6 ms·

One comment says "it's shipped to you", another says "it's digital only". This post doesn't seem to be an official press release, but this confusion seems nota

by ttymck 3y ago

One comment says "it's shipped to you", another says "it's digital only". This post doesn't seem to be an official press release, but this confusion seems notable.

RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago
"Digital-only" = By smartphone app OR by smartcard, i.e. a card like a credit card with a chip and your personal unique ID stored on that. In other words: You cannot get a plain old paper ticket without personal information, the ticket is like a cookie which identifies you as a user and thus allows you to be tracked. Disclaimer: Not a resident of Germany.
- schroeding 3y ago
  > and thus allows you to be tracked While true, something to note is that german train and metro stations, in general, have no ticket barriers. Tickets are only checked by staff on trains, on a (very) random basis for local / metro trains. I've had months in which my ticket wasn't checked at all while using it every single day.
  - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
    More tracking will come as soon as the 49 euro ticket becomes more widely spread ... :-(
    - dathinab 3y ago
      no less, because there is now less profit to make from it because now most people have a ticket I don't think I have been checked a single time in the last 2 years.
      - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
        > I don't think I have been checked a single time in the last 2 years. My experience differs a lot: I go by train (in Germany) rather often and would say that it was more common to be checked than not (i.e. for me the probability of being checked was more than 1/2).
        dathinab 3y ago
        like public "city" transportation or regional trains? in regional trains you get checked more often (longer distances, less passenger exchange and per-train personal have this as a side effect), but already it's somewhat tricky to have a regional train ticket which is not linked to your name in public "city" transportation it's semi-random but also there are times & stations where statistically it's most likely to find someone without an ticket and in turn this places/times get checked very frequent and if you are there every day at the specific time-frames you are unlucky and also get checked very frequent. But most times and place combinations do not have this issue and some are close to guaranteed that you don't get checked.
      - morelisp 3y ago
        Ticket control in Berlin seems to have gotten extremely centralized. 5y ago it was pretty random where they might walk a few people through scanning on the train, today it's almost always checks on the platform at major hubs / tourist centers. I don't know if this a real change of policy or a side result of the BVG changing their contractors.
        dathinab 3y ago
        it's about money they check the place/time combo they are most likely to find a person without ticket most often
        morelisp 3y ago
        Even if this is true it's a change.
- lispm 3y ago
  > ticket is like a cookie which identifies you as a user and thus allows you to be tracked local trains, underground trains, busses and ferries here in Hamburg has no regular ticket checks whatsoever. No checks -> they can't track people via the ticket.
  - dathinab 3y ago
    same for most of Germany
- jonp888 3y ago
  As far as I know no such tracking occurs and to do so would be illegal under German law. In London meanwhile, you can a weekly PDF statement showing exactly where you were and when! :)
- kanbara 3y ago
  this sort of tracking is illegal and not done. berlin had to cancel its rollout of smart cards and tapping some years ago due to leaking of personal information. you just wave the card when you get on the bus, or just not at all
- _cenw 3y ago
  The neoliberals insisted on that so that the very poor or those without a bank account would not be able to get it, not because of any kind of tracking. No system in Germany has gates and ticket checks are so rare, it's not really viable for tracking.
fsh 3y ago
[flagged]
vstollen 3y ago
I think the confusion comes from there being lots of transportation providers where you can buy the ticket. The different providers can differ in what payments they accept and how they send you the ticket. Some also include extra benefits. According to their website, Mainz, for example seems to sell them in their app and accepts credit card, as well as PayPal payments.
- usr1106 3y ago
  It has been discussed a lot in railway forums, it seems to be a fact that it's rather hard to buy the ticket if you do not live in Germany. * the default payment method used by 99% of the sellers requires a German bank account * most sellers request a German credit score (Schufa) * many apps are not available in the app stores outside of Germany and of course none is available in a FOSS store Haven't followed it recently, but I have still to see a success story that someone not residing in Germany has actually bought it successfully.
  - lispm 3y ago
    I bought mine via the HVV (Hamburg Transport Association) Switch app on an iPhone. I pay using Paypal.
    - usr1106 3y ago
      Not familiar with Apple, but I guess they have country limits like Google. In what country is your phone registered?
      - takluyver 3y ago
        I'm on Android rather than Apple, but I could install the HVV app on my UK phone and buy tickets using my UK card with no particular difficulty. Maybe other transport associations are more difficult, but I'm not sure why they'd want to make it hard for me to give them money.
        3y ago
constantcrying 3y ago
I literally do not know whether I have one. I switched my plan for my local provider some time ago, but I still have no indication, digital or physical, whether I actually have such a ticket... As usual a complete technical disaster.
dathinab 3y ago
Depends where you buy it. The 49€ ticket is to be precise not a ticket. But a regulations stating that transport providers have to provide tickets for the cost of 49€ valid all across Germany (very strongly oversimplified). This means there are many places selling this ticket which only are the same in where it's valid, how much it costs, and how it can be validate by any arbitrary public train service. So some providers sell chip plastic cards with a NFC chip in them and some ID+Name+Date printed on it which get shipped to you. Other provider only sell it through the App using your phones NFC chip or (I think, not sure) QR as fallback. Similar some might only accept SEPA payment mandates (i.e. implicitly require and EU bank account) and require you to have an German address to ship the card to. Other require SEPA and hand it to you personally not caring about an address in Germany and others might accept Google Pay, Apple Pay or Paypal and are online only. While this sounds bad, for most German people this is a complete non issue as they just buy it form the same transportation provider they used before using the same payment method they where using before. (The reason this works technically is because there already was a system for validating tickets valid in the transport net of one provider issued by another, most commonly DB long distance tickets also covering public transportation around the time of arrival/departure).

by ttymck 3y ago

One comment says "it's shipped to you", another says "it's digital only". This post doesn't seem to be an official press release, but this confusion seems notable.

RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 3y ago

"Digital-only" = By smartphone app OR by smartcard, i.e. a card like a credit card with a chip and your personal unique ID stored on that. In other words: You cannot get a plain old paper ticket without personal information, the ticket is like a cookie which identifies you as a user and thus allows you to be tracked. Disclaimer: Not a resident of Germany.

schroeding 3y ago
> and thus allows you to be tracked While true, something to note is that german train and metro stations, in general, have no ticket barriers. Tickets are only checked by staff on trains, on a (very) random basis for local / metro trains. I've had months in which my ticket wasn't checked at all while using it every single day.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  More tracking will come as soon as the 49 euro ticket becomes more widely spread ... :-(
  - dathinab 3y ago
    no less, because there is now less profit to make from it because now most people have a ticket I don't think I have been checked a single time in the last 2 years.
    - aleph_minus_one 3y ago
      > I don't think I have been checked a single time in the last 2 years. My experience differs a lot: I go by train (in Germany) rather often and would say that it was more common to be checked than not (i.e. for me the probability of being checked was more than 1/2).
      - dathinab 3y ago
        like public "city" transportation or regional trains? in regional trains you get checked more often (longer distances, less passenger exchange and per-train personal have this as a side effect), but already it's somewhat tricky to have a regional train ticket which is not linked to your name in public "city" transportation it's semi-random but also there are times & stations where statistically it's most likely to find someone without an ticket and in turn this places/times get checked very frequent and if you are there every day at the specific time-frames you are unlucky and also get checked very frequent. But most times and place combinations do not have this issue and some are close to guaranteed that you don't get checked.
    - morelisp 3y ago
      Ticket control in Berlin seems to have gotten extremely centralized. 5y ago it was pretty random where they might walk a few people through scanning on the train, today it's almost always checks on the platform at major hubs / tourist centers. I don't know if this a real change of policy or a side result of the BVG changing their contractors.
      - dathinab 3y ago
        it's about money they check the place/time combo they are most likely to find a person without ticket most often
        morelisp 3y ago
        Even if this is true it's a change.
lispm 3y ago
> ticket is like a cookie which identifies you as a user and thus allows you to be tracked local trains, underground trains, busses and ferries here in Hamburg has no regular ticket checks whatsoever. No checks -> they can't track people via the ticket.
- dathinab 3y ago
  same for most of Germany
jonp888 3y ago
As far as I know no such tracking occurs and to do so would be illegal under German law. In London meanwhile, you can a weekly PDF statement showing exactly where you were and when! :)
kanbara 3y ago
this sort of tracking is illegal and not done. berlin had to cancel its rollout of smart cards and tapping some years ago due to leaking of personal information. you just wave the card when you get on the bus, or just not at all
_cenw 3y ago
The neoliberals insisted on that so that the very poor or those without a bank account would not be able to get it, not because of any kind of tracking. No system in Germany has gates and ticket checks are so rare, it's not really viable for tracking.

fsh 3y ago

[flagged]

vstollen 3y ago

I think the confusion comes from there being lots of transportation providers where you can buy the ticket. The different providers can differ in what payments they accept and how they send you the ticket. Some also include extra benefits. According to their website, Mainz, for example seems to sell them in their app and accepts credit card, as well as PayPal payments.

usr1106 3y ago
It has been discussed a lot in railway forums, it seems to be a fact that it's rather hard to buy the ticket if you do not live in Germany. * the default payment method used by 99% of the sellers requires a German bank account * most sellers request a German credit score (Schufa) * many apps are not available in the app stores outside of Germany and of course none is available in a FOSS store Haven't followed it recently, but I have still to see a success story that someone not residing in Germany has actually bought it successfully.
- lispm 3y ago
  I bought mine via the HVV (Hamburg Transport Association) Switch app on an iPhone. I pay using Paypal.
  - usr1106 3y ago
    Not familiar with Apple, but I guess they have country limits like Google. In what country is your phone registered?
    - takluyver 3y ago
      I'm on Android rather than Apple, but I could install the HVV app on my UK phone and buy tickets using my UK card with no particular difficulty. Maybe other transport associations are more difficult, but I'm not sure why they'd want to make it hard for me to give them money.
      - 3y ago

constantcrying 3y ago

I literally do not know whether I have one. I switched my plan for my local provider some time ago, but I still have no indication, digital or physical, whether I actually have such a ticket... As usual a complete technical disaster.

dathinab 3y ago

Depends where you buy it. The 49€ ticket is to be precise not a ticket. But a regulations stating that transport providers have to provide tickets for the cost of 49€ valid all across Germany (very strongly oversimplified). This means there are many places selling this ticket which only are the same in where it's valid, how much it costs, and how it can be validate by any arbitrary public train service. So some providers sell chip plastic cards with a NFC chip in them and some ID+Name+Date printed on it which get shipped to you. Other provider only sell it through the App using your phones NFC chip or (I think, not sure) QR as fallback. Similar some might only accept SEPA payment mandates (i.e. implicitly require and EU bank account) and require you to have an German address to ship the card to. Other require SEPA and hand it to you personally not caring about an address in Germany and others might accept Google Pay, Apple Pay or Paypal and are online only. While this sounds bad, for most German people this is a complete non issue as they just buy it form the same transportation provider they used before using the same payment method they where using before. (The reason this works technically is because there already was a system for validating tickets valid in the transport net of one provider issued by another, most commonly DB long distance tickets also covering public transportation around the time of arrival/departure).