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Millions snap up new Germany-wide public transit ticket

302 points by thm 4y ago

bleep_bloop 4y ago
Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  They were at one point, but capitalism said everything needs to make a profit.
  - PicassoCTs 4y ago
    The pyramid scheme grinds to an halt, if it does not. Everything goto join the MLM scheme, or those running the whole affair get a existential crisis.
    - HPsquared 4y ago
      Central banking and social security are the MLM schemes. Free markets, if we had them, would rebalance that kind of thing.
      - 411111111111111 4y ago
        Sure, but completely unrestricted free markets would also reintroduce slavery etc. to the modern world. Free markets are great at reducing inefficiencies in a world in which no participant decides to coordinate with other participants for profit. which obviously doesn't work, just like communism doesnt work at societal scales.
      - govolckurself 4y ago
        [dead]
- tfourb 4y ago
  It technically is in many places around Germany: The national railway infrastructure is owned by a government-owned entity, as is the main railway company. Many municipal public transport systems are also owned directly by the municipalities themselves, although there are also some semi-privatized systems and the national railway company also owns shares of municipal public transport systems in many major cities. Still, public ownership itself is not really sufficient to guarantee great public transport. In Germany, prevailing opinion is that public transport should break even or cost the public purse as little as possible. The effect is that many communities especially in rural and urban marginalized places are underserved by public transport and many smaller cities have been disconnected from the railway grid. In my view public transport should be both owned by the public and viewed as a true public good: similarly to basic education, healthcare, electricity and clean water, every citizen should have access to a decent level of service, no matter how cost efficient it would be.
  - okr 4y ago
    I agree. And to finance it, everyone should serve a year of their life for public services like that. So it does not look like, that we want public goods, but someone else but not me has to do the work. The tax burden is already so high.
    - qwytw 4y ago
      > The tax burden is already so high It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'.
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        >It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'. That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university. What worker productivity do you think society is loosing out on here? We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs. The labor they provide and experience they earn in the social system is far more valuable to society than the taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting tables in a restaurant or flipping burgers at McDs instead.
- thanatos519 4y ago
  Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.
  - BasedGroyper99 4y ago
    Why is it a public good? It only benefits the individuals who are travelling. If I take the train to visit my sister, I don't see how that is in the public's interest.
    - hannob 4y ago
      If you take the train and not the car, you cause a lot less externalities.
      - BasedGroyper99 4y ago
        It may be the case that I cause a lot less externalities, but I don't think that affects the definition of a public good. If I visited my friend by using a motorcycle, I'd cause less externalities too, but I don't think motorcycles are public goods. Same with scooters, e-bikes and normal bikes.
        werlrndkis 4y ago
        Because reality requires these things of us but we should minimize the impact. You’re just stringing words together to look smart; physical reality calls the shots. Your attempt to conjure some immutable truth in Anglo gibberish is banal
        yazaddaruvala 4y ago
        > but I don't think that affects the definition of a public good You happen to be misconstruing the two definitions of "public good": > a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization. > the benefit or well-being of the public. As such, something can be a "public good" without being "a benefit". [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZoHHbOutTeyKulMCLx-wDNoB7s9s0snQIw9ddzZtuuexc9E1n02IsBR7-FCyozph-WbudH4iCoJyrWqGsPnnQTFEfcwmJhIiZK2RFlue2F8IW8ZErtE%3D https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZoHHbOut...
- HPsquared 4y ago
  It depends on the quality of the government and administrators.
- timellis-smith 4y ago
  Theres a really interesting graph showing rail usage under both public and private ownership in GB. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png/700px-GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GB... I'll let you draw your own conclusions From this page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail
  - zimpenfish 4y ago
    Doesn't really cover a lot of things you'd want to know like price, satisfaction, reliability, etc. - all of which, I believe, are strongly negative compared with 30 years ago. Also doesn't tell you if it's long distance or commuter or both - which is an important distinction since many more people commute these days. In summary, it's a meaningless piece of chartjunk [edit: in the context of nationalisation vs privatisation, at least.]
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > price, satisfaction, reliability Do these matter if ridership is falling?
      - zimpenfish 4y ago
        > Do these matter if ridership is falling? If they're not a proximal cause, no. If they are, yes. But if ridership is going up even whilst prices are offensively high, satisfaction is at an all-time low, and reliability is a joke, then you can't assert that ridership is going up because of privatisation, it's more despite privatisation because people have few other options (cf London where driving is slow because of congestion, buses are often stuck in the same congestion, cycling is still sketchy in some parts, high prices have forced people out of walking distance, etc.)
    - revelio 4y ago
      Prices were so heavily subsidized they were ruining the government's finances, so that's not a valid metric to compare on because it wasn't sustainable. Even when being bailed out by massive amounts of tax (a regressive tax!), ridership was falling because the services sucked so hard that they couldn't compete with cars/trucks, despite the latter being a source of tax revenue, not a sink. Dunno about satisfaction but clearly, when people were truly dissatisfied they stayed away and now the primary causes of satisfaction and reliability problems are simply that the network is so in demand it's at capacity all the time, especially London commuter routers. Some of that is driven by the huge increases in population via immigration in the last 20 years but some of it is just that privatized services are better, so people use them more.
- lakomen 4y ago
  Well, the problem is, especially in Germany. If someone is a "Beamter" which can't be fired, has low income, there's no motivation to make a good job. It took me 3 months to get a Bescheinigung über Daueraufenthalt" . In theory, yes, transportation as well as communication should be owned by the public and available for free. A state that has 100 billion for buying weapons can afford that too. Buy Germany has deteriorated into a corrupt state and it still has a system endemic Nazi problem.
  - Escapado 4y ago
    I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you look in certain german states. But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and the people working there are entirely complacent with the state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church tax. When I went there the woman took my ID, started typing all my credentials into some interface of some government software for 10 minutes and then I could go. I don't even remember saying or hearing anything but "Hello", "ID Please" and "Bye". Why can I not do that online with my ID? Why did she have to type in all my information and not get that from some other government body? Why is she even typing it at all of it's all on the ID and that could be scanned as they are entirely standardized. What did I wait for two months for? When I talk to people who work for the government they tell me it's just the process and they simply don't question it. Sometimes some complain but there is little or nothing to be gained. And I think herein lies a bigger part of the problem. The structure does not reward or incentivise improvement. And so I would argue the problem is not one of being publicly or privately owned but about the structures that provide incentive to offer good service. And if there is none - regardless of the ownership model - then most likely it will fall flat. When you have privately owned monopolies you see a similar effect - they don't need to improve affairs, they just need to stay in power.
    - helge9210 4y ago
      > Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she even typing it at all Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will she do? If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this evil, since people are losing their means of earning salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since they have guaranteed employment. [Edit: typo]
- inglor_cz 4y ago
  In Europe, ownership of public transport is a pretty wild mix, and corporations that are publicly owned (or indirectly so) do not seem to work substantially better than private corporations that won public contracts. Aside from ideological arguments, can you support your opinion by pointing out examples that show that public ownership of means of transport improves customer experience? Because as someone who travels all the time with public transport, I definitely care about my customer experience. I spend quite a lot of time in trains and trams, and I want the time spent there not to be arduous. Notably, once you look at the related field of airlines, many publicly owned airlines were outright atrocious (looking at you, Alitalia). The traditional Czech airline, ČSA, was blown apart when the local social democrats appointed their useless crook of a colleague (a former minister who was looking for a nice job) to be the CEO, and he ran the airline to the ground with alarming speed.
- ivan_gammel 4y ago
  Ownership is no more than a collection of rights on what to do with the owned asset that is recognized by society. Regulate more and there won’t be much difference between private and public property, so ownership is less relevant than financial and incentive framework around public transportation system.
- hannob 4y ago
  It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport association has its own ticketing system, and they really like to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step in the right direction here, as it is one ticket for most (unfortunately with a few exceptions...) local public transport.
  - rippercushions 4y ago
    It's hard to overemphasize just how fucked up public transport ticketing in Germany is. As a simple example, you're a tourist in Cologne for a few days, what's the best ticket if you're planning to travel around the city and take a day trip to the nearby city of Wuppertal (but across the Verkehrsbund boundary, alas) to ride the famous monorail?
  - redprince 4y ago
    > It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. Well... sort of, but the incentives are broken. Simplified version of what has happened so far: In 1994 the Deutsche Bundesbahn was fused with the eastern Reichbahn and converted into the Deutsche Bahn AG. The German state is the owner of this company but the corporation is run as it were publicly traded. Getting it onto the stock market at least in part was a goal but the last attempt was scrapped after the 2007 financial crisis. The results of privatization were quite destructive though. In an attempt to make the Deutsche Bahn AG more profitable, cost cutting measures were implemented. The led to a sharp decline of rail transport service in rural areas. Furthermore expensive railway switches on main lines were dramatically reduced in numbers, hampering the ability to route traffic around disturbances on a track. The rest of the infrastructure is less maintained and more likely to be run until it wears out. People have accused the Deutsche Bahn AG that they are skimping on maintenance as a cost saving measure, because new construction to replace broken infrastructure will be paid by the state, but maintenance is not and thus cutting into the profits. The DB AG has been mismanaged for at least 30 years and it shows. If I had one wish, I'd really would like to see the DB AG aspiring to the punctuality and general quality of service offered by the Swiss Federal Railways.
- odiroot 4y ago
  How is it controversial? It many countries this a normal thing. Even in strongly capitalist UK a good few municipalities own their bus system.
- cromka 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - werlrndkis 4y ago
    Omnipresent habit to turn everything into the slightest personal attack is tiresome Social media is a dumpster fire of apes reciting memorized experience. Sorry not-sorry reality is not thinking of you first.
  - rnk 4y ago
    Haha - at the same time many libertarians / conservatives want there to be no infrastructure owned by the public! Another way we are at war with ourselves in the good old semi-public private USA.
  - Demonto 4y ago
    How is your comment connected to publicly owned local transport?
    - tfourb 4y ago
      Because public transport is owned by the public (or publicly owned entities) in many places outside the US. In Europe, it is the norm, not the exception, as is the case in many other places that have some sort of socialism/social democratic history.
      - konschubert 4y ago
        It's also owned by the public in most places of the US? How do you think the MTA or BART is financed?
  - kelnos 4y ago
    Huh? How is the idea that public transit should be publicly owned Americentric? A stereotypical/caricatured Americentric take on that would be to privatize everything.
    - 4y ago
- wunderland 4y ago
  Not controversial in the handful of countries where public transportation is efficient and ubiquitous. Americans are fed constant propaganda about how publicly owned anything isn’t possible, sold to them by the very people whose profits rely on this being true.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  That's one of those grand standing issues that many people like to focus on. The reality is the is a wild mix of private, public and everything in between out there in the world. And some system that are increasingly good have combinations of everything. Generally speaking making great announcements about how things will be and how an idealized version should look like often distracts from making the incremental improvements necessary to ever get to this point. To many time is wasted in politics arguing about fundamental principles and almost non about actually improving the situation of transit riders. If you have a shitty semi private system, just taking public ownership often doesn't improve service at all. Usually there are 10 things that would be easier to do and help people more. Once you actually have larger part of the public using it, then you have a better argument to make it public.
- dahwolf 4y ago
  Probably, although people would read too much into the word "owned" in that case. It's still going to be operated and supplied by private companies.
- Kalium 4y ago
  It's very plausible to have public transit systems be publicly owned by a mix of local, regional, and national bodies. Each of which might have their own local goals to incentivize with no regard for what a system on the other side of the country wants. Public ownership and good organization can be, and frequently are, two very different things.
- kccqzy 4y ago
  My controversial opinion: most public transport should be free at the point of use. Non-free public transport should be as rare as toll roads. Of course actually running a public transport system cannot be free, much like paving roads is not free. Pay for those with taxes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- switch007 4y ago
  People love making this remark still in the UK despite the Government having much more direct control of more rail services than compared to pre-COVID, and the rail network being in an absolutely dire state. Public != good, public != bad, private != good, private != bad
TekMol 4y ago
The problem is that in Germany, the city-to-city trains that can be used with this ticket do not have WIFI IIRC. Can anybody confirm this? Traveling time without WIFI is a much higher burden to me than normal traveling time, where I can work on my projects. I actually like working on the train. It is a nice environment. But without that possibility, long train rides are a chore to me. And it will be interesting to see how crowded the trains will be. Durig the 9-Euro ticket times, city-to-city trains were uncomfortably densely packed.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  Just use mobile data? That's what the trains are using anyway.
  - TekMol 4y ago
    In my experience, the mobile connection is very flaky on the trains in Germany. I would think the train can have a much more powerful antenna to talk to mobile towers and then relay that to the passangers. So that WIFI is better than mobile data.
    - pluijzer 4y ago
      In my experience network coverage in Germany is way below must other European countries I have visited. Some with a much lower inhabitant desisty like Finland.
  - iruoy 4y ago
    Apparently data reception in German trains is very low. This report[0] says it's 62-78% nationwide. Of the neighbouring alps countries Austria is 78-88% and Switzerland is 93-96%. [0]: https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/Reports-Certificates/202211_Mobile_networktest_DACH_2023_connect_umlaut.pdf https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/Reports-Certificate...
- _s 4y ago
  With 5G speeds and unlimited data* - do you even need WiFi? Not to mention most companies nowadays have clear policies of (not) connecting to free public wifi's or even working in public spaces where your screen may be visible. * Usually the first 50gb is max speed and then it drops to 25/25 etc - which is still really fast.
deleted 4y ago
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busymom0 4y ago
Can this have the potential of having the MoviePass type outcome? Also, wouldn’t this overcrowd public transit?
- 3D30497420 4y ago
  Certainly that's a risk, but I'd hope they've done some projections on it. I'm not all that worried that this will cause overcrowding since I'd wager many people who bought the first round of tickets are just transferring over their current local subscription to the national one. Both my wife and I did that for example. It is worth noting that this ticket is 10€ cheaper than our prior subscription, which I expect will result in a solid bit less revenue for the regional transit authorities. With a system that's already straining from under-investment, hopefully this doesn't compound already existing problems.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need more public transport users as quickly as possible. Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how road signs work would have to take care of spending further investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in car infrastructure.
  - cbmuser 4y ago
    > Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need more public transport users as quickly as possible. Unless the capacity of public transport grows as well, no. > Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how road signs work would have to take care of spending further investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in car infrastructure. Roads aren't just for cars but also trucks which are the backbone of German logistics.
    - illiac786 4y ago
      Previous poster obviously meant "overcrowding is the fastest / most efficient way to get more capacity", that was implicit yet obvious to me. You may agree or not with this point but answering beside the point is not helpful.
bahnkenner 4y ago
The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g., "Is my destination in zone 1, 2, 3 or 4 of this city, and what zone am I in now?"). You can usually buy monthly cards for an individual transit company, but what if you live in one region and work in another? You may have to buy two separate monthly tickets. It's a mess. With the new system, you just buy one monthly ticket, and you can ride on local transit anywhere in Germany. There's no more worrying about different ticketing systems, if city X is in transit region Y, and so on. The fact that the new monthly ticket is half the price of what a typical monthly transit ticket used to cost is just the icing on top of the cake. I should also mention that while this solves one problem with the transit system in Germany, there's another, much larger problem that is still unsolved: on-time performance is abysmal, after years of neglected maintenance. The Deutsche Bahn is not what it used to be. 0. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_der_Verkehrsverb%C3%BCnde_und_Tarifverb%C3%BCnde_in_Deutschland.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...
- 3D30497420 4y ago
  A good example of this complexity is Berlin. Many people have monthly passes for just A and B zones, which comprise the bulk of central Berlin. However, the new airport is just over the border in zone C, which requires an additional ticket. The transit authority knows this and will catch and fine people who neglected or forgot to buy a B to C ticket.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - patall 4y ago
    What is complex about the B/C border? That Hönow is B? Because else, it is literary the federal state border. A/B is the S-Bahn-Ring. Sure, three zones are not super simple and where zone C ends is somewhat arbitrary. But aside from that, it's the most logical and simple solution possible.
woodpanel 4y ago
As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying tickets across German transportation systems: I’ve been working on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue (by people like us - the E-Mail caste). Even the juggernaut Deutsche Bahn (they handle public transport in almost every municipality) couldn’t break through these structures (eg the city of Munich just couldn’t be pressured to comply with their ticketing schemes). In the end mandating it by the federal government was the only way. Although I’m curious who’s really benefiting from it: yes we solved the annoyances for the E-Mail caste, but the service quality itself will surely deteriorate by this measure.
- kelnos 4y ago
  Is that really true? The only people who need/want to regularly travel across local transit boundaries are tech people? That seems unlikely, especially nowadays.
  - woodpanel 4y ago
    Where did I write „tech-people“? Yes, all tech people are part of the E-Mail-Caste, but not all of said Caste are techies.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      Basically everyone uses email, and you said "people like us", so the poor communication here is on your end. Please elaborate if you want to be understood.
      - woodpanel 4y ago
        Fair point, I thought this term is more known, but then myself had a hard time to Google it In response to the criticism. But I think this might be a good start: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33521917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33521917
camillomiller 4y ago
Berlin reporting: this is huge for anyone taking public transport. Monthly ticket for the AB area alone was way above 80/€/month for the city only. This is 49 for everything anywhere in Germany except for high speed long distance trains, flixbuses and flixtrains (the latter are private entities)
- mqus 4y ago
  I thought the ticket was more like 63 Euros per Month, when paid yearly
  - camillomiller 4y ago
    That's for AB (66,90). But you have to compare it to the ABC yearly "Abo", as you will have access to all areas. That's 88€ per month if you pay the 1056 lump sum for the yearly version. Over 100€ if you pay monthly.
    - mqus 4y ago
      GP explicitly said AB, so I don't have to compare it to ABC imho.
zenlot 4y ago
Welcome to UK, where 40-55mins trains from neighbouring cities to London costs 50-110£ for a return journey and 6k+ for a yearly ticket. We apologize for a delay in your journey, this is due to staff shortage.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  We also have our share of delays. It is so bad, that there are excuse generator websites with what the DB usually uses, or people that collect them. http://privatundfun.siteboard.org/t78f2005-Ausreden-Katalog-der-Deutschen-Bahn-die-Besten.html http://privatundfun.siteboard.org/t78f2005-Ausreden-Katalog-...
- sph 4y ago
  Imagine my surprise coming from Italy, where our trains are famously dirty and late, and taking my first train in the UK. Trains are cleaner and somewhat less delayed, but bloody hell, they are not worth the price. For £110 I reckon you can go Milan–Naples (800 km, 4h30) in high speed 1st class train, which do not even exist in Britain. The wonders of privatisation, innit?
  - switch007 4y ago
    > The wonders of privatisation, innit? Many rail services in the UK are effectively not private now, and they're even worse, because when a right-wing government that hates public transport takes control, all hell breaks loose. We have a very complicated rail network which is bad for many reasons other than "private" or "public"
- switch007 4y ago
  > this is due to staff shortage. But also managed decline of the railway by the Government
admax88qqq 4y ago
We need Uber for Public Transit. Enter you destination and it tells you which bus to get on in real time, when to transfer and deducts payment automatically at the end of your trip. The Uber experience on transit would make lots never riders and occasional riders use transit more often. The mental load is a lot of some people at the end of the day, driving is just easier.
- asdajksah2123 4y ago
  Google Maps does this for you. And nearly every local provider tends to have apps with end to end directions these days.
  - milesskorpen 4y ago
    GM tells you the route, it doesn't let you pay for it all at once at the end of the trip.
    - kersplody 4y ago
      Nor does GM understand ticketing nuances or optimized route costs. (discount cards, demand-based pricing). This is a big problem in cities without integrated fare systems. In many places, 3rd party planner apps are a must.
      - iudqnolq 4y ago
        The solution to that is to get rid of the nuance and optimization opportunities and turn them into a small across-the-board discount. Far fairer. Google Maps does offer "Buy Ticket" buttons for a number of agencies that have opened up their systems. They're far from universal coverage. But a new Uber for Transit would snap up the APIs Google has worked to open up and then be in the same position.
    - asdff 4y ago
      Because its not the interface on your phone to do that. On iPhone at least, you have apple wallet and transit agency cards often interface through those means. That's a much better system as you can access it when your phone is dead, unlike something that might be bounded behind google maps.
bitL 4y ago
While in Germany last summer, I used the 9 EUR ticket and regional trains to go from Frankfurt to Bavarian Alps. The trains were packed, one could not move there and it felt more like being in India than in Germany. I am wondering if that's going to be a norm in the future.
- konschubert 4y ago
  No, not going to be the norm. Because a) 49 >> 9 b) the 9 Euro ticket was a one-time novelty
  - ragebol 4y ago
    And Frankfurt -> Alps is not regional transport, but inter-city at least. So faster option would have been ICE and going 250km/h. More expensive though, for sure. And a seat reservation for a few euros.
    - bitL 4y ago
      150 EUR vs 9 EUR and one still had to use slow regional trains once reaching Ulm so it was not that much different time-wise to justify much higher cost. Regional Express trains I used from Frankfurt to Ulm are also pretty fast (not ICE level, but not much time lost either).
  - bitL 4y ago
    49 >> 9 but 49 << monthly ticket at any regional transportation company so one could assume most people will own it and trains will be packed again.
- golol 4y ago
  It is a good thing if people actually fill up the trains and get value out of them. While empty trains are comfortable, they are an inefficiency. The 9€ ticket showed that people would really like to be more mobile ´if they could afford it. Making this possible creates value for society.
nologic01 4y ago
Rare piece of good news. Not so much the particulars (projects might fail for any number of reasons) but the indication that there is appetite for systemic change.
FooBarWidget 4y ago
The Netherlands also has something similar: a country-wide public transit card. You put money on the card and then you can use it for all forms of public transport, checking in and out using that card. When it was introduced there was a lot of skepticism about whether it's a good thing, but now 10-15 years later I can't imagine not having it. Likewise, there's a country-wide public transit planner, 9292.nl. It works across all public transit companies. Seeing how fractured other countries' public transit are, it's amazing how 9292 came to be. I have no idea why Dutch public transit companies decided to work together to make it possible.
- yurishimo 4y ago
  We do have a single transit card, but the cost is outrageous imo. To travel 25km from Weert to Eindhoven in the south costs €6.70 one way during "rush hour". So to commute to work, I need to pay €13.40 per day, not included the bus transfer from the central station to my office (another few euros). Now before you mention it, yes I know employers have to pay for transportation to and from work, but that doesn't solve the problem for self employed people or visitors/tourists or occasional travelers. A few weeks ago, my wife and I wanted to go to Den Bosch to see some friends. It was cheaper and faster to drive from the edge of Limburg to Den Bosch & pay for fuel/parking than it was to take the train from our local station (for 2 people). I can live with the extra time required, but the cost was too much. If the government wants to incentivize more train travel, I shouldn't need to pay for than the cost of a many eurozone plane tickets to travel from Eindhoven to Amsterdam by train.
meghan_rain 4y ago
> and help us achieve our climate goals There are 90 million Germans. Even if they all stopped doing all non-work-related travels immediately, it wouldn't push the needle thanks to China and India.
- mahathu 4y ago
  So they should just shrug and do nothing then? Spalter
  - meghan_rain 4y ago
    They should reduce importing cheap plastic shit from polluting countries.
- willio58 4y ago
  I'm always confused by this. Climate change is inherently a global issue. It will take progress by _every_ country, not just those with the highest populations. Blaming China and India does no good to help the planet. We should instead push forward progress wherever we can get it and encourage technological progress, market changes, and regulation in this area. People in India and China hate pollution just as much as the rest of us, they've just been forced by their governments to endure it for the sake of growth. India last year banned single-use plastics. Few other countries have made those sorts of sweeping regulations.
lispm 4y ago
Nice features here in Hamburg: Subscription tickets for Hamburg which cost more than 49€ are now automatically reduced to 49€ and are changed to a Deutschlandticket. Employer subsidized Deutschlandtickets can be reduced upto 50% for the employee. Kids from low-income families get the Deutschlandticket for free. Students can upgrade their public transport ticket for monthly 18 Euros... School children pay 19 Euros monthly for the Deutschlandticket. :-)
- ipaddr 4y ago
  No senior discounts? How are older people viewed in Germany?
  - yarg 4y ago
    At that price point, does it even matter?
    - wheels 4y ago
      I've been confused in the last couple of threads related to this topic how responses like yours exist. Trying to be constructive, I'm going to float a theory: you live in Silicon Valley and that doesn't seem like much money? For a German pensioner, in many cases, this would represent more than 5% of post-rent living costs. For my girlfriend, a manager of a team of 16 people (in non-tech in Germany) it's more than 5% of her post-taxes, post-rent income. €49/month is not trivial for a lot of working or retired Germans. GDP per capita in Germany is €46k/year, and after taxes and insurance (and rent! and that more than half of Germans that make less than that), €49/month is not a pittance. These tickets are generally aimed at working class Germans, which often make 10-20% of a normal Silicon Valley salary.
      - yarg 4y ago
        > I'm going to float a theory: you live in Silicon Valley and that doesn't seem like much money? I'm a suicidal burn out trying to drag my mind back from oblivion, I sure as shit am not on silicon valley money. Also: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Your argument's a straw man, regardless of the fact that you're "trying to be constructive". (And to be honest, the way you prefaced that statement had the feeling of "no offence, but...", it's a poor rhetorical practice.) Germany has a long history of charging things at damned near administrative costs, 5% on transport just isn't a lot of money. And also, 5% of "post-rent living costs"? What's the percentage of overall income? Half of that? So low that your argument holds very little water.
willio58 4y ago
As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries and their public transport (among other things cough health care cough gun control). It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is one state at a time, and even then you see projects like California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile those who live in red or purple states will just be left behind as always because of how intensely politics has carved a divide between people and led to so many unfounded lies being propagated to their citizens. All that to say, good on Germany. Now U.S., get your shit together.
- water554 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - willio58 4y ago
    https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-make-us-safer-science-suggests-no/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-m... https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/1996-national-firearms-agreement.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/199... To be honest, I don't really care if you have a pistol or a shotgun even. I don't want assault rifles to be easily accessible by people who want to murder children, LTBTQ people, or whoever else is deemed each week to deserve a mass murder. I say ban all guns, or at least the guns that are designed to murder mass amounts of people.
    - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
      Evil will always exist. You can't take evil out of humanity. Many places thought they could and never succeeded (e.g. communism thought they could somehow overrule mankind's tendency towards greed) Removing guns from good people will only ensure good people will be attacked by evil people, whether inside or outside of your desired utopia.
      - willio58 4y ago
rebyn 4y ago
I got the Deutschlandticket for May and am tempted to travel from Berlin to Stralsund. Using RE/RB for this journeh takes more or less three hours without any train change (so not having to deal with the possible delay(s) and missing connecting rides), however I do hope the operator supports reserving a seat in advance with this subscription, cause otherwise showing up at the station not knowing for sure I'd have a seat would deter me from using this offer and instead just book ICE/IC (if any).
- mqus 4y ago
  reserving seats in rb/re trains? Never heard of it.
- generationP 4y ago
  Very few regional trains allow for reservation. See https://www.bahn.de/angebot/zusatzticket/sitzplatzreservierung/sitzplatzreservierung-einzeln-nv https://www.bahn.de/angebot/zusatzticket/sitzplatzreservieru...
snvzz 4y ago
Public, thus paid by everybody through taxes. Yet, for some reason, it can only be taken advantage of by people who can afford to pay the ticket. Nevermind the fact having the ticket system in the first place does cost money.
- EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
  Agreed. This is actually a "why public systems fail" critique approaching from the left -- we assume systems need a cost to function correctly. For something like transit, collecting fares involves: 1) Systems and equipment to issue and collect fares -- boxes, kiosks, scanners, currency handling, staff to collect and deposit currency, arrangements with payment providers, educational materials about paying fares, websites with instructions on how to pay fares (often in multiple languages) 2) Systems to enforce fare payment -- humans, typically, to police the fares 3) Systems to analyze fare rates -- are fares too low, too high, are they being paid at the correct rates, do we need to publish new content on how much fares are changing this year 4) Queues to pay fares -- entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access 5) Systems to ensure everyone has access -- either fares price out the poorest, or we provide means for the poor to get reduced and free fares. Provide systems for workers to get fares subsidized through their workplaces. These systems are really inefficient. I mean, they might be run efficiently, but their existence is itself an inefficiency. If we believe transit is useful and valuable, we could simply pay for it once in taxes. Cutting out all the fare maintenance systems would save a huge amount of money, which could be spent on maintenance, comfort, cleaning, additional routes, etc. and the experience would be much nicer (hop on/hop off whenever you need).
  - lispm 4y ago
    > entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access In Hamburg, where I live, there is nothing like that.
    - EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
      Hamburg's busses don't have coin boxes or sell tickets/fares? You don't have any mechanism that requires swiping a card, tapping a device, showing a card/ticket to an operator, or otherwise proving you have, in fact, purchased a fare? In Seattle, we tap our cards on something that looks like this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/06/28/dont-tap-orca-here/ https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/06/28/dont-tap-orca-here... It's pretty quick, but on the busiest bus routes it slows things down. Edit: Reading up, it looks like they don't really have those things, and rely on a combination of very infrequent inspectors (which do slow things and cost money) and the honor system.
wkat4242 4y ago
Hm nice, here in Barcelona we have a similar deal for 20 euro, but it only covers the metro area. Still, it's rare for me to go further away and it wouldn't make sense to pay 50 bucks a month for that. And if I go to another major city I would use a high speed train which wouldn't be included anyway. So 20 a month for all city travel is pretty ideal here, especially with Spain's low wages.
partiallypro 4y ago
I am spending 2 months in Germany starting in August, if I'm not mistaken this will also cover local S-Bahn/U-Bahn trains and DB routes, but will not cover ICE trains. Is this correct?
- asnyder 4y ago
  Yes, everything but ICE, unless your train is 20 minutes delayed, otherwise you can split things up via regional routes. Can I use an ICE/IC train with the Deutschland-Ticket if I know I will reach the destination with a considerable delay? Yes, you have the right to do so according to statutory passenger rights if the local train has an expected delay of at least 20 minutes. To travel by long-distance train, you must first buy a ticket. The travel costs will then be reimbursed subsequently upon request by the railway company with which you travel, e.g. by the passenger rights service centre of Deutsche Bahn.
dehrmann 4y ago
Something I really appreciate in Taiwan is a single card works for all transit. What I found cool in Sydney was metro turnstiles would read contactless credit cards. And I'm shocked and thrilled that the Bay Area consolidated on one system. The US is pretty split up and doesn't use trains outside the NE corridor, so it's not as useful, but it'd be nice if congress would start work on unifying transit payments across the country over the next decade. Also unifying car toll payments. These balkanized systems are just silly.
- xputer 4y ago
  Doesn't Kaohsiung have it's own card system?
  - dehrmann 4y ago
    Supposedly EasyCard and iPass both work all over the country now.
Gud 4y ago
Best system is in Luxembourg- it’s completely free of charge.
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iggldiggl 4y ago
While the thing does sell, they can only already claim "millions" because existing holders of season tickets are being converted either automatically or manually, so the whole news release is also a bit of the usual PR exaggeration.

302 points by thm 4y ago

bleep_bloop 4y ago

Controversial opinion: Public transport should be publicly owned.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago
They were at one point, but capitalism said everything needs to make a profit.
- PicassoCTs 4y ago
  The pyramid scheme grinds to an halt, if it does not. Everything goto join the MLM scheme, or those running the whole affair get a existential crisis.
  - HPsquared 4y ago
    Central banking and social security are the MLM schemes. Free markets, if we had them, would rebalance that kind of thing.
    - 411111111111111 4y ago
      Sure, but completely unrestricted free markets would also reintroduce slavery etc. to the modern world. Free markets are great at reducing inefficiencies in a world in which no participant decides to coordinate with other participants for profit. which obviously doesn't work, just like communism doesnt work at societal scales.
    - govolckurself 4y ago
      [dead]
tfourb 4y ago
It technically is in many places around Germany: The national railway infrastructure is owned by a government-owned entity, as is the main railway company. Many municipal public transport systems are also owned directly by the municipalities themselves, although there are also some semi-privatized systems and the national railway company also owns shares of municipal public transport systems in many major cities. Still, public ownership itself is not really sufficient to guarantee great public transport. In Germany, prevailing opinion is that public transport should break even or cost the public purse as little as possible. The effect is that many communities especially in rural and urban marginalized places are underserved by public transport and many smaller cities have been disconnected from the railway grid. In my view public transport should be both owned by the public and viewed as a true public good: similarly to basic education, healthcare, electricity and clean water, every citizen should have access to a decent level of service, no matter how cost efficient it would be.
- okr 4y ago
  I agree. And to finance it, everyone should serve a year of their life for public services like that. So it does not look like, that we want public goods, but someone else but not me has to do the work. The tax burden is already so high.
  - qwytw 4y ago
    > The tax burden is already so high It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'.
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      >It will only get higher if we try to intentionally decrease worker productivity by forcing them to 'serve a year of their life for public services'. That's blatantly false. It works in Austria quite well. The healthcare and social service systems would not be able to function without the mandatory and voluntary unpaid 9 months work of the 17 - 19 year olds before they hit off for university. What worker productivity do you think society is loosing out on here? We're talking about 17-19 year olds, not experienced workers who need to be pulled away from their well paying jobs. The labor they provide and experience they earn in the social system is far more valuable to society than the taxes they would pay doing some minimum wage part time job waiting tables in a restaurant or flipping burgers at McDs instead.
thanatos519 4y ago
Even more: Public transport is a public good which should be funded by fossil fuel taxes and provided to users without cost.
- BasedGroyper99 4y ago
  Why is it a public good? It only benefits the individuals who are travelling. If I take the train to visit my sister, I don't see how that is in the public's interest.
  - hannob 4y ago
    If you take the train and not the car, you cause a lot less externalities.
    - BasedGroyper99 4y ago
      It may be the case that I cause a lot less externalities, but I don't think that affects the definition of a public good. If I visited my friend by using a motorcycle, I'd cause less externalities too, but I don't think motorcycles are public goods. Same with scooters, e-bikes and normal bikes.
      - werlrndkis 4y ago
        Because reality requires these things of us but we should minimize the impact. You’re just stringing words together to look smart; physical reality calls the shots. Your attempt to conjure some immutable truth in Anglo gibberish is banal
      - yazaddaruvala 4y ago
        > but I don't think that affects the definition of a public good You happen to be misconstruing the two definitions of "public good": > a commodity or service that is provided without profit to all members of a society, either by the government or a private individual or organization. > the benefit or well-being of the public. As such, something can be a "public good" without being "a benefit". [0] https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZoHHbOutTeyKulMCLx-wDNoB7s9s0snQIw9ddzZtuuexc9E1n02IsBR7-FCyozph-WbudH4iCoJyrWqGsPnnQTFEfcwmJhIiZK2RFlue2F8IW8ZErtE%3D https://www.google.com/search?q=public+goods&si=AMnBZoHHbOut...
HPsquared 4y ago
It depends on the quality of the government and administrators.
timellis-smith 4y ago
Theres a really interesting graph showing rail usage under both public and private ownership in GB. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png/700px-GBR_rail_passengers_by_year_1830-2015.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/15/GB... I'll let you draw your own conclusions From this page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail
- zimpenfish 4y ago
  Doesn't really cover a lot of things you'd want to know like price, satisfaction, reliability, etc. - all of which, I believe, are strongly negative compared with 30 years ago. Also doesn't tell you if it's long distance or commuter or both - which is an important distinction since many more people commute these days. In summary, it's a meaningless piece of chartjunk [edit: in the context of nationalisation vs privatisation, at least.]
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > price, satisfaction, reliability Do these matter if ridership is falling?
    - zimpenfish 4y ago
      > Do these matter if ridership is falling? If they're not a proximal cause, no. If they are, yes. But if ridership is going up even whilst prices are offensively high, satisfaction is at an all-time low, and reliability is a joke, then you can't assert that ridership is going up because of privatisation, it's more despite privatisation because people have few other options (cf London where driving is slow because of congestion, buses are often stuck in the same congestion, cycling is still sketchy in some parts, high prices have forced people out of walking distance, etc.)
  - revelio 4y ago
    Prices were so heavily subsidized they were ruining the government's finances, so that's not a valid metric to compare on because it wasn't sustainable. Even when being bailed out by massive amounts of tax (a regressive tax!), ridership was falling because the services sucked so hard that they couldn't compete with cars/trucks, despite the latter being a source of tax revenue, not a sink. Dunno about satisfaction but clearly, when people were truly dissatisfied they stayed away and now the primary causes of satisfaction and reliability problems are simply that the network is so in demand it's at capacity all the time, especially London commuter routers. Some of that is driven by the huge increases in population via immigration in the last 20 years but some of it is just that privatized services are better, so people use them more.
lakomen 4y ago
Well, the problem is, especially in Germany. If someone is a "Beamter" which can't be fired, has low income, there's no motivation to make a good job. It took me 3 months to get a Bescheinigung über Daueraufenthalt" . In theory, yes, transportation as well as communication should be owned by the public and available for free. A state that has 100 billion for buying weapons can afford that too. Buy Germany has deteriorated into a corrupt state and it still has a system endemic Nazi problem.
- Escapado 4y ago
  I won't dispute that there is corruption and that there are still Nazis and right wing forces around - especially if you look in certain german states. But if I am completely honest lots of government agencies and the people working there are entirely complacent with the state of bureaucracy because they don't feel like they can or need to change this sorry state of affairs. I had to wait more than two months to get an appointment to be able to formally leave the christian church to avoid paying church tax. When I went there the woman took my ID, started typing all my credentials into some interface of some government software for 10 minutes and then I could go. I don't even remember saying or hearing anything but "Hello", "ID Please" and "Bye". Why can I not do that online with my ID? Why did she have to type in all my information and not get that from some other government body? Why is she even typing it at all of it's all on the ID and that could be scanned as they are entirely standardized. What did I wait for two months for? When I talk to people who work for the government they tell me it's just the process and they simply don't question it. Sometimes some complain but there is little or nothing to be gained. And I think herein lies a bigger part of the problem. The structure does not reward or incentivise improvement. And so I would argue the problem is not one of being publicly or privately owned but about the structures that provide incentive to offer good service. And if there is none - regardless of the ownership model - then most likely it will fall flat. When you have privately owned monopolies you see a similar effect - they don't need to improve affairs, they just need to stay in power.
  - helge9210 4y ago
    > Why can I not do that online with my ID? > Why is she even typing it at all Social function of work. If you do it yourself, what will she do? If you come up with a solution freeing hundreds of people doing some monkey jobs some in Germany will consider this evil, since people are losing their means of earning salary. This is more difficult with the officials, since they have guaranteed employment. [Edit: typo]
inglor_cz 4y ago
In Europe, ownership of public transport is a pretty wild mix, and corporations that are publicly owned (or indirectly so) do not seem to work substantially better than private corporations that won public contracts. Aside from ideological arguments, can you support your opinion by pointing out examples that show that public ownership of means of transport improves customer experience? Because as someone who travels all the time with public transport, I definitely care about my customer experience. I spend quite a lot of time in trains and trams, and I want the time spent there not to be arduous. Notably, once you look at the related field of airlines, many publicly owned airlines were outright atrocious (looking at you, Alitalia). The traditional Czech airline, ČSA, was blown apart when the local social democrats appointed their useless crook of a colleague (a former minister who was looking for a nice job) to be the CEO, and he ran the airline to the ground with alarming speed.
ivan_gammel 4y ago
Ownership is no more than a collection of rights on what to do with the owned asset that is recognized by society. Regulate more and there won’t be much difference between private and public property, so ownership is less relevant than financial and incentive framework around public transportation system.
hannob 4y ago
It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. The problems lie elsewhere. IMHO there are two major problems with public transport in Germany. One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused. The second is complexity. Each local transport association has its own ticketing system, and they really like to make them complicated. The 49 euro ticket is a step in the right direction here, as it is one ticket for most (unfortunately with a few exceptions...) local public transport.
- rippercushions 4y ago
  It's hard to overemphasize just how fucked up public transport ticketing in Germany is. As a simple example, you're a tourist in Cologne for a few days, what's the best ticket if you're planning to travel around the city and take a day trip to the nearby city of Wuppertal (but across the Verkehrsbund boundary, alas) to ride the famous monorail?
- redprince 4y ago
  > It's not really controversial in Germany, and largely the case. Well... sort of, but the incentives are broken. Simplified version of what has happened so far: In 1994 the Deutsche Bundesbahn was fused with the eastern Reichbahn and converted into the Deutsche Bahn AG. The German state is the owner of this company but the corporation is run as it were publicly traded. Getting it onto the stock market at least in part was a goal but the last attempt was scrapped after the 2007 financial crisis. The results of privatization were quite destructive though. In an attempt to make the Deutsche Bahn AG more profitable, cost cutting measures were implemented. The led to a sharp decline of rail transport service in rural areas. Furthermore expensive railway switches on main lines were dramatically reduced in numbers, hampering the ability to route traffic around disturbances on a track. The rest of the infrastructure is less maintained and more likely to be run until it wears out. People have accused the Deutsche Bahn AG that they are skimping on maintenance as a cost saving measure, because new construction to replace broken infrastructure will be paid by the state, but maintenance is not and thus cutting into the profits. The DB AG has been mismanaged for at least 30 years and it shows. If I had one wish, I'd really would like to see the DB AG aspiring to the punctuality and general quality of service offered by the Swiss Federal Railways.
odiroot 4y ago
How is it controversial? It many countries this a normal thing. Even in strongly capitalist UK a good few municipalities own their bus system.
cromka 4y ago
[flagged]
- werlrndkis 4y ago
  Omnipresent habit to turn everything into the slightest personal attack is tiresome Social media is a dumpster fire of apes reciting memorized experience. Sorry not-sorry reality is not thinking of you first.
- rnk 4y ago
  Haha - at the same time many libertarians / conservatives want there to be no infrastructure owned by the public! Another way we are at war with ourselves in the good old semi-public private USA.
- Demonto 4y ago
  How is your comment connected to publicly owned local transport?
  - tfourb 4y ago
    Because public transport is owned by the public (or publicly owned entities) in many places outside the US. In Europe, it is the norm, not the exception, as is the case in many other places that have some sort of socialism/social democratic history.
    - konschubert 4y ago
      It's also owned by the public in most places of the US? How do you think the MTA or BART is financed?
- kelnos 4y ago
  Huh? How is the idea that public transit should be publicly owned Americentric? A stereotypical/caricatured Americentric take on that would be to privatize everything.
  - 4y ago
wunderland 4y ago
Not controversial in the handful of countries where public transportation is efficient and ubiquitous. Americans are fed constant propaganda about how publicly owned anything isn’t possible, sold to them by the very people whose profits rely on this being true.
panick21_ 4y ago
That's one of those grand standing issues that many people like to focus on. The reality is the is a wild mix of private, public and everything in between out there in the world. And some system that are increasingly good have combinations of everything. Generally speaking making great announcements about how things will be and how an idealized version should look like often distracts from making the incremental improvements necessary to ever get to this point. To many time is wasted in politics arguing about fundamental principles and almost non about actually improving the situation of transit riders. If you have a shitty semi private system, just taking public ownership often doesn't improve service at all. Usually there are 10 things that would be easier to do and help people more. Once you actually have larger part of the public using it, then you have a better argument to make it public.
dahwolf 4y ago
Probably, although people would read too much into the word "owned" in that case. It's still going to be operated and supplied by private companies.
Kalium 4y ago
It's very plausible to have public transit systems be publicly owned by a mix of local, regional, and national bodies. Each of which might have their own local goals to incentivize with no regard for what a system on the other side of the country wants. Public ownership and good organization can be, and frequently are, two very different things.
kccqzy 4y ago
My controversial opinion: most public transport should be free at the point of use. Non-free public transport should be as rare as toll roads. Of course actually running a public transport system cannot be free, much like paving roads is not free. Pay for those with taxes.
deleted 4y ago
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switch007 4y ago
People love making this remark still in the UK despite the Government having much more direct control of more rail services than compared to pre-COVID, and the rail network being in an absolutely dire state. Public != good, public != bad, private != good, private != bad

TekMol 4y ago

The problem is that in Germany, the city-to-city trains that can be used with this ticket do not have WIFI IIRC. Can anybody confirm this? Traveling time without WIFI is a much higher burden to me than normal traveling time, where I can work on my projects. I actually like working on the train. It is a nice environment. But without that possibility, long train rides are a chore to me. And it will be interesting to see how crowded the trains will be. Durig the 9-Euro ticket times, city-to-city trains were uncomfortably densely packed.

throwaway22032 4y ago
Just use mobile data? That's what the trains are using anyway.
- TekMol 4y ago
  In my experience, the mobile connection is very flaky on the trains in Germany. I would think the train can have a much more powerful antenna to talk to mobile towers and then relay that to the passangers. So that WIFI is better than mobile data.
  - pluijzer 4y ago
    In my experience network coverage in Germany is way below must other European countries I have visited. Some with a much lower inhabitant desisty like Finland.
- iruoy 4y ago
  Apparently data reception in German trains is very low. This report[0] says it's 62-78% nationwide. Of the neighbouring alps countries Austria is 78-88% and Switzerland is 93-96%. [0]: https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/Reports-Certificates/202211_Mobile_networktest_DACH_2023_connect_umlaut.pdf https://www.umlaut.com/uploads/documents/Reports-Certificate...
_s 4y ago
With 5G speeds and unlimited data* - do you even need WiFi? Not to mention most companies nowadays have clear policies of (not) connecting to free public wifi's or even working in public spaces where your screen may be visible. * Usually the first 50gb is max speed and then it drops to 25/25 etc - which is still really fast.

deleted 4y ago

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busymom0 4y ago

Can this have the potential of having the MoviePass type outcome? Also, wouldn’t this overcrowd public transit?

3D30497420 4y ago
Certainly that's a risk, but I'd hope they've done some projections on it. I'm not all that worried that this will cause overcrowding since I'd wager many people who bought the first round of tickets are just transferring over their current local subscription to the national one. Both my wife and I did that for example. It is worth noting that this ticket is 10€ cheaper than our prior subscription, which I expect will result in a solid bit less revenue for the regional transit authorities. With a system that's already straining from under-investment, hopefully this doesn't compound already existing problems.
solarkraft 4y ago
Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need more public transport users as quickly as possible. Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how road signs work would have to take care of spending further investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in car infrastructure.
- cbmuser 4y ago
  > Overcrowding is the best thing that could happen, we need more public transport users as quickly as possible. Unless the capacity of public transport grows as well, no. > Then, of course, the guy in charge who doesn't know how road signs work would have to take care of spending further investments, which is probably going to accidentally land in car infrastructure. Roads aren't just for cars but also trucks which are the backbone of German logistics.
  - illiac786 4y ago
    Previous poster obviously meant "overcrowding is the fastest / most efficient way to get more capacity", that was implicit yet obvious to me. You may agree or not with this point but answering beside the point is not helpful.

bahnkenner 4y ago

The biggest advantage of the new Germany-wide ticket is not the price, but rather that it simplifies things. This is a map of German public transit companies: [0]. I've heard the current fractured system be compared to the Holy Roman Empire. Every little region has its own ticketing system. If you arrive in a new city, you have to figure out how to buy local transit tickets, often with quite complicated rules (e.g., "Is my destination in zone 1, 2, 3 or 4 of this city, and what zone am I in now?"). You can usually buy monthly cards for an individual transit company, but what if you live in one region and work in another? You may have to buy two separate monthly tickets. It's a mess. With the new system, you just buy one monthly ticket, and you can ride on local transit anywhere in Germany. There's no more worrying about different ticketing systems, if city X is in transit region Y, and so on. The fact that the new monthly ticket is half the price of what a typical monthly transit ticket used to cost is just the icing on top of the cake. I should also mention that while this solves one problem with the transit system in Germany, there's another, much larger problem that is still unsolved: on-time performance is abysmal, after years of neglected maintenance. The Deutsche Bahn is not what it used to be. 0. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_der_Verkehrsverb%C3%BCnde_und_Tarifverb%C3%BCnde_in_Deutschland.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...

3D30497420 4y ago
A good example of this complexity is Berlin. Many people have monthly passes for just A and B zones, which comprise the bulk of central Berlin. However, the new airport is just over the border in zone C, which requires an additional ticket. The transit authority knows this and will catch and fine people who neglected or forgot to buy a B to C ticket.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- patall 4y ago
  What is complex about the B/C border? That Hönow is B? Because else, it is literary the federal state border. A/B is the S-Bahn-Ring. Sure, three zones are not super simple and where zone C ends is somewhat arbitrary. But aside from that, it's the most logical and simple solution possible.

woodpanel 4y ago

As some comments here mention uncomfortable means of buying tickets across German transportation systems: I’ve been working on multiple software projects that tried to solve it and I can tell you that the reason is not sinister but rather that each system is funded locally. Which means it is subsidized locally and the need to cross those boundaries was always a luxury issue (by people like us - the E-Mail caste). Even the juggernaut Deutsche Bahn (they handle public transport in almost every municipality) couldn’t break through these structures (eg the city of Munich just couldn’t be pressured to comply with their ticketing schemes). In the end mandating it by the federal government was the only way. Although I’m curious who’s really benefiting from it: yes we solved the annoyances for the E-Mail caste, but the service quality itself will surely deteriorate by this measure.

kelnos 4y ago
Is that really true? The only people who need/want to regularly travel across local transit boundaries are tech people? That seems unlikely, especially nowadays.
- woodpanel 4y ago
  Where did I write „tech-people“? Yes, all tech people are part of the E-Mail-Caste, but not all of said Caste are techies.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    Basically everyone uses email, and you said "people like us", so the poor communication here is on your end. Please elaborate if you want to be understood.
    - woodpanel 4y ago
      Fair point, I thought this term is more known, but then myself had a hard time to Google it In response to the criticism. But I think this might be a good start: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33521917 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33521917

camillomiller 4y ago

Berlin reporting: this is huge for anyone taking public transport. Monthly ticket for the AB area alone was way above 80/€/month for the city only. This is 49 for everything anywhere in Germany except for high speed long distance trains, flixbuses and flixtrains (the latter are private entities)

mqus 4y ago
I thought the ticket was more like 63 Euros per Month, when paid yearly
- camillomiller 4y ago
  That's for AB (66,90). But you have to compare it to the ABC yearly "Abo", as you will have access to all areas. That's 88€ per month if you pay the 1056 lump sum for the yearly version. Over 100€ if you pay monthly.
  - mqus 4y ago
    GP explicitly said AB, so I don't have to compare it to ABC imho.

zenlot 4y ago

Welcome to UK, where 40-55mins trains from neighbouring cities to London costs 50-110£ for a return journey and 6k+ for a yearly ticket. We apologize for a delay in your journey, this is due to staff shortage.

pjmlp 4y ago
We also have our share of delays. It is so bad, that there are excuse generator websites with what the DB usually uses, or people that collect them. http://privatundfun.siteboard.org/t78f2005-Ausreden-Katalog-der-Deutschen-Bahn-die-Besten.html http://privatundfun.siteboard.org/t78f2005-Ausreden-Katalog-...
sph 4y ago
Imagine my surprise coming from Italy, where our trains are famously dirty and late, and taking my first train in the UK. Trains are cleaner and somewhat less delayed, but bloody hell, they are not worth the price. For £110 I reckon you can go Milan–Naples (800 km, 4h30) in high speed 1st class train, which do not even exist in Britain. The wonders of privatisation, innit?
- switch007 4y ago
  > The wonders of privatisation, innit? Many rail services in the UK are effectively not private now, and they're even worse, because when a right-wing government that hates public transport takes control, all hell breaks loose. We have a very complicated rail network which is bad for many reasons other than "private" or "public"
switch007 4y ago
> this is due to staff shortage. But also managed decline of the railway by the Government

admax88qqq 4y ago

We need Uber for Public Transit. Enter you destination and it tells you which bus to get on in real time, when to transfer and deducts payment automatically at the end of your trip. The Uber experience on transit would make lots never riders and occasional riders use transit more often. The mental load is a lot of some people at the end of the day, driving is just easier.

asdajksah2123 4y ago
Google Maps does this for you. And nearly every local provider tends to have apps with end to end directions these days.
- milesskorpen 4y ago
  GM tells you the route, it doesn't let you pay for it all at once at the end of the trip.
  - kersplody 4y ago
    Nor does GM understand ticketing nuances or optimized route costs. (discount cards, demand-based pricing). This is a big problem in cities without integrated fare systems. In many places, 3rd party planner apps are a must.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      The solution to that is to get rid of the nuance and optimization opportunities and turn them into a small across-the-board discount. Far fairer. Google Maps does offer "Buy Ticket" buttons for a number of agencies that have opened up their systems. They're far from universal coverage. But a new Uber for Transit would snap up the APIs Google has worked to open up and then be in the same position.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Because its not the interface on your phone to do that. On iPhone at least, you have apple wallet and transit agency cards often interface through those means. That's a much better system as you can access it when your phone is dead, unlike something that might be bounded behind google maps.

bitL 4y ago

While in Germany last summer, I used the 9 EUR ticket and regional trains to go from Frankfurt to Bavarian Alps. The trains were packed, one could not move there and it felt more like being in India than in Germany. I am wondering if that's going to be a norm in the future.

konschubert 4y ago
No, not going to be the norm. Because a) 49 >> 9 b) the 9 Euro ticket was a one-time novelty
- ragebol 4y ago
  And Frankfurt -> Alps is not regional transport, but inter-city at least. So faster option would have been ICE and going 250km/h. More expensive though, for sure. And a seat reservation for a few euros.
  - bitL 4y ago
    150 EUR vs 9 EUR and one still had to use slow regional trains once reaching Ulm so it was not that much different time-wise to justify much higher cost. Regional Express trains I used from Frankfurt to Ulm are also pretty fast (not ICE level, but not much time lost either).
- bitL 4y ago
  49 >> 9 but 49 << monthly ticket at any regional transportation company so one could assume most people will own it and trains will be packed again.
golol 4y ago
It is a good thing if people actually fill up the trains and get value out of them. While empty trains are comfortable, they are an inefficiency. The 9€ ticket showed that people would really like to be more mobile ´if they could afford it. Making this possible creates value for society.

nologic01 4y ago

Rare piece of good news. Not so much the particulars (projects might fail for any number of reasons) but the indication that there is appetite for systemic change.

FooBarWidget 4y ago

The Netherlands also has something similar: a country-wide public transit card. You put money on the card and then you can use it for all forms of public transport, checking in and out using that card. When it was introduced there was a lot of skepticism about whether it's a good thing, but now 10-15 years later I can't imagine not having it. Likewise, there's a country-wide public transit planner, 9292.nl. It works across all public transit companies. Seeing how fractured other countries' public transit are, it's amazing how 9292 came to be. I have no idea why Dutch public transit companies decided to work together to make it possible.

yurishimo 4y ago
We do have a single transit card, but the cost is outrageous imo. To travel 25km from Weert to Eindhoven in the south costs €6.70 one way during "rush hour". So to commute to work, I need to pay €13.40 per day, not included the bus transfer from the central station to my office (another few euros). Now before you mention it, yes I know employers have to pay for transportation to and from work, but that doesn't solve the problem for self employed people or visitors/tourists or occasional travelers. A few weeks ago, my wife and I wanted to go to Den Bosch to see some friends. It was cheaper and faster to drive from the edge of Limburg to Den Bosch & pay for fuel/parking than it was to take the train from our local station (for 2 people). I can live with the extra time required, but the cost was too much. If the government wants to incentivize more train travel, I shouldn't need to pay for than the cost of a many eurozone plane tickets to travel from Eindhoven to Amsterdam by train.

meghan_rain 4y ago

> and help us achieve our climate goals There are 90 million Germans. Even if they all stopped doing all non-work-related travels immediately, it wouldn't push the needle thanks to China and India.

mahathu 4y ago
So they should just shrug and do nothing then? Spalter
- meghan_rain 4y ago
  They should reduce importing cheap plastic shit from polluting countries.
willio58 4y ago
I'm always confused by this. Climate change is inherently a global issue. It will take progress by _every_ country, not just those with the highest populations. Blaming China and India does no good to help the planet. We should instead push forward progress wherever we can get it and encourage technological progress, market changes, and regulation in this area. People in India and China hate pollution just as much as the rest of us, they've just been forced by their governments to endure it for the sake of growth. India last year banned single-use plastics. Few other countries have made those sorts of sweeping regulations.

lispm 4y ago

Nice features here in Hamburg: Subscription tickets for Hamburg which cost more than 49€ are now automatically reduced to 49€ and are changed to a Deutschlandticket. Employer subsidized Deutschlandtickets can be reduced upto 50% for the employee. Kids from low-income families get the Deutschlandticket for free. Students can upgrade their public transport ticket for monthly 18 Euros... School children pay 19 Euros monthly for the Deutschlandticket. :-)

ipaddr 4y ago
No senior discounts? How are older people viewed in Germany?
- yarg 4y ago
  At that price point, does it even matter?
  - wheels 4y ago
    I've been confused in the last couple of threads related to this topic how responses like yours exist. Trying to be constructive, I'm going to float a theory: you live in Silicon Valley and that doesn't seem like much money? For a German pensioner, in many cases, this would represent more than 5% of post-rent living costs. For my girlfriend, a manager of a team of 16 people (in non-tech in Germany) it's more than 5% of her post-taxes, post-rent income. €49/month is not trivial for a lot of working or retired Germans. GDP per capita in Germany is €46k/year, and after taxes and insurance (and rent! and that more than half of Germans that make less than that), €49/month is not a pittance. These tickets are generally aimed at working class Germans, which often make 10-20% of a normal Silicon Valley salary.
    - yarg 4y ago
      > I'm going to float a theory: you live in Silicon Valley and that doesn't seem like much money? I'm a suicidal burn out trying to drag my mind back from oblivion, I sure as shit am not on silicon valley money. Also: > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. Your argument's a straw man, regardless of the fact that you're "trying to be constructive". (And to be honest, the way you prefaced that statement had the feeling of "no offence, but...", it's a poor rhetorical practice.) Germany has a long history of charging things at damned near administrative costs, 5% on transport just isn't a lot of money. And also, 5% of "post-rent living costs"? What's the percentage of overall income? Half of that? So low that your argument holds very little water.

willio58 4y ago

As an American I am increasingly jealous of European countries and their public transport (among other things cough health care cough gun control). It feels like the only way we will ever get there as a country is one state at a time, and even then you see projects like California's high-speed rail that's massively over-budget and overdue. At least the blue states seem to _get_ it, meanwhile those who live in red or purple states will just be left behind as always because of how intensely politics has carved a divide between people and led to so many unfounded lies being propagated to their citizens. All that to say, good on Germany. Now U.S., get your shit together.

water554 4y ago
[flagged]
- willio58 4y ago
  https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-make-us-safer-science-suggests-no/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/do-guns-m... https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/1996-national-firearms-agreement.html https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/199... To be honest, I don't really care if you have a pistol or a shotgun even. I don't want assault rifles to be easily accessible by people who want to murder children, LTBTQ people, or whoever else is deemed each week to deserve a mass murder. I say ban all guns, or at least the guns that are designed to murder mass amounts of people.
  - ThunderSizzle 4y ago
    Evil will always exist. You can't take evil out of humanity. Many places thought they could and never succeeded (e.g. communism thought they could somehow overrule mankind's tendency towards greed) Removing guns from good people will only ensure good people will be attacked by evil people, whether inside or outside of your desired utopia.
    - willio58 4y ago

rebyn 4y ago

I got the Deutschlandticket for May and am tempted to travel from Berlin to Stralsund. Using RE/RB for this journeh takes more or less three hours without any train change (so not having to deal with the possible delay(s) and missing connecting rides), however I do hope the operator supports reserving a seat in advance with this subscription, cause otherwise showing up at the station not knowing for sure I'd have a seat would deter me from using this offer and instead just book ICE/IC (if any).

mqus 4y ago
reserving seats in rb/re trains? Never heard of it.
generationP 4y ago
Very few regional trains allow for reservation. See https://www.bahn.de/angebot/zusatzticket/sitzplatzreservierung/sitzplatzreservierung-einzeln-nv https://www.bahn.de/angebot/zusatzticket/sitzplatzreservieru...

snvzz 4y ago

Public, thus paid by everybody through taxes. Yet, for some reason, it can only be taken advantage of by people who can afford to pay the ticket. Nevermind the fact having the ticket system in the first place does cost money.

EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
Agreed. This is actually a "why public systems fail" critique approaching from the left -- we assume systems need a cost to function correctly. For something like transit, collecting fares involves: 1) Systems and equipment to issue and collect fares -- boxes, kiosks, scanners, currency handling, staff to collect and deposit currency, arrangements with payment providers, educational materials about paying fares, websites with instructions on how to pay fares (often in multiple languages) 2) Systems to enforce fare payment -- humans, typically, to police the fares 3) Systems to analyze fare rates -- are fares too low, too high, are they being paid at the correct rates, do we need to publish new content on how much fares are changing this year 4) Queues to pay fares -- entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access 5) Systems to ensure everyone has access -- either fares price out the poorest, or we provide means for the poor to get reduced and free fares. Provide systems for workers to get fares subsidized through their workplaces. These systems are really inefficient. I mean, they might be run efficiently, but their existence is itself an inefficiency. If we believe transit is useful and valuable, we could simply pay for it once in taxes. Cutting out all the fare maintenance systems would save a huge amount of money, which could be spent on maintenance, comfort, cleaning, additional routes, etc. and the experience would be much nicer (hop on/hop off whenever you need).
- lispm 4y ago
  > entering a bus or train requires a turnstile, tap, or other impediment that slows access In Hamburg, where I live, there is nothing like that.
  - EngManagerIsMe 4y ago
    Hamburg's busses don't have coin boxes or sell tickets/fares? You don't have any mechanism that requires swiping a card, tapping a device, showing a card/ticket to an operator, or otherwise proving you have, in fact, purchased a fare? In Seattle, we tap our cards on something that looks like this: https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/06/28/dont-tap-orca-here/ https://seattletransitblog.com/2011/06/28/dont-tap-orca-here... It's pretty quick, but on the busiest bus routes it slows things down. Edit: Reading up, it looks like they don't really have those things, and rely on a combination of very infrequent inspectors (which do slow things and cost money) and the honor system.

wkat4242 4y ago

Hm nice, here in Barcelona we have a similar deal for 20 euro, but it only covers the metro area. Still, it's rare for me to go further away and it wouldn't make sense to pay 50 bucks a month for that. And if I go to another major city I would use a high speed train which wouldn't be included anyway. So 20 a month for all city travel is pretty ideal here, especially with Spain's low wages.

partiallypro 4y ago

I am spending 2 months in Germany starting in August, if I'm not mistaken this will also cover local S-Bahn/U-Bahn trains and DB routes, but will not cover ICE trains. Is this correct?

asnyder 4y ago
Yes, everything but ICE, unless your train is 20 minutes delayed, otherwise you can split things up via regional routes. Can I use an ICE/IC train with the Deutschland-Ticket if I know I will reach the destination with a considerable delay? Yes, you have the right to do so according to statutory passenger rights if the local train has an expected delay of at least 20 minutes. To travel by long-distance train, you must first buy a ticket. The travel costs will then be reimbursed subsequently upon request by the railway company with which you travel, e.g. by the passenger rights service centre of Deutsche Bahn.

dehrmann 4y ago

Something I really appreciate in Taiwan is a single card works for all transit. What I found cool in Sydney was metro turnstiles would read contactless credit cards. And I'm shocked and thrilled that the Bay Area consolidated on one system. The US is pretty split up and doesn't use trains outside the NE corridor, so it's not as useful, but it'd be nice if congress would start work on unifying transit payments across the country over the next decade. Also unifying car toll payments. These balkanized systems are just silly.

xputer 4y ago
Doesn't Kaohsiung have it's own card system?
- dehrmann 4y ago
  Supposedly EasyCard and iPass both work all over the country now.

Gud 4y ago

Best system is in Luxembourg- it’s completely free of charge.

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iggldiggl 4y ago

While the thing does sell, they can only already claim "millions" because existing holders of season tickets are being converted either automatically or manually, so the whole news release is also a bit of the usual PR exaggeration.