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Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germ

Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Additionally, there are so many apps that resell the ticket as some white label system, so it was very confusing to purchase (you cannot buy them at the machines). The price hike is the wrong direction here if we are reducing that much time on the road. Kudos though for the great rail systems. The USA has a lot to learn here and it’s baffling how terrible it is here. I doubt I’d ever need a car in Germany given the rail system was much more convenient. In the USA I spend 10-15 mins trying to park any time I go anywhere

luto 2y ago
It started with 9€, is 49€ now, and will be 58€ starting 2025. You can buy for a single month when booking through the right company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree that it is a bit predatory.
geraldwhen 2y ago
Germany is smaller than California. The United States is very, very large place, mostly unpopulated. It’s hard to apply whatever Germany, a small, densely populated country does to the US, which is largely empty land.
- waveBidder 2y ago
  Look, nobody is talking about Nebraska. the density of the east coast is easily high enough to support high speed high quality rail.
  - euroderf 2y ago
    That's why they call it "flyover country". Not "railover country".
- Larrikin 2y ago
  Why do we have to pretend that routes between Montana and South Dakota have to come up when discussing ways of improving rail usage in the US? We could treat routes between Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis like Germany. We could treat high speed rail in California or the Northeast like Japan. Choosing to live in an extremely rural area shouldn't just be a "well it doesn't help" me trump card to defeat things that will help most of the population.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Exactly. Always somebody trots out invalid arguments about size and population density. There are smaller states in the USA that are about as dense as Germany, like Maryland and Connecticut. So, why don't those states have great state-wide public transit systems?
  - adamc 2y ago
    The politics at the national level are likely to be that states not helped by this vote against it.
    - twodave 2y ago
      Yep, federal income tax is a big reason. For states to fund this on their own requires additional taxation. Some places like FL don’t even have a state income tax, so they are stuck trying to get tourists to fund transportation projects somehow or increasing sales taxes or higher tolls. And of course higher tolls have the unfortunate side effect of reducing demand for the thing to begin with.
    - Larrikin 2y ago
      Maybe we should work on making one vote to be equal in the nation.
      - kortilla 2y ago
        This is a boring trope. Whether it’s a group of United States or a single State is a debate as old as the country. You’re going to need really compelling reasons for states to give up their representation and participate in the state vote required to amend the constitution to remove their rights.
- shantara 2y ago
  And how many people regularly commute across the United States? The absolute majority of the journeys people make regularly is still quite short, so why not start by optimizing for them? Then continue with building high speed intercity connections between the urban areas with <500 km distance to create valuable alternatives to being stuck in the highway traffic and dealing with the airport security nonsense. Why do you always think that you need to reinvent a tried and true solutions that have been proven to work across the world?
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    Also even if you're worried about going cross-country, that requires what, two fast lines between the coasts to get good routes? So even though those areas don't have many people per square mile, passing through would need an extremely small amount of track per square mile.
- ben_w 2y ago
  1. CA is the 3rd largest state in the USA. Do any of the 47 smaller states have something like this? 2. As the unpopulated bits necessarily don't have many people or things to do in them, the cost of subsidising a public transit ticket in those places is necessarily small.
oersted 2y ago
I don't have the details, but every single time I have heard the mention of Deutsche Bahn in the last few years it has been accompanied by comments of how broken it has become, with constant delays and cancellations, to the point where for many people it is no longer a viable option for commute or for anything where you cannot risk to be up to several hours late. I guess it's all relative. If you come to rely on an excellent and omnipresent rail service for many years as a society, the impacts are quite big when it stops working well. If the service itself is built assuming reliability, where transferring between trains is common, then issues can get substantially amplified if that choreography gets somewhat disrupted.
- dustyventure 2y ago
  It was broken long before the offer though so the reduction in driving being moderate probably reflects fewer shifts in daily commute and mostly more leisure usage.
- sadcherry 2y ago
  There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on time". You only read about some train having had an AC issue or the like. I have family in Germany and they never go by train but tell me regularly about how bad the train has become. They have literally not been in one for 15+ years. But they watch the news every day.
  - currymj 2y ago
    among intercity trains run by Deutsche Bahn, the on-time rate hovers around 2/3. it's technically true that "most were on time", but one third being late is really terrible, especially since you often need to make a tight connection. even if your family has no justifiable basis for believing what they do about DB, they happen to be correct by luck. https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-report/product-quality-and-digitalization/the-customer-is-at-the-center-of-our-actions/punctuality/ https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-re...
    - 2y ago
lispm 2y ago
> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing energy use amid the 2021–2022 global energy crisis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket It influenced the idea to come up with a permanent ticket: the "Deutschlandticket". It started 1. Mai 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket The Deutschlandticket costs max 49 Euros (next year it will cost 58€ per month) and is valid for one month for mostly all local&regional public transport systems (plus a few selected non-regional trains) in the whole of Germany. The subscription will renew automatically. Companies often support employees by paying some of the costs. Then it typically costs 34.30 € per month. From next year on, employees pay 40,60 € per month max. Here in my home city already 94% of the 213000 pupils use the Deutschlandticket for 0 € per month. Every pupil has free access to all of the country's local&regional public transport system... I find that kind of mind-blowing. I have the ticket in my iPhone's wallet and thus also in the Apple Watch wallet. Additionally I need an ID card. Which at some point in time will also come to the smartphone. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mobile-phone-app-will-allow-digital-id-cards-germany https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mob...
- consp 2y ago
  > Every pupil has free access to all of the country's local&regional public transport system... I find that kind of mind-blowing. We've had this since the 1990s for higher education students. One of the known effects is that students who got it, used the public transport systems more often after wards as they were more familiar with it. I would not be surprised if Germany has a simmilar effect. The problem with these effect is they far outgrow the attention span of polititians as they take years to come to full force.
  - sva_ 2y ago
    It was only valid for the state in which the university is, and not all universities offered it. Most students now get the nationwide ticket for effectively about 30€/month.
weinzierl 2y ago
"I LOVE the German transit system" I have some experience with the public transport systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common balkanization. The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the German leg of my international travels from one of the other countries apps whenever possible. For a counter example look at the French SNCF Connect app. It is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.
- lispm 2y ago
  > Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now. > The DB Navigator is so terrible It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives me a 50% discount on all trains.
  - eptcyka 2y ago
    I couldn't pay for my ubahn with a credit card on the bahn, and the app required me to use some kind of a paypal derivative. I did not pay. Regardless of whether it is digitized or not, regional trains suck. To pay on the train, I think I was forced to use cash. Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan them in and then send in via email. Or was it snail mail? I didn't attempt it, I just saw that my train was delayed for hours with no explanation for what can I do about it, realized I'm missing my connection and then booked a plane ticket and got home faster than if I had traveled by rail without any delays. 10/10, will fly whenever possible from now on.
    - lispm 2y ago
      Pay before. That's how the transport systems generally work in Germany. In many trains you need to have a ticket BEFORE entering the train and also BEFORE entering the platform in the train station. > Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan them in and then send in via email. I can do that in the DB app.
jonp888 2y ago
> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? The €9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not originally intended to continue permanently at all. > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. The ticket is subsidised by the German government(beyond the amount that all rail infrastructure and most services are subsidised) for the purpose what is covered in the article - encouraging permanent modal shift of regular travellers(primarily commuters) from road to rail. If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.
- sadcherry 2y ago
  Airtravel is also subsidised by the German tax payer. Much more than the 49 EUR ticket. No matter if you are a tourist or not. (Arguably mostly for tourists actually.)
  - kristianp 2y ago
    What's the method of subsidy there? Contributing to Airbus shares?
    - echoangle 2y ago
      Commercial aviation fuel is tax exempt in the EU, I would already count that as a subsidy (yes, I count not taxing something that's normally taxed as a subsidy, even if it isn't done by directly paying out money).
    - Qwertious 2y ago
      Subsidising airports and fuel, presumably.
  - jacooper 2y ago
    How is it subsidized while a local flight costs more than an international one? The idea is to push people to use the train, but a train isn't an alternative if it takes 9 hours compared to the 2 hour flight.
juliangmp 2y ago
>I LOVE the German transit system What? How? I have the ticket and despite that I never use any regional train because they're generally awful. (Local busses and trams on the other hand work pretty well)
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  Regional trains are really okay compared to long-distance trains. These are so bad that it's unlikely that you reach your destination on time now.
consumerx 2y ago
True, significant only because offered for 9 EUR initially.
- ben_w 2y ago
  Not only — when I visit friends in the UK, I've had single rail tickets cost more than the increased next years' cost of a monthly nationwide ticket here in Germany.
hilux 2y ago
I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the US is a MUCH larger country.
- server_man3000 2y ago
  There’s a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn’t meet it at all. I can’t even take a bus from my neighborhood in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner and it’s often cancelled
  - hilux 2y ago
    Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the population density is lower than in European cities. (It's definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.) But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC, so expectations are low.
- reducesuffering 2y ago
  But the DC to Boston line isn't
- lispm 2y ago
  > the US is a MUCH larger country with much of the population in a few denser areas, where public transport would make a lot of sense.
- ben_w 2y ago
  The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state, Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger. Do any states have something equivalent to this?
  - hilux 2y ago
    And Germany has a population of 83 million. Montana has a population of 1.1 million. I don't get your point.
onli 2y ago
> If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Just in case this is helpful to someone, you can buy the ticket from one of those different transport organizations you mentioned and avoid that time limit to cancel. The one to use for that is https://www.mopla.solutions/ https://www.mopla.solutions/, it's a simple app (alternatively web site) that worked really well for me (no affiliation).
emaro 2y ago
Surprised how positive you're writivg about the German public transport. The Deutsche Bahn doesn't have a good reputation in central Europe. I guess my frame of reference isn't average, given I live in Switzerland. Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!
- ben_w 2y ago
  As a UK citizen living in Berlin, I assure you that for all the cancellations and repair works, there's many places which look up to the German system. (I've also been to the USA, and (IMO) Amtrak makes the UK look good).
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    The UK is so expensive though. I thought I was looking at airplane fares.
    - JackMorgan 2y ago
      I recently needed two tickets from NYC to LA, and was astonished to find air tickets for $80 and rail tickets for $2200. It's so unbelievably expensive (not counting that the flight was a few hours and the train was 56 hours). Very disappointing! How is it so expensive?!
      - guenthert 2y ago
        Competition, I suppose. Still, that seems extreme. A few years (might have been eight) back, I traveled Amtrak's Zephyr from Chicago to California. The roomette for two (coach would have been cheaper) was some $450, about the same as 2nd class air fare for one then. But yes, the train isn't in a particular hurry, expected travel time is some 50h, but 1.5h in, it was already 20m late for no apparent reason. Most passengers were tourist, but I also talked to a fellow who was going to California to pick up a used car for his daughter. I like the idea of long distance train traveling, as one can get off and back on later (check the fine print of your ticket though). Apparently, that's not customary however and earned me an interview by a TSA agent (a very polite fellow, odd as it may sound) who approached me (with a local Sheriff in tow) at a scheduled stop.
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
> is a bit predatory what bugs me the most is that i can only book it for a specific calendar month. that is _so_ stupid ...
serial_dev 2y ago
> I doubt I’d ever need a car in Germany given the rail system was much more convenient Sure, if you live in a larger city and you never leave… I lived in Munich for years and never needed a car, just comfortable shoes, a bike and occasionally a transport ticket. Try to get to a smaller town or village, you are lucky if you only spend twice as much time getting there as with a car. The trains get randomly cancelled, delay is basically guaranteed, the workers go on strikes relatively frequently, so you can never rely on trains working for anything remotely important.
sva_ 2y ago
> You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Pro tip: some websites offer to start the subscription later in the month and you only pay for those days. So if, for example, you were to attend a certain hacker conference in Hamburg at the end of December, you could buy the ticket for the last 5 days of the month for 49/31*5 euro. Just have to cancel before 10th of December so that it doesn't renew. ("HVV Switch" App)
happyraul 2y ago
Cancellation terms vary by vendor. With some better ones, you can cancel 24 hours before the end of the month to avoid being billed for the next month.
luplex 2y ago
Yep, it's not really meant for tourists. They really want everyone to stay in the subscription model, because it's heavily subsidized, so they need to hit a high enough LTV anyways.
dgellow 2y ago
It’s not really made for tourists from outside the country, you already have special tickets for people who visit for a short time. It’s for the local population. The price hike is from 49€/month to 58€/month next year. It’s the opposite of predatory IMHO, you have it on your mobile app in a few tap and can cancel easily
carrja99 2y ago
As a tourist, the cost was well worth it. Used buses and rail to get everywhere, booked one DB train from Berlin to Bamberg but otherwise travelled all over Germany during my time there. Just had to remember to cancel.
bowsamic 2y ago
> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? No, you could never use it on IC or ICEs
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
All of these tickets are only for local/regional trains, not the faster/long-distance trains. You can get from one end of the country to another by changing trains a few time, but e.g. getting from Munich to Berlin would be 6h (direct) with fast trains and 10+ h (changing 3 times) with the regional ones. The subscription model is intentional - this isn't meant to help tourists or to be bought when you need it, it's meant to make sure people have already pre-paid the cost when making a decision whether to take a train or a car (by being cheap enough that people subscribe even if they don't use it all the time).

luto 2y ago

It started with 9€, is 49€ now, and will be 58€ starting 2025. You can buy for a single month when booking through the right company. "mo.pal" is a good one, for example. However, I agree that it is a bit predatory.

geraldwhen 2y ago

Germany is smaller than California. The United States is very, very large place, mostly unpopulated. It’s hard to apply whatever Germany, a small, densely populated country does to the US, which is largely empty land.

waveBidder 2y ago
Look, nobody is talking about Nebraska. the density of the east coast is easily high enough to support high speed high quality rail.
- euroderf 2y ago
  That's why they call it "flyover country". Not "railover country".
Larrikin 2y ago
Why do we have to pretend that routes between Montana and South Dakota have to come up when discussing ways of improving rail usage in the US? We could treat routes between Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis like Germany. We could treat high speed rail in California or the Northeast like Japan. Choosing to live in an extremely rural area shouldn't just be a "well it doesn't help" me trump card to defeat things that will help most of the population.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Exactly. Always somebody trots out invalid arguments about size and population density. There are smaller states in the USA that are about as dense as Germany, like Maryland and Connecticut. So, why don't those states have great state-wide public transit systems?
- adamc 2y ago
  The politics at the national level are likely to be that states not helped by this vote against it.
  - twodave 2y ago
    Yep, federal income tax is a big reason. For states to fund this on their own requires additional taxation. Some places like FL don’t even have a state income tax, so they are stuck trying to get tourists to fund transportation projects somehow or increasing sales taxes or higher tolls. And of course higher tolls have the unfortunate side effect of reducing demand for the thing to begin with.
  - Larrikin 2y ago
    Maybe we should work on making one vote to be equal in the nation.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      This is a boring trope. Whether it’s a group of United States or a single State is a debate as old as the country. You’re going to need really compelling reasons for states to give up their representation and participate in the state vote required to amend the constitution to remove their rights.
shantara 2y ago
And how many people regularly commute across the United States? The absolute majority of the journeys people make regularly is still quite short, so why not start by optimizing for them? Then continue with building high speed intercity connections between the urban areas with <500 km distance to create valuable alternatives to being stuck in the highway traffic and dealing with the airport security nonsense. Why do you always think that you need to reinvent a tried and true solutions that have been proven to work across the world?
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  Also even if you're worried about going cross-country, that requires what, two fast lines between the coasts to get good routes? So even though those areas don't have many people per square mile, passing through would need an extremely small amount of track per square mile.
ben_w 2y ago
1. CA is the 3rd largest state in the USA. Do any of the 47 smaller states have something like this? 2. As the unpopulated bits necessarily don't have many people or things to do in them, the cost of subsidising a public transit ticket in those places is necessarily small.

oersted 2y ago

I don't have the details, but every single time I have heard the mention of Deutsche Bahn in the last few years it has been accompanied by comments of how broken it has become, with constant delays and cancellations, to the point where for many people it is no longer a viable option for commute or for anything where you cannot risk to be up to several hours late. I guess it's all relative. If you come to rely on an excellent and omnipresent rail service for many years as a society, the impacts are quite big when it stops working well. If the service itself is built assuming reliability, where transferring between trains is common, then issues can get substantially amplified if that choreography gets somewhat disrupted.

dustyventure 2y ago
It was broken long before the offer though so the reduction in driving being moderate probably reflects fewer shifts in daily commute and mostly more leisure usage.
sadcherry 2y ago
There is a big reporting bias though. You won't see in the news "of the 40,000 railway connections today, most were on time". You only read about some train having had an AC issue or the like. I have family in Germany and they never go by train but tell me regularly about how bad the train has become. They have literally not been in one for 15+ years. But they watch the news every day.
- currymj 2y ago
  among intercity trains run by Deutsche Bahn, the on-time rate hovers around 2/3. it's technically true that "most were on time", but one third being late is really terrible, especially since you often need to make a tight connection. even if your family has no justifiable basis for believing what they do about DB, they happen to be correct by luck. https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-report/product-quality-and-digitalization/the-customer-is-at-the-center-of-our-actions/punctuality/ https://ibir.deutschebahn.com/2023/en/combined-management-re...
  - 2y ago

lispm 2y ago

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? That was a time limited earlier ticket. "The tickets were valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing energy use amid the 2021–2022 global energy crisis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket It influenced the idea to come up with a permanent ticket: the "Deutschlandticket". It started 1. Mai 2023. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutschlandticket The Deutschlandticket costs max 49 Euros (next year it will cost 58€ per month) and is valid for one month for mostly all local&regional public transport systems (plus a few selected non-regional trains) in the whole of Germany. The subscription will renew automatically. Companies often support employees by paying some of the costs. Then it typically costs 34.30 € per month. From next year on, employees pay 40,60 € per month max. Here in my home city already 94% of the 213000 pupils use the Deutschlandticket for 0 € per month. Every pupil has free access to all of the country's local&regional public transport system... I find that kind of mind-blowing. I have the ticket in my iPhone's wallet and thus also in the Apple Watch wallet. Additionally I need an ID card. Which at some point in time will also come to the smartphone. https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mobile-phone-app-will-allow-digital-id-cards-germany https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/new-mob...

consp 2y ago
> Every pupil has free access to all of the country's local&regional public transport system... I find that kind of mind-blowing. We've had this since the 1990s for higher education students. One of the known effects is that students who got it, used the public transport systems more often after wards as they were more familiar with it. I would not be surprised if Germany has a simmilar effect. The problem with these effect is they far outgrow the attention span of polititians as they take years to come to full force.
- sva_ 2y ago
  It was only valid for the state in which the university is, and not all universities offered it. Most students now get the nationwide ticket for effectively about 30€/month.

weinzierl 2y ago

"I LOVE the German transit system" I have some experience with the public transport systems in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France and Belgium. In my opinion Germany's is the worst. Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. The tariffs (apart from the Deutschlandticket) are overly complicated and suffer heavily under the common balkanization. The DB Navigator is so terrible that I try to book the German leg of my international travels from one of the other countries apps whenever possible. For a counter example look at the French SNCF Connect app. It is not perfect but it is a pretty workable solution.

lispm 2y ago
> Everything seems to be stuck in paper based processes, only occasionally and very listlessly digitized. That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now. > The DB Navigator is so terrible It's not terrible. I managed to book all my train travels just fine with it, also using a business bahncard which gives me a 50% discount on all trains.
- eptcyka 2y ago
  I couldn't pay for my ubahn with a credit card on the bahn, and the app required me to use some kind of a paypal derivative. I did not pay. Regardless of whether it is digitized or not, regional trains suck. To pay on the train, I think I was forced to use cash. Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan them in and then send in via email. Or was it snail mail? I didn't attempt it, I just saw that my train was delayed for hours with no explanation for what can I do about it, realized I'm missing my connection and then booked a plane ticket and got home faster than if I had traveled by rail without any delays. 10/10, will fly whenever possible from now on.
  - lispm 2y ago
    Pay before. That's how the transport systems generally work in Germany. In many trains you need to have a ticket BEFORE entering the train and also BEFORE entering the platform in the train station. > Further, the process for getting refunds when you miss a connection requires one to fill in forms on paper and scan them in and then send in via email. I can do that in the DB app.

jonp888 2y ago

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? The €9 ticket was a 3 month temporary offer, which was not originally intended to continue permanently at all. > I LOVE the German transit system (although Denmark wins in cleanliness). However, Germany is a bit predatory with this new system. You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. The ticket is subsidised by the German government(beyond the amount that all rail infrastructure and most services are subsidised) for the purpose what is covered in the article - encouraging permanent modal shift of regular travellers(primarily commuters) from road to rail. If you're a tourist, it's not meant for you. Sorry.

sadcherry 2y ago
Airtravel is also subsidised by the German tax payer. Much more than the 49 EUR ticket. No matter if you are a tourist or not. (Arguably mostly for tourists actually.)
- kristianp 2y ago
  What's the method of subsidy there? Contributing to Airbus shares?
  - echoangle 2y ago
    Commercial aviation fuel is tax exempt in the EU, I would already count that as a subsidy (yes, I count not taxing something that's normally taxed as a subsidy, even if it isn't done by directly paying out money).
  - Qwertious 2y ago
    Subsidising airports and fuel, presumably.
- jacooper 2y ago
  How is it subsidized while a local flight costs more than an international one? The idea is to push people to use the train, but a train isn't an alternative if it takes 9 hours compared to the 2 hour flight.

juliangmp 2y ago

>I LOVE the German transit system What? How? I have the ticket and despite that I never use any regional train because they're generally awful. (Local busses and trams on the other hand work pretty well)

ahartmetz 2y ago
Regional trains are really okay compared to long-distance trains. These are so bad that it's unlikely that you reach your destination on time now.

consumerx 2y ago

True, significant only because offered for 9 EUR initially.

ben_w 2y ago
Not only — when I visit friends in the UK, I've had single rail tickets cost more than the increased next years' cost of a monthly nationwide ticket here in Germany.

hilux 2y ago

I'm a big fan of public transit, but it's not entirely "baffling" why the US lags European countries (and Japan) - the US is a MUCH larger country.

server_man3000 2y ago
There’s a happy medium somewhere though and the US doesn’t meet it at all. I can’t even take a bus from my neighborhood in a California city to the grocery store in a timely manner and it’s often cancelled
- hilux 2y ago
  Oh, I know - I live in Oakland. I think even here the population density is lower than in European cities. (It's definitely lower than in Asian mega-cities.) But yes, I do wish California did better. People are used to bad transit, and have never visited Tokyo or even NYC, so expectations are low.
reducesuffering 2y ago
But the DC to Boston line isn't
lispm 2y ago
> the US is a MUCH larger country with much of the population in a few denser areas, where public transport would make a lot of sense.
ben_w 2y ago
The EU is only about half the land area of the USA; Germany is roughly equivalent of the fourth largest US state, Montana, and only CA, TX, and AK are bigger. Do any states have something equivalent to this?
- hilux 2y ago
  And Germany has a population of 83 million. Montana has a population of 1.1 million. I don't get your point.

onli 2y ago

> If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Just in case this is helpful to someone, you can buy the ticket from one of those different transport organizations you mentioned and avoid that time limit to cancel. The one to use for that is https://www.mopla.solutions/ https://www.mopla.solutions/, it's a simple app (alternatively web site) that worked really well for me (no affiliation).

emaro 2y ago

Surprised how positive you're writivg about the German public transport. The Deutsche Bahn doesn't have a good reputation in central Europe. I guess my frame of reference isn't average, given I live in Switzerland. Edit: the 49-euro ticket is great though!

ben_w 2y ago
As a UK citizen living in Berlin, I assure you that for all the cancellations and repair works, there's many places which look up to the German system. (I've also been to the USA, and (IMO) Amtrak makes the UK look good).
- Aeolun 2y ago
  The UK is so expensive though. I thought I was looking at airplane fares.
  - JackMorgan 2y ago
    I recently needed two tickets from NYC to LA, and was astonished to find air tickets for $80 and rail tickets for $2200. It's so unbelievably expensive (not counting that the flight was a few hours and the train was 56 hours). Very disappointing! How is it so expensive?!
    - guenthert 2y ago
      Competition, I suppose. Still, that seems extreme. A few years (might have been eight) back, I traveled Amtrak's Zephyr from Chicago to California. The roomette for two (coach would have been cheaper) was some $450, about the same as 2nd class air fare for one then. But yes, the train isn't in a particular hurry, expected travel time is some 50h, but 1.5h in, it was already 20m late for no apparent reason. Most passengers were tourist, but I also talked to a fellow who was going to California to pick up a used car for his daughter. I like the idea of long distance train traveling, as one can get off and back on later (check the fine print of your ticket though). Apparently, that's not customary however and earned me an interview by a TSA agent (a very polite fellow, odd as it may sound) who approached me (with a local Sheriff in tow) at a scheduled stop.

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

> is a bit predatory what bugs me the most is that i can only book it for a specific calendar month. that is _so_ stupid ...

serial_dev 2y ago

> I doubt I’d ever need a car in Germany given the rail system was much more convenient Sure, if you live in a larger city and you never leave… I lived in Munich for years and never needed a car, just comfortable shoes, a bike and occasionally a transport ticket. Try to get to a smaller town or village, you are lucky if you only spend twice as much time getting there as with a car. The trains get randomly cancelled, delay is basically guaranteed, the workers go on strikes relatively frequently, so you can never rely on trains working for anything remotely important.

sva_ 2y ago

> You can ONLY purchase this ticket as a subscription model. If you’re a tourist, you must cancel before the 10th of the month or you get auto rebilled. Pro tip: some websites offer to start the subscription later in the month and you only pay for those days. So if, for example, you were to attend a certain hacker conference in Hamburg at the end of December, you could buy the ticket for the last 5 days of the month for 49/31*5 euro. Just have to cancel before 10th of December so that it doesn't renew. ("HVV Switch" App)

happyraul 2y ago

Cancellation terms vary by vendor. With some better ones, you can cancel 24 hours before the end of the month to avoid being billed for the next month.

luplex 2y ago

Yep, it's not really meant for tourists. They really want everyone to stay in the subscription model, because it's heavily subsidized, so they need to hit a high enough LTV anyways.

dgellow 2y ago

It’s not really made for tourists from outside the country, you already have special tickets for people who visit for a short time. It’s for the local population. The price hike is from 49€/month to 58€/month next year. It’s the opposite of predatory IMHO, you have it on your mobile app in a few tap and can cancel easily

carrja99 2y ago

As a tourist, the cost was well worth it. Used buses and rail to get everywhere, booked one DB train from Berlin to Bamberg but otherwise travelled all over Germany during my time there. Just had to remember to cancel.

bowsamic 2y ago

> Didn’t this start as unlimited anywhere for 9 euros no strings attached? No, you could never use it on IC or ICEs

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago

All of these tickets are only for local/regional trains, not the faster/long-distance trains. You can get from one end of the country to another by changing trains a few time, but e.g. getting from Munich to Berlin would be 6h (direct) with fast trains and 10+ h (changing 3 times) with the regional ones. The subscription model is intentional - this isn't meant to help tourists or to be bought when you need it, it's meant to make sure people have already pre-paid the cost when making a decision whether to take a train or a car (by being cheap enough that people subscribe even if they don't use it all the time).