which operator is it, which has no online payment option?
        Aachen 4y ago
        AVV.de, the menu options for ticket buying are "am Automat" and "Vorverkaufstellen" which is a list of physical stores. ...which I guess is why I never looked further and saw they have an app now. Never heard of Naveo before, maybe it was introduced recently? Either way, that looks like it might now be possible! Why did no driver ever mention / did the buses/stations not advertise this before it's ripe for being replaced with the 50 euro subscription?!
        gerl1ng 4y ago
        Well, you could of course use some tickets from other operators in the same region. In NRW there is the handy eezy NRW[0] ticket system where you just pay the kilometers travelled "how the bird flies". So even the connections that would be expensive otherwise could be cheap. I use it sometimes for the last bit of my long distance travel if I visit my parents (not directly in VRR region but in Regionalverkehr Münsterland (RMV)). It states that it works for all stops within NRW - which is annoying as one of the busses I could take actually goes to Osnabrück (Niedersachsen) and I cannot use - even though it's actually operated by the NRW regional transit provider. Overall public transit is / was a mess in germany and 9€ Ticket really was an eye opener on how easy it could be to hop on and off of everything that's moving however you like. [0] https://www.vrr.de/de/fahrplan-mobilitaet/eezy-vrr/ https://www.vrr.de/de/fahrplan-mobilitaet/eezy-vrr/
eastbound 4y ago
> still too expensive for people with low incomes It can be said about anything. 49€ per month for transportation in all cities is 5% of a low-income salary; Saying that this effort is not enough validates the theorem that no government is left enough for a leftist to stop saying “It’s not really left”.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  It’s more that the 9€-ticket did some serious price anchoring.
- Aachen 4y ago
  Do we have to polarize this simple question of whether 50 euros for transportation is affordable for specific income groups as a leftist versus rightist theory thing?
- _ph_ 4y ago
  There are unfortunately too many people in Germany, who will struggle even with 49€, though it is a huge improvement for many. I am thinking mostly about retired people with a small pension, which struggle to just pay for food towards the end of the month. For them, the 9€ ticket was a game-changer, I hope there will be some support programs to make the 49€ ticket available for all retired people. The fact, that it covers regional trains all over Germany means a lot for their mobility.
- projektfu 4y ago
  If 49€ is too much, how are they getting to work now? If they can walk or bike to work, they don't need rail. If their current fare is less, they presumably can continue using it. In my area, lower-income workers still usually need cars. They spend at least this much on gas each month. There's a lack of reliable transit options which makes a vicious cycle of low ridership and fewer options. I wish we could build out the bus/rail system we need and promote it. The city's not that big and everywhere could be within 30 minutes if buses and trains were as frequent as they are in other countries. I think the German transit authorities are looking at the situation and saying that there are a lot of people who currently drive that could be given a little incentive to take rail. Sometimes when you make something free, people stop valuing it. If the goal is to boost ridership, a nominal cost makes people want to get their money's worth by riding. But at free, they might continue to drive and keep the train just for days when the car is in the shop. People are weird like that.
dathinab 4y ago
It's not really that bad. Practically for most areas in Germany it can be available from May the 1st as an in-app only ticket. That is what matters. --- PS: No idea why anyone is discussion chip card, it's not an option. Every public transport system in Germany (should) have the capability to scan QR codes from APP or paper. Partially due to DB RE/RB/IC/ICE trickets having "include local transportation at start/destination" options. (And I think roughly that system was also used for the 9€ ticket.). Chip cards on the other hand can not be read by many public transportation systems and even if it would be a mess due to how such systems work, i.e. chip card systems (as used by public transportation) are generally not build to be accessed across disjoint independent systems and are much less flexible. They have their benefits, but non of the benefits matter for a person bound monthly fix price ticket in the context of how public transportation works in Germany. So integrating chip cards would be just a grate wast of resources IMHO.
- abliefern 4y ago
  What do you mean it's not an option? I already ordered the ticket as a chip card here in Berlin.
  - dathinab 4y ago
    I did that now, too .... I seem to have had very wrong information.
- anticensor 4y ago
  Contactless paper tickets exist (MiFare Ultralight and others). Those cold be utilised to generate a non-refillable start/destination ticket.

valenterry 4y ago

Mind that the ticket excludes all fast trains, it's only for local trains. Still pretty good, but you shouldn't get the wrong idea and think you can suddenly use every train.

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago
Is “fast” here just the higher-speed inter-city services, or would some intra-city services also be excluded?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- sokols 4y ago
  It excludes ICE and IC trains, other regional trains like RE or RB and local means of transport (Trams, Buses ad U-Bahn) are included.
- pph 4y ago
  "Fernverkehr" (long-distance: ICE, IC, EC) is excluded, "Nahverkehr" (RB, RE, S, U, Bus) included.
  - fock 4y ago
    still you can for example go from Berlin to Munich in about 10h with the latter option. (was 50€/day last time I tried for fun...)
    - moooo99 4y ago
      Its also worth mentioning that there are express connections between big cities that are relatively close. For example, there is a sprinter connection between Nürnberg and Munich that takes about 90 minutes using a regional train instead of the 60 minutes it would take with an ICE.
      - 4y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 4y ago

That's half the price of what my region of Sweden charges for a comparable ticket, and it covers the whole country, not just one region. Not bad.

morelisp 4y ago
It's nearly half of what a monthly ticket for just Berlin's public transit costs.
- patrickmcnamara 4y ago
  Berlin currently has a 29 € ticket which is much more interesting if you don't travel the rest of Germany often. Hopefully it gets extended beyond April.
  - arianvanp 4y ago
    The 29 ticket is not a per month ticket. You need to pay 1 year upfront lump sum. Otherwise you pay 60 per month.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      Well yeah it's for people who actually live here, tourists can pay the full price
    - whstl 4y ago
      You don't have to pay upfront. I got my card in February and I only have a 29 euro transaction in my bank statement for February, and then another for March. It is also possible to cancel at any time.
      - arianvanp 4y ago
        That's not what it says here though ? https://www.bvg.de/de/abos-und-tickets/alle-abos/vbb-umweltkarte https://www.bvg.de/de/abos-und-tickets/alle-abos/vbb-umweltk... Says i need to pay 1 year upfront for the discount otherwise it's 63 euro per month Edit: okay their website is just a nightmare and eventhough they say it's 63 euro they bill 29 euro

vr46 4y ago

By way of comparison, 5 days of all-day, all-zone tickets in Hamburg currently costs €91, so this is a YUGE saving. I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication.

realworldperson 4y ago
[dead]
lispm 4y ago
I was travelling this week three times in Germany with long-distance trains. No problem. Both of the ICEs I had were very modern. Four of the regional trans were modern. One train was older. > I still don't want to travel by train in Germany, because the service right now, quite bluntly, is shit. Delays, overcrowding, poor communication. Many times it is not a problem.
- majewsky 4y ago
  A big part of why there are so wildly differing accounts regarding punctuality of German trains is that a lot of the delay is limited to a few specific lines that are overloaded even on the regular schedule. Most of these lines are on the dense part of the long-distance network [1], around the Ruhr area and the Frankfurt area. By contrast, I usually use routes in Eastern Germany, such as Dresden-Berlin-Hamburg/Rostock. These lines have been recently built and are not overloaded, so services are nearly always on time (or, at most, 10 minutes delayed) and connections are very reliable. [1] https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d5-70d925a271d4/220127_Liniennetz%20ICE%20IC%202022-korr.pdf https://assets.static-bahn.de/dam/jcr:b4fca34a-4b95-4d82-98d...
- vr46 4y ago
  It's not consistent across the entire country, sure, but my wife had difficulty on trips to Munich and Graz in the last few weeks, my nephew on his trip from Berlin to Hamburg last weekend and don't get me started on trying to get to Brussels or even the local closures in Hamburg of the S-Bahn U-Bahn. The issue is as much comms as it Engineering work. They know they're doing engineering work, but do they allow for it? No. The bus goes, oh I can't go any further, all passengers get out and continue on the S-Bahn. Walk into S-Bahn, platforms all closed. Arrive at HBF, 15 minute delay. Keeps changing. Keeps going up. No reasons given. Journey to X, shortly before arrival, oh, the station is shut we're going to stop early. No notice in order to help friends and relatives reorganize. Fuck me, the UK is bad at a lot of things with public transport, but it is better coordinated than this. The roads are the same, random closures, no diversions set up, no planning with other closures to check they're not trapping people inside loops. It's the focus on cost rather than correctness that is frustrating.

the_mitsuhiko 4y ago

I'm somewhat surprised that they go for this model. It's 49 Euro per month with restrictions to regional services. However that ticket is available for tourists, students, pensioners, workers and regular people at the same price point. I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners. The way the Austrian ticket works (91 Euro per month for regulars, 68.5 Euro for teenagers/students/pensioners) is interesting. It's a yearly subscription, but you can cancel monthly. It includes all services, but train companies can sell you goodies on top (upgrade to 1st class, seat reservations etc.). I think that sort of system is more reasonable because it also enables some level of competition and it lets the rail companies charge higher prices for tourists.

morelisp 4y ago
It is "subscription-only" with a monthly cancellation, meaning the purchase options in practice limit it to long-term residents since you need to order by mail to a residence. It is cheaper than the existing discounted options for students/seniors, previously those have been managed by the regional companies and I think they have an uncertain future. People on social services still have other options, e.g. Berlin has a 9 eur ticket.
- the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
  Which is precisely what it's trying to accomplish. This is BTW a very common theme for rail pricing in Europe. For instance there is INTERRAIL which is only available to EU residents and then there is EURAIL which has different prices and ticket types for non EU tourists.
  - laurencerowe 4y ago
    Most of it seems to be pricing things more cheaply for tourists than for residents (Interail is not available in the EU country you are resident in.) And Eurail seems to be even cheaper than Interail: Interail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class €352 Eurail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class $282 (€265) I considered buying an Eurail ticket last time I went back to Britain though for my trips it made little difference to the total cost after factoring in the supplements for intercity trains as I was travelling off peak anyway.

febeling 4y ago

So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas. It's a good idea to make them valid across regions. If they can make it work, that is. There is still the task to distribute revenue in some adequate way, and currently politicians like to in indulge in wishful thinking and disconnect from reality in Germany, so let's wait if anyone has bothered to solve the hidden problems behind this. Could play out like the disastrous Energiewende (energy turnaround), which made people wonder if they have heating in winter. It's probably not as impossible as a full socialist central planning economy, but it's the same spirit.

lispm 4y ago
> So this is a public transport ticket for urban areas It isn't. It is a ticket for all of Germany.
- febeling 4y ago
  True, I meant say local public transport.
  - _ph_ 4y ago
    Germany is a small country, area-wise. You can reach large parts well with regional trains which are included in the ticket.
Zetobal 4y ago
In most of Germany urban areas and metropolitan cities are just a 30-45min train ride away. At the normal ticket pricing you will pay 32 euros for the roundtrip. Now you pay 49 for the whole month. It's a game changer for a lot of people living in rural areas despite everyone without any knowledge living in those areas arguing against it but it's Germany of course everyone and their mom will argue against it with arguments that have no meaning for the people it really effects.
- dathinab 4y ago
  And most people do live in the cities and don't do such round trips too often. And many people doing a lot of city jumping fall into a more high income area and use IC/ICE trains not covered by the ticket (faster, and more convenient). And that is grate! Because it part of what enabled the push for such a ticket. Now we get a ticket which mostly is just about having a 49€ ticket for you local public transportation, while also having the convenience of not having to bother when taking some week end trips to close by lakes or similar, while being a big benefit for the people living in the "countryside" which is overdue IMHO, while also giving people more options to live outside/close by a city which can take a bit pressure from the housing market. And to top it off it makes it easier to sell it to better earning car focused people hopefully helping with a shift away from people owning/using cars all the time.

sprkwd 4y ago

Wish the UK would do this.

OJFord 4y ago
How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use!
- lol768 4y ago
  > How about we get a single return fare (even restricting to realistic commutes, not whole country) down to €49 before we worry about multiple use! Nah, we're just getting rid of return fares instead :-)
- srpm 4y ago
  I paid £34 one-way from London to Winchester yesterday. It's a bit more than 100km and a ~1hr ride. For 2 people doing that round trip, it's cheaper to rent a car for the day. I also paid €30 for a plane ticket to Norway recently. How is rail so ridiculously expensive/uncompetitive here???

adithyasrin 4y ago

I switched to this ticket in Berlin and the process was (surprisingly) straight forward, could do it in online so I wrote about it. They did try to make the digital ticket default instead of a physical card. https://www.arbeitnow.com/blog/bvg-monthly-ticket-to-deutschland-ticket https://www.arbeitnow.com/blog/bvg-monthly-ticket-to-deutsch... You can already apply for your monthly subscription to change to this ticket. That's what I did. So instead of 66 euros for Berlin (VBB area) a month from May, I'll be paying 49 and can access the local networks across the country

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
em-bee 4y ago
i find this the most appealing aspect of the new ticket, that it competes with and underbids the local and regional monthly tickets. i expect in the long term many of these local offers will disappear or drastically be reduced in price. i remember some time ago when i lived in NRW the monthly ticket for the city i was in was open to all of NRW on weekends which i thought was awesome. and now the whole country for the same price, that just adds so much more flexibility especially for those commuting across regional borders.
- dathinab 4y ago
  Interestingly the ticket the OP owns will not disappear and can still be monetarily beneficial in some cases. While the 49€ ticket is cheaper and has (way) more reach the "VBB Umweltkarte" has some additional benefits. Like: - in the evening (20:00) and on week ends you can take an additional adult as well as a child along for free - it's not person bound so you can pass it to other people This means that e.g. for a family of two parents and one child a single card is enough to cover all weekend family trips and when the child is to old to be covered it also normal has a "school ticket" which I think is free since some years(?). Similar there are still other tickets of relevance, e.g. a ticket to be able to take your bike on the train (in areas where it's allowed and a separate ticket is needed). But by itself I agree, especially for people crossing regional boarders in a unlucky way this ticket is a blessing. E.g. if you live close idk ~30min by care close to Berlin you often would have to get a Berlin ABC (or BC) + 2 regions ticket which is just supper expensive to a point where many people will not even consider it and just take a car. But this isn't because it need to be that expensive but because they have no lobby behind them which negotiated better tariffs. This was shown e.g. by Potsdam universities which negotiated a Berlin ABC + "ALL regions and cities in Brandenburg" ticket at a normal student ticket price. Anyway I love it.

lispm 4y ago

Here in Hamburg the local Transit district (HVV = Hamburger Verkehrs Verbund for 3.67 Million people) is also offering a version where the employer pays a share of the 49 Euros. Thus the monthly cost for a Germany-wide regional transport ticket (local trains, regional trains, bus, ferries, ...) then is reduced to 34,50 Euro and the owner needs only to pay for months when it is actually needed.

JanSt 4y ago

My wife had a daily 45km rail+2km bus trip to work which was 200€ per month. That's massive savings for many people who choose not to drive with cars. Her colleagues drive to work with cars for 2 km trips and ask her whether she does not own a car (we do). Taking the train is a) cheaper b) more relaxed (can read) c) better for the environment d) it's even faster in her case The €49 ticket could give public transportation a massive boost - worst case is, no additional people use trains and buses but people who can't afford cars or use public transport for enviromental reasons save quite some money.

siva7 4y ago
That's not quite in the interest of the car manufacturers that public transportation is cheaper than cars which is one of the reasons this took so long.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  That's why it's even more impressive it took off in Germany which is normally very protective of its car industry.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    I'm still surprised by that, but personally a bit disappointed it ended up at 50 bucks, I think it was increased multiple times during the planning and discussions about extending the 9€ ticket. At least it's not 70, which I think was also on the table at some point. Still, a huge win for people who can use it daily for commute, which is unfortunately not me. I had the 9€ one and occasionally took the train into the green for hiking or other events, but didn't even come close to 50€ in fares.
  - lytefm 4y ago
    We still have massive subsidies for providing leased new cars, mostly selected from German car manufacturers, to employees (about 3 bn per year [1]). Few people in the upper middle class and above will use public transport instead of their car, if it's provided by their employer. The results from the 9€ Ticket also indicate that people aren't using their car that less often. They are just using the ticket to do additional journeys [2]. But I suppose that having this ticket available for longer than 3 months will motivate some households to get rid of/ not purchase a second car. Also, it will probably convince younger adults in metropolitan areas (like me) to not buy a car - or to delay it until it's needed for family reasons. [1]: https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-why-we-should-ban-cars-altogether/ https://www.exberliner.com/politics/red-flag-why-we-should-b... [2]: https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/9-euro-ticket-hasnt-changed-how-much-people-use-their-cars-studies https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/9-euro-...

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

I can ride all the regional trains in my region in Italy for 35 euros/month (full price, before reductions for eligible categories) Italy is more complicated than Germany railroad wise, but I would also argue that beyond the region you live in, slow regional trains are much less useful. In Rome I pay 10 euros/month (the subscription is paid annually though) to use every public transport including buses, subway and trains that start and stop in a train stations inside Rome area, even if they are directed to or come from a different city/region/country. By showing the card I can also park for free in several selected parking lots around the city. Many people don't know about the advantages public transport provides, but they are real.

dathinab 4y ago
yes Germany is NOT leading the push to make public transportation more affordable and easier to use through they did jump on/followed the push and it get's more international press attention, probably due to the not always correct image people have about the German train network, and because it having one of the larger train networks in the EU

wslh 4y ago

I read the text but for me it was not clear the following: does this include intercity trips or "only" a plain ticket within the city?

arianvanp 4y ago
Inter-City Trips are covered as long as you take the slower "regional-Bahn". They usually don't go long stretches so you have go change multiple times on long legs . The actual high speed intercity lines are not covered.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
licebmi__at__ 4y ago
I have read is the successor of the 9 euro ticket. You travel between cities but only on certain RB trains, not on IC nor ICE.
MrJohz 4y ago
It include any trips using regional trains or city public transport (so, broadly, any train with an "R" or "S" in the name). That includes travel between cities, but it won't include the fast intercity trains (IC, ICE, EC) that most people use to travel longer distances. So essentially you can get across most of Germany with this ticket, but for longer distances you'd probably be looking at a significantly longer and more complicated journey than if you just took a more direct intercity route.

mk_stjames 4y ago

Traveling short, local trips via public transport most places in Europe is getting very economical, while I feel traveling distances outside those local zones is getting prohibitively expensive compared to air travel. I used to be able to get from my home in western France to Amsterdam via trains for much less than flying or driving, whereas last fall I priced train tickets and it was going to run me over 350€ round trip. I could fly for less. Except I don't live near a major airport and thus no direct flying. Its getting to the point where for long trips I could drive for much less than the train (especially if I go longer routes and avoid some tolls) which I feel is the exact opposite of what needs to be promoted. I wish there was more high speed, affordable long distance train travel so I could avoid flying all the time. But it is only getting significantly more expensive.

ben_w 4y ago
Prices can be all over the place. My cheapest ever flight was either £9.99 (or €9.99?) for a one way from Berlin to London Gatwick, the train onward from Gatwick to Havant cost twice that. I've also had round-trip air tickets on the same route for about 300. Also, at the start of December I had a week long trip to the UK, and my flight back from Stansted was cancelled while I was on the runway and the first replacement flight Ryanair's website listed was a week later, so (after further nonsense I will not repeat here) I took the train to Portsmouth, the ferry to Cean, and then a train to Berlin. The combined cost of all of those and the hotel in Cean was about a third the cost of any earlier direct flight from any airline listed on Skyscanner.
panick21_ 4y ago
Its sad really, each country and the EU itself all have the totally wrong approach to high speed rail. The EU seems hell bent on turning Europe in England for some reason. France and Spain believes that High-Speed rail is basically an airline. They miss basic stuff like one line should connect to the other, and are bad in terms of connecting high speed rail the rest of the infrastructure. German has political problem building out a rational designed overall network and is vastly under-funding lots of rail infrastructure projects that are total non-brainers. But because its all politics with little planning. I am extremely pissed that Switzerland build a huge tunnel threw a mountain, only for Italy and Germany to basically do nothing. Everybody expected Italy to be behind, but Germany is still not done its part. Switzerland on the other hand basically doesn't believe in high speed rail at all and that is kind of a problem if we ever want a real European high speed network that doesn't suck. Thankful some people are pushing for such a line. We basically need a line Genf-St.Gallen, and Basel to Lugano. And then connect those to the high speed lines of the nations around us. Britain in the meanwhile is actually building high speed rail, but constantly trying to cut it down, and at the same time they are not connecting their net with Europe because of stupid immigration policies. Belgium has the slowest high speed rail ever. Netherlands and Germany can't seem to figure out basic East-West connections. We have long way to go in Europe to actual get high speed rail correct.

robertwt7 4y ago

I wish Australia also has this :(, we have different cards for different states lol. what a joke, also its very expensive!

fabian2k 4y ago

Apart from the significant cost savings for people that use local public transport a lot the biggest benefit is probably that it removes a lot of the unnecessary complexity around buying tickets for many people. The German public transport network is divided into many small providers with different tickets and rules. This can make it rather confusing and annoying at times.

taylorius 4y ago

I wish the UK would do something like this. Our rail prices are the stuff of nightmares.

fxde 4y ago

Let's see if this will have a noticeable impact on university enrollments. Personally, I know a few people who re-enrolled after finishing university, including one person who even got a PhD, solely to get the ticket for their full-time job. It would not surprise me if universities experience a significant drop in enrollment due to this issue, especially at larger universities. An article from 2019 estimates that at one university, up to 9k out of 36k students may enroll without any academic intention.

lytefm 4y ago
I guess it will have a small effect. There are more reasons for a „fake enrollment“ than just the ticket. - child support money - free public health insurance - private insurance is often also related to „kids being in education“ Especially if the kid under 25 just wants to travel around, play fortnight at home or work on the next big thing. My bachelor programme (maths + cs in a small German city) pretty much only exists due to that. Great student/tutor ratio because most only enroll for the student status (low fees, no public transport ticket).
dathinab 4y ago
> 9k out of 36k students may enroll without any academic intention. but this isn't just because of the "semester ticket" students get, at least where I live the ticket is the least relevant reason of multiple ones why someone might sign up for university. Other reasons include: - healthy insurance/tax, especially until you are 25(??) you can be health insured through your parents, even afterwards the health insurance flat rate can be nice in some situations. And the tax model of student side jobs is nice too, through with some long term drawbacks people tend to overlook - not being officially unemployed, when spending a year for yourself e.g. traveling the world - having an excuse for your family and similar when you have absolutely no idea what you want from live - forcing parents in broken families to pay child support longer - using healthy insurance and tax of students to (pre-) bootstrap a one man self employment company and try out various side jobs to find yourself - starting with the intend to study but then losing that intent due to you realizing that is not what you want to do and not finding a way forward for year or more - abusing BAföG - officially studing one topic "for fun, taxes, health, etc." while waiting for a spot in the study track you care for to open up, (that was a thing I have seen quite often) - study for fun for people which don't need to work and a bored (thats how sometimes 60+ year old people appear in as students). As a side note, in my experience most, nearly all times, when people sign up for a study track without the intention to get a Bachelor/Master they sign up for tracks which always have free "left over" spots each semester. On one hand because this makes it nearly guaranteed they get in, on the other hand because it would be pretty shitty if you prevent people which want to study from getting a spot when you have no intent to study.

msavio 4y ago

> But the Deutschlandticket is not the end of the story: to make it still more attractive, German Rail is also planning to introduce more modern and faster trains. According to the Federal Ministry of Transport, this will create almost 20,000 new seats on long-distance services. The mentioned trains are ICE long-distance trains. Exactly those that are not included in the ticket the article is about. It does not make sense to even mention them here, and is wrong to conclude that "it" gets more attractive.

MattRix 4y ago
It’s a very confusingly written sentence, but I believe the “it” is meant to refer to “German Rail” and not the Deutschlandticket.
gbear605 4y ago
The new ICE trains are still helpful for local transit because if non-Deutschlandticket trips switch from regional rail to ICE that will clear up seats on the regional rail lines for Deutschlandticket uses.
tmalsburg2 4y ago
We don't need faster trains in Germany. We need trains that are more or less on time. Punctuality is a complete disaster and probably the main reason why people hate taking the train in Germany. If you have a connection that requires changing to another train, the chance that you miss your connection is too damn high.
- kitkat_new 4y ago
  fast is important, too For instance, 1:30-2h by car takes 3h train + 1h cycling for me when the trains are on time.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > We need trains that are more or less on time. i keep seeing these kinds of comments. 10 years ago i made the mistake of crossing the whole of germany by train. was a complete waste of my time. since trains are basically a solved problem (see japan, china etc), i don't get why these issues still happen in developed nations.

lnsru 4y ago

I will buy this. Current ticket costs 165€ a month. My employer is forcing to come to the office 4 days a week. Living at the last train station I will get a seat in a train and can use my commute time as working time. By car it’s twice faster of course, but then commute time isn’t working time.

bilekas 4y ago

This is a great idea in general. Yeah for cost savings for sure but the convenience of actually only having to deal with 1 ticket system around the entire country is a game changer.

3rd3 4y ago

Sadly, this will likely not provide much incentives for infrastructure improvements. Local commuter trains around here have deteriorated substantially over the past decades. The trains have become dirty and unreliable. More passengers will only stress the infrastructure more, so it will become even less attractive. Maybe it would be wiser to spur the competition between various commuting alternatives such as shared cars and buses, and thereby putting pressure on the railway operators to improve their infrastructure, offering it at a more reasonable price and with more transparent pricing schemes.

f6v 4y ago
Berlin(the biggest city) is miserable in this regard. My former tram line(M4) used to be 50:50 with old and new trams. In the last year before I moved, they had almost 100% old trams in there. Same goes for S-bahn, even new carriages are not equipped to deal with the weather. I dreaded using them in summer. The city has an excellent network in terms of coverage, but the trains are outdated.
fundatus 4y ago
Regional trains in Germany are not run for-profit. For each route there is a public tender for subsidies every 10 years or so. Private companies that win these contracts have to fulfill whatever local authorities put into these tenders (like timetables, capacity of trains etc). So your suggestion simply wouldn't work. Instead, your local authorities must improve whatever they require from the companies (and then also increase the subsidy accordingly of course).
panick21_ 4y ago
Or maybe it would be wiser to actual invest in your infrastructure. Railways don't get magically more efficient just because the is competition from a bus. Investment is political not depending on competition.

w-m 4y ago

It’s a fantastic step forward, making commuting with public transport much more affordable for many. But another nice thing about the 9€ ticket was that it got rid of all other tickets for occasional users, too. If you’re using public transport just a few times each month, 49€ is too high, and you will still have to deal with 4x tickets short tickets, AB/BC/ABC zones, day tickets and whatnot. Which is unfortunate, as that’s annoying, and they have to keep the complicated ticket vending infrastructure in place as well.

alexanderchr 4y ago
Would be nice if it was complemented with a €2 hour ticket, a €5 day ticket and a €20 week ticket, then they could probably get rid of the other tickets.
- dathinab 4y ago
  Nice yes, but... Part of the reason why the 49€ ticket is that cheap (compared to a lot of other monthy more limited local tickets) is because you commit to it for a month. This ticket is meant to make abandoning cars easier for Germans and be also a nice pressure reduction for some of the people hit hardest by inflation (low income, can't afford a car anyway(1), but not (nearly) no income in which case the state pays your ticker anyway (oversimplified)). Providing a hour, day or week ticket would defeat that purpose. It's explicitly not meant to reduce cost for people which have a car and just from time to time buy a ticker or tourists (through it's still grate for tourists which tour multiple cities in Germany if they stay ~2 weeks even through they "lose" 2 weeks).
  - w-m 4y ago
    I disagree wholeheartedly. People who have a car should absolutely have cheaper and less complicated ticket options, so that they leave their car at home more often.
    - dathinab 4y ago
      well that is why some argue that buying the 49€ ticket should be mandatory for anyone owning a car. Funnily the people I know who say so are car owners which mostly use cars and hardly ever the train, but they are also rather well off.

_cenw 4y ago

I have a love-hate relationship with this. I love it conceptually and I think it's the right model, but it has a lot of problems. For one, people on unemployment benefits don't even have close to 49 Euros allocated to them for transport. They'll likely be overpaying for local trips and continue to not be able to afford long distance trips. And two, the infrastructure here is just not ready for more passengers. The 3 months where the 9-Euro ticket existed, public transport was unusable. I upgraded to long distance trains (which were deserted) several times to bypass the hours of delays and the overfilled trains (where masking mandates could not be upheld). I don't have a car and I didn't plan to ever have one (until now, maybe), so I fear my only mode of transport is going to be even more hellish than usual.

diffeomorphism 4y ago
> for one,... Obvious problem, so obviously gets addressed, but no reason to include all details in this short overview. TLDR: they pay much less. > infrastructure not ready. Agreed, but chicken/egg and time limited and basically free is very, very different than permanent and 49.
dathinab 4y ago
Handling of very low income situations is separate (and exists in all?/most? areas of Germany), and most areas have their own very low income ticket for much less then 49€. This ticket was never targeting income groups which are already get income related social benefits (through Germany could make a low-income/social version of this ticket in the future). > The 3 months where the 9-Euro ticket existed, This was a very unusual situation where there where a lot of dynamics making people take advantage of the ticket at least once in exactly 3 month. Some people did things they normally wouldn't have done because they felt they would else wise lose out. Additionally the month before that time many people did feel constrained and used that time to compensate for the month before. I wouldn't expect this to be a problem as the dynamics around it are very different. Not limited to 3 month, not that much cheaper then your normal monthly ticket (and especially more expensive then one or two full-day tickets), not hyped up that much, not the first time something like that was possible, etc. The 9€ ticket was a special event, the 49€ ticket is more an improvement of the daily live expenses and convenience. I expect many people to buy the 49€ ticket, I don't expect a massive increase in local transportation usage short term (but a constant slow incremental increase due to people slowly changing habits).

dav_Oz 4y ago

Don't expect German "Pünktlichkeit" on German railways, though.[0] The Austrian and especially the Swiss railroad systems are far superior. Since the "Bahnreform" of 1994 the infrastructure progressively deteriorated from the passenger's perspective. One hard fact: about 20% of the railroad network has been dismantled since 1994 (44.600km to 33.400km [1]). Way too much. Reasons for this are a confluence of excessive bureaucracy, brutal management style, powerful industry interests (think e.g. "Autobahn"), lobbying. Today's "Deutsche Bahn" as an entity is split into eight distinct divisions [2]; DB Schenker (global logistics and freight transport company) is by far the most profitable of the bunch and single-handedly lifts the whole DB group out of the red on the regular basis, it accounts for about 50% of the total revenue.[3] [0]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCmPLWZKd8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AGCmPLWZKd8 [1]https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/schienennetz/ https://www.allianz-pro-schiene.de/themen/infrastruktur/schi... [2]https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2021/en/group-management-report/db-group/organizational-structure/ https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2021/en/group-management-repor... [3]https://images.app.goo.gl/EwYJsvbHFxaWifbQ6 https://images.app.goo.gl/EwYJsvbHFxaWifbQ6

Haga 4y ago
Nonsense, Schenker is there to produce tax deductible losses on demand, the DB life's mainly from Central city area holdings sold off for development.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
konha 4y ago
> The Austrian and especially the Swiss railroad systems are far superior. At this point Switzerland regularly makes German trains wait at the border because they are delayed and would mess up their schedules.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

pjmlp 4y ago

The price reduction is very welcome, but they better work up that pontuality, specially in regards to missing connections.

photochemsyn 4y ago

As oil & gas prices blast off, it looks like importers (Germany and others) will be doing all they can to minimize domestic demand for fossil fuels: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60502451 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60502451 "Oil hits seven-year high but shares rebound on Russian war 24 Feb 2022" https://splash247.com/european-gas-prices-soar-following-damage-to-nord-stream-pipelines/ https://splash247.com/european-gas-prices-soar-following-dam... "European gas prices soar following damage to Nord Stream pipelines Sep 28 2022" Accelerating the transition off fossil fuels is good news, and better access to electrified public transit systems are right in line with that goal.

anonyfox 4y ago

The important point is not with rails, but with local public transport (s-bahn, metro, buses, streetcars, ...), and that the tariff zones are basically eliminated with that. iE in hamburg where I live, a monthly subscription costs around 120+€ per month, assuming you only need the "center" of the city area. If you live a bit more outside, or even in some adjacent village, you have to pay for every single tariff zone you pass through, this can _multiply_ the original costs. so this is a massive financial benefit for everyone who doesn't want to commute by car (gas is getting expensive, parking spots can cost 100€+ per month near work, ...). yes, sometimes it takes significantly longer to commute, but financially it totally makes sense now to NOT use a car for that. Having the option to travel by train into more distant targets for free is a cherry ontop of that. even better: you can use public transport in your destination city for free now! but for me, the single biggest benefit now is to not having to deal with these tariff zones at all, they are a huge mental energy drain. Would pay double the price just for the convenience of not having to think about this.

that_guy_iain 4y ago
In Berlin, the monthly ticket is 89 euros for the two main zones. It goes to 107 euros for all zones. Basically, halfs your monthly outgoings just for Berlin travel. Then add in the ability to travel it's looking really good. Can't wait for it to be available.
em-bee 4y ago
you can pay double: 236.40€ gets you 5 rings which is most of the whole area if i read the map correctly. the outer rings beyond that are some small regions or selected lines only anyways.

dunefox 4y ago

It's already been delayed to 1.5. and next year it's going to increase in price. Ridiculous.

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

They are going to make a lot of money with this. When NYC first rolled out the unlimited metrocards it was $50/m to travel anywhere in the NYC area by bus or subway. Suddenly all the places that people didn’t go because they didn’t want to spend the subway fare were now on equal footing. Fast forward twenty years and that same pass now costs $200/m and they say now they are going to start adding a transit fee to everyone’s income tax as well. Not nearly as good a deal. But somehow I think Germany will avoid that fate.

kybernetyk 4y ago

Sorry, but still not worth is. Public transport in Germany is a mess. I've been commuting with the Deutsche Bahn for over one year. Not one week where something didn't go wrong. (Train way too late, train not coming at all, train not stopping at destination, train stopping way before destination + transit bus). I'm so happy with having a car again.

Abimelex 4y ago

> The start date for the offer has yet to be finally fixed; currently it is set for 1 April 2023. That appears to be outdated or wrong information. The first date was supposed to be the 1st of January, but it has been pushed to the 1st of May since not all questions regarding the financials had been cleared.