I think public transit has a marketing problem in the US. People don’t often realize how much more expensive the paradigm of “taxes pay for roads and individuals pay for vehicles, gas, and maintenance” can be than a paradigm of heavy public transit use. While this program for sure relies on taxpayer funding (just as road usage does, I might add), even if coupled with occasional car rentals or taxis, the all-in cost can be so much lower than having a car.
The train system is one of my favorite parts of Germany and I really wish we had something comparable in the denser parts of the US.
In peoples' defense, I think the problem in the vast majority of the US is that public transit is legitimately terrible and most of the US has been built up so that good public transit is difficult to build. I agree that public transit can be a good alternative to car travel, but the problem of marketing it in the US is that the current version of the product being marketed is, to put it bluntly, completely garbage. What really needs to be sold to people is investing in making public transit better instead of just building more roads, but that's a more abstract sales pitch.
I also think selling public transit as an alternative to having a car at all is perhaps too ambitious a target. But having to use a car less still has a lot of benefits for individuals and society as a whole without having to get public transit to the point where it can replace nearly all journeys.
Not to mention one of my most memorable travel meals was from a German rail station - just a sandwich of bread + meat but it was sooo good (note: I was living in France at the time).
German rail travel was a great experience.
Considering how most trains are electric/hybrid diesel it's clear the petroleum industry never allowed new (and even dismantled existing) rail networks. Just more profits for them.
Most of the German train station food I’ve had was Panera Bread quality but I love that there’s typically good food options in walking distance. I personally have had better train station food in France, as in my limited exposure there were more small groceries, where I could get inexpensive high quality cheeses and bread.
in my experience you get good food at train stations when it comes from regular chains or franchises because they provide the same products and quality as in their other shops.
I tend to think that, if there’s no good public transport, car ownership is in itself a tax, in that you cannot escape it, sure you may choose who to pay your tax to, but it is a tax, and it has always been more expensive than public transport.
Do you have any data on the difference in cost between the two paradigms you mention? I'd be curious.
I think there are a few additional problems. One is an education problem that I discovered while writing this post. I was taught that tolls and taxes paid for road construction and maintenance. Seems fair to me; those who use the roads more pay more toward their maintenance - they will incur more tolls, and spend more on gas taxes (a little outdated, but still mostly holds). Apparently, that's not true [1]. Driver-related fees cover less than half the cost of road creation and maintenance. The rest is covered by general taxes. So, one big barrier to public transit is stopping the misconception that roads pay for themselves, since people then hold public transit to that standard. Or, public transit proponents could insist that the road system is held to the same standard they are: it must be net-neutral.
I will say, though, roads cover much more of their own expenses than public transit do. At least in my own Massachusetts, the MBTA's fees cover only 10.6% of expense [2].
The other financial issue that public transit faces (and financials are what cause most people not to support public transit, IME) is, who pays for it? Again, using Massachusetts as an example, a lot of the general taxpayer revenue that supports the MBTA comes at the state level. The MBTA has lines that cover less than half the state. Why should someone who receives none of the benefit have to pay as much as someone who receives some benefit? If I lived in a rural area, I'd be very opposed to public transit, because I would get negligible benefit and pay the same as someone who gets substantial benefit. So, if urban areas want to have urban projects with taxpayer dollars, it should be their taxpayer dollars. It's unfair of folks to complain that others who would not benefit from their public transit plan don't want to pay for it.
I posted another comment that did some analysis on fuel taxes and road spending (in the US).
One thing I’d like to point out is that a true comparison is very hard because heavy public vs private transit result in qualitatively different systemic outcomes that are hard to fully account for monetarily (one results in denser development with its own pros and cons vs dispersed development). And you definitely need to account for the personal costs of car ownership (the car, financing, depreciation, insurance, parking, gas) rather than just the government spending on roads when comparing against public transit.
Private transit taxes in aggregate do pay for most private transit spending but to me that is not as big of a deal as some make out. For starters those taxes are disproportionately coming from things like freight. Considering private transit costs + government spending vs public transit fares + government spending I don’t think the proportion coming from taxes vs OOP changes much, it’s just a different cost structure where some people (freight, gas guzzler drivers vs heavy transit users and high income people) pay proportionately more.
The payment problem is indeed a challenge. I think a big problem with public transit is that it’s really expensive and wasteful to halfass it; you’re better off in a lot of cases accepting a local optimum of little/no public transit than a small or medium amount that ends up being cost-ineffective. In a lot of countries like Germany, granted they are denser than the US (but comparable to Mass) even small towns have good rail or bus connections to transit hubs. That’d help a lot more than forcing someone in the boonies to pay for something they won’t benefit from (though I take issue with that framing as rural areas typically consume more spending than they receive unless they are wealthy suburbs (with wealth coming from the cities) vs urban areas, so if the project truly benefits the urban area economically, it will still help the rural folks).
> It's unfair of folks to complain that others who would not benefit from their public transit plan don't want to pay for it.
I don't know if it's the same in the US, but where I'm from rural areas depend entirely on urban tax revenues. If state support was cut and local expenses would have to be covered with local taxes, all rural areas would die overnight as basic services couldn't be funded any more. But it's of course an unfair idea to start with.
> If I lived in a rural area, I'd be very opposed to public transit, because I would get negligible benefit and pay the same as someone who gets substantial benefit. So, if urban areas want to have urban projects with taxpayer dollars, it should be their taxpayer dollars.
Here in Austria most people either live or they commute into urban areas for work. So even if public transport was only available in urban areas, it would still benefit most of the people.
Good question. The study by the DIW was broken by FT Germany and some quotes found their way to other news outlets, but I can't find the original study so I can't comment much on their methodology. What I can say is that at least there are different usage and resulting deterioration patterns for the different types of roads, for which statistics exist. Also, for the autobahn there exists an additional source of income, which is tolls for trucks above 7.5 tons.
Still, I see private vs public transit as a collective action problem leading to a local, non-global optimum: in aggregate we are still spending a lot on private transit, and when public transit is poorly funded in a particular area you have little choice but to choose private transit, which creates a negative feedback loop on multiple levels (incremental increases in public transit funding have little effect because they’re not enough to ditch a car, new development is dispersed and car-dependent). In my opinion, being all but forced to pay for private transit out of pocket is not much different from being forced to pay for public transit through taxes.
Heavy public transit vs heavy private transit is never going to be an apples-to-apples comparison because each has pros and cons (especially when considered systemically) and distinct cost structures. But personally even with a high tax rate that ends up paying for more public transit than I consume, I prefer the systemic outcomes of high public transit funding compared to private transit and deliberately choose to live in an area with that so I can forego car ownership.
I live in neighbouring Luxembourg now and here it's very simple: public transportation inside the country are free. No need to register or anything: you just hop in and it's free. For tourists, for expats/residents/natives: doesn't matter, it's all free.
Income tax goes as high as 40% in Luxembourg (for the high earners) but it sure seems like people here do get a lot in return for their taxes.
This is a situation where national size actually does matter.
Luxembourg is effectively only offering local/metro level free transit, since the country is tiny. Germany, on the other hand, has regional trains criss-crossing the country that are also free. Yes, the faster IC trains aren't included, but slower trains that go quite far are included.
So, while Germany is indeed charging rather than making them free, they're also offering more than Luxembourg is.
No, because there are entire classes of regional/intercity* trains that Germany is providing with the 49EUR ticket that can't even exist within Luxembourg. A German going 100km may well still be within Germany, a Luxembourger going 100k is now on an international trip, one that Luxembourg's free tickets obviously don't cover.
The further trains go, generally the more expensive tickets are, because you get fewer economies of scale compared to local trips within a metro area, and infrastructure upkeep is probably more expensive for such long trips through more remote areas.
Are you using "intercity" literally, as in "between cities"?
Intercity (IC) is a specific type of train in Germany, which (aside from some edge cases) you can't use with the 49€ ticket. I think you're thinking of the REs (RE is short for Regionalexpress), those go between cities too, but make more stops in smaller towns etc, and those are included in the ticket.
except it is because if you have a very high amount of money you can do all kind of tricks to reduce you personal income (on which you pay high tax) without actually losing out on much, e.g. by having a company have this income instead of you, and you just happen to have 100% control of the company ;=)
for money you spend on private exp-endures of luxury there is often a limit on how much you can trick around so you still have to pay yourself out a not so small amount of money as income and in turn Luxembourg still get a nice amount of tax.
(Edit: Legal tax avoidance of very wealthy people, works roughly like this pretty much everywhere, not just Luxembourg.)
Even the city of Berlin is around 59% larger then the whole country of Luxembourg (the population of Luxembourg is also around 5times smaller).
It's really not hard for it to provide free public transportation. (Berlin considered doing it and it's a comparatively poor city). Generally in such small countries a lot of thing are just way easier to implement, through other things are way harder.
Or in other words for many metrics comparing very small countries with non very small countries makes often no sense as the dynamics involved are just too different.
Income tax when I lived in Germany ('17-'19) was 42%. The Soli tax was another 5%. Transit was relatively expensive compared to Boston, where I live now, but in much better shape. Transit coverage in the suburbs seemed much better too.
I will move out of Germany at the end of year. The country has insanely high taxes for singles. Also a court may ask you to pay life long support, paying 3/7 of the difference of your incomes, to your ex wife even if you don't have any children. Bureaucracy is one of the highest in the entire world and every process takes a lot of time. Many authorities will not even accept anything but paper letters for communication. May be some day I will write about all the drawbacks of living in Germany, but that book will be bigger than the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica.
I get your grievances about Germany, but alimony/child support laws can turn out much worse than that in many parts of the anglosphere. Bad bureaucracy is also hardly unique to Germany.
The tax thing I do get. Especially if you are not a migrant it can be a tough ask to give away 40-50% of your money, a lot of which goes directly or indirectly to pensioners who probably hate your guts. Though again, while this is particularly bad in Germany, it's hardly unique in that regard.
What other drawbacks are there and where will you go to? Alimony is going to be a thing in most Western countries.
The weird low-tech bureaucracy (which culturally extends well into the business world and is related to things like high physical currency usage) is to me one of the worst parts of Germany. IMO the taxes are not bad because you get a lot of benefits from government spending living there, it’s the low wages that are the real problem.
No, everything is bad. That's why I'm about to migrate to the next country where I will eventually realize that everything is bad but it's now 10 years later.
Hungary does something similar starting May 1. 50€ for a country-wide ticket on buses and trains, no local transport included though. Still it's really good deal. Also students get a 90% discount.
I'm quite often on business trips, and regularly visit the major cities here - I also love taking the public transit - so right now I have 6 different apps on my phone. Would be nice with only one, as well as tickets that can be used wherever.
Check out the app "Entur", it consolidates all public transport into one app so you can order a trip across different regions without having to use several apps.
As an aside, the Green Party in Norway wants to do the same as Germany: introduce a nation-wide monthly "travel as much as you want"-subscription for 499 NOK. It will probably only include the local and cross regional trains, and not the fastest and longest routes.
Besides the mentioned possibilities, it also includes regional trains. It allows therefore to travel through whole Germany (of course usually slower than with the intercity trains that have less stops).
but outside of going to close by cities it's very unpractical
the moment you travel a longer distance it's not just "usually slower", it's most times way slower and you don't have the comfort of e.g. seat reservations and you tend to have to switch trains way more often meaning the chance of unexpected delays increases exponentially.
E.g. Berlin => Munich with ICE 4 hours but with RE+RB 12 hours. (RE,RB are included in the Germany wide ticket but IC,ICE are not)
Basically the ticket includes all metro transportation train networks across Germany as well as the trains which connect "regional" places (e.g. small cities, villages) with each other and the bigger hubs.
This still can be a major money saving, especially for people which live slightly outside the transportation network of a metro area (which helps because housing prices have been kinda high in many metro areas in recent years).
Or saves money e.g. in summer when taking a day trip to a lake or nice hiking place outside of the reach of the metro area (which also can be a big help for day trips for people earning just a bit about the limit under which you get social support).
I.e. it will help the most people which are currently affect the most by the current inflation and other post-covid effects, while it still is a really convenient thing for everyone else.
What if they extended it so that all residents must pay it, wether they want to use or not public transport? This way, they can reduce the price even more and everybody can hop in a public transport anytime they want without thinking.
Technically, every tax payer does pay, irrespective of whether they are using the ticket or not: the EUR 49/month ticket is heavily subsidised, to the tune of EUR 3 billion/year, and this is covered by the tax payer.
I am very much anti-car but the extreme also concerns me. If you're not rich and all your options for transportations are public shared transportation and payment methods are non-cash and traceable then your freedom of movement is regulated by the state. In China for example, your movement using public transportation and even your ability to rent a bike is regulated by social score.
I need a constitutional amendement (US) that guarantees cash payments will alwayd be an option for any means of transportation, shopping for basic needs and communication methods. And that the 4th amendment's protections for search and seizure extend to public transportation and that the government must take an all or nothing approach to weapons on public transport, that is either allow all legal weapons or screen every single person using a public transport (like airports) for weapons.
I would also like to add that the federal government should be granted powers that allow it to override local governments' push back against public transport infrastructure (e.g. california!). Allow it to purchase any land for fair market prices and use eminent domain to remove people and endsure things like the cali rail project where rich localities get a stop but poor ones have little say doesn't happen.
Germany gets a lot of stuff like this right. For example, I work in infosec and it is a nightmare to do anything that might identify a user, as it should be.
A new pass. Digital only. Subscription only. It doesn't replace any other ticket types. It includes all trains except high-speed trains, so you can go much further (or commute much further) and your city limits.
It's possible the 49 Euro is cheaper than a single train ticket, let's say 100km, between cities. It's very much cheaper for anybody communiting daily, a no-brainer to switch to the new ticket.
Some cities and states offer additional discounts, e.g. for seniors or the disabled.
The 2022 test mentioned in the video was 9 Euro per month. At that price it was cheaper than taking a bus a couple of times. It existed as paper version, too. States, federal government, local public transport agencies (there are many) fought all winter what the new price should be. Anything from 29 to 99 Euro was discussed. It's an expensive program.
Germany also has a ticket that covers all trains including high speed trains. It's 4339 Euro/year (or 7356 Euro for first class seats). I know several people who bought the ticket for their commute or where the employer gave such tickets to employees (instead of company car).
The twitter post is incomplete. It’s all local and regional transport - including regional trains. Regional trains can run for a few hundred kilometers, for example you can do Kaiserlautern to Osterburken (close to Würzburg) without changing. That’s about 200km.
There are a few confusing exceptions where long distance trains run under a regional code.
This is a new(ish) ticket. We had a 9€ ticket for three month (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket) which was a huge monetary relief. Sadly this is not continued, but as a consequence (due to high popularity of the 9 euro ticket) the 49€ ticket is introduced as a compromise.
It generally is cheaper than most (virtually all) monthly tickets. Additionally this one is valid for all of Germany instead of just for a state or specific region. "Job Tickets" used to commute to and from work, subsidized by cities and/or companies, often cost ~90 € per month in my experience.
We need to realise that 9 euros or 49 euros makes no difference. Both are peanuts for the vast majority of people.
Ultimately these schemes are based on the belief of the current people in charge to public transport should be free. Hence they pushing to get there. But trying to argue that 9 vs 49 is a huge difference feels rather immature.
1. For unemployed people and people in low wage jobs, 40€/month is a lot of money, and many will not be able to afford this ticket. Meaning they have to stick to single tickets, whenever it is unavoidable or use other means of transportation.
2. During the 3 month of the 9€ ticket, we saw a huge increase in travels to surrounding areas of cities. Anecdotally, there are stories of bakeries, cafes, bars at the edge of the city who saw an significant increase in customers because the barrier to visit them was lower to virtually zero. People just visited different parts of their city, or other cities because it was now affordable for them.
3. 9€ is a price where you don't think about buying anything else. The first trip you take, you buy this ticket (even on the last day of the month). This massively simplifies traveling by bus and train. 49€ is something you only spend if you know that there will be multiple trips in the month. This combined with the subscription based model, makes the current ticket far less attractive than the previous 9€ ticket.
The 2nd point is misleading as a major part of this effect was likely due to the novelty of the 9€ ticket and it being "only available for a short time" and the COVID lockdowns which had happened before. I.e. it was a "I want to get out" effect combined with a "if I don't do it now I will miss out" effect.
The discussion for this ticket started with 9€ so it's fair to compare the result to what they set out to achieve.
9€ would have been a revolution of public transportation. A major step to achieve the emission goals of ministry of transportation, which it utterly fails at and can't even come up with a strategy how to achieve any reductions.
49€ is nice for everyone already using public transportation on a regular basis, but will not induce a significant change in transportation method used, which is desperately needed.
The 9€ ticket was so cheap and so heavily subsidized I found it a bit surprising they bothered charging for it at all. It resulted in very crowded trains in the middle of a covid wave. I bought the tickets, but used them so little I probably just broke even relative to the usual price.
Not having a regular commute, I do not usually use 49€ worth of transit in a month. I'd rather ride my bike than be in a crowded train any time that's a viable option. Still, I'd buy the ticket just to always have the option at 9€. At 49€, I'll only buy one if I know I'm going to use it.
That's absolutely false. I don't even spent €9 most months on public transit in Berlin, but at €9, I'd get it and probably use public transit more often (which is the point). There's no way I'd buy a €49 ticket. I primarily bike and drive, though I drive so little that I only have to fill up my tank every 2-3 months.
There's no way you'd use public transport if it cost you 49 euros a month? Hmm I think that means you simply don't really want/need public transport because 49 euros a month for unlimited use is dirt cheap however you look at it.
Frankly, I find it very odd the inhabitants of one of the richest countries on Earth argue over 9 vs 49 euros a month... that feels like next level spoiled.
I'm not arguing that it should exist for €9, I'm arguing that there's a major difference in the effects of a €9 ticket vs. a €49 ticket. I'd actually change my behavior for a €9 ticket. I won't for a €49 ticket, because I won't buy it. And the point of this ticket is to get people to change their behavior.
I mainly get around by bike. I basically use my car for: bad weather, large shopping trips, outings with kids and going to the area around Berlin. I'd consider doing some of the latter two with a public transit pass if I had one.
I actually used to have a monthly ticket -- when I needed it for work. But a lot of people work from home, or bike to work, and for those folks a €49 ticket still really can't be justified. You'd need to make 20 trips a month for it to work out, and if you're not taking public transit to work, that's a larger number than one's likely to need.
But this started with, "We need to realise that 9 euros or 49 euros makes no difference." It does, for me, and lots of people like me. It's fine for you to think we don't matter, but your claim that people like us don't exist is false.
In fact, in central Berlin people that cycle as a primary means of transportation is extremely common. (I honestly can't think of a single of my friends who uses public transit daily.) €9 vs. €49 makes a difference for people who use public transit as auxiliary transit, not primary transit.
I don't know why it is odd. A ticket in Berlin is around 3 euros. If you make around 10 rides in an average month then a 9 or 29 euros pass is worth it, a 49 euros pass is not worth it. Not everyone will change their travel patterns because of a discounted pass, so there is some threshold at which it is worth it.
I get it you don't need that pass because you already get it cheaper. In fact I think very few people need a national pass and would rather prefer a cheaper local pass.
But the general point is that 49 euros a month to use public transport is dirt cheap and is definitely not a barrier, quite the opposite.
NB if a ticket is 3 euros it means 60/120 euros a month to commute daily without any discounted pass. Obviously, if you use only now and then the 3 euro ticket will be the cheapest option anyway...
It is cheaper then the local pass they can get (by 15+€ per month).
It's not that the local pass is cheaper for them, it's that they use the transportation network so little that buying single tickets on demand is cheaper.
Which makes this whole argument kinda pointless.
I think they believe the 49€ ticket is an attempt to try to make driver stop using the car and use the public transport instead. But this isn't exactly the goal here.
you are speaking about _one directional consecutive rides_
I.e. 10 rides are just 5 trips
if you have a ride home from work and take some side route to stop at a shopping mall or Kino or so that counts as an additional trip
but someone using it for work daily tends to have more then 42 rides a month not just 10 and that is just for work transit in a 5 work day week
and then this is assuming you only travel in the AB area and not the outer area of Berlin
and there are many (in summer) nice places close by Berlin, some still in the C area some beyond
lastly, it's very convenient, I mean since I don't have a semester ticket anymore I forgot to buy a ticket way to often and just was lucky to never got cought
the primary benefit is for commuters, that is 2 rides per workday, 40 rides a month. so effectively 1.23€ per ride.
even as someone working from home, i go out at least 3-4 times a week, shopping, other errands, events, meet friends. two rides each time adds up to at least 30 rides a month.
3€ per ride only gets you 16 rides before you reach 49€. any semi regular user of public transport will reach that easily.
At 50 it's affordable to almost everyone. It's a big improvement, but still incremental.
At 10 (or less) it's a safe assumption for everyone. You can start building things with zero provisions for cars, no excuses. It's a massive social shift.
> I don't even spent €9 most months on public transit in Berlin
which means you don't really use the public transite net at all
because a 4-(one direction) trip bundle ticket cost already 10€, and that is AB only, i.e. excluding the outer areas of Berlin
or in other words if you use the public transportation so little and drive so little that it also doesn't cost you much you really are not the audience this ticket is meant to help
You should calculate the costs for the car. Insurance+tax alone might be above 49€/month.
If you would get rid of it for 9€/month you should also do it for 49€/month.
This ticket is basically a big (!) raise for anyone using public transport. My wife will save 150€/month and can travel everywhere instead of a 50km single route
Tax isn't much, but insurance, fuel and maintenance are more than €49/month. But I'm not considering getting rid of my car. (I may when my kids are older.)
> Trying to understand how much more affordable this has become.
In Berlin I used to pay between 91€ and 114€ per month, depending on which how much of the metropolitan area I wanted the ticket to cover. Now I'll be paying a flat 49€ per month.
In Munich prices for monthly tickets currently range between 63€ and a whopping 243€. There, too, you will soon only need to pay 49€ per month, no matter how far you travel.
Did the conditions change? Just a week ago a German comedy show similar to the US daily show showed how much of a mess the system is and that this ticket isn't valid everywhere. One place you can take your dog for free and another you pay etc. Germany has a very heterogeneous public transport system from my understanding.
I think this has more to do with the natural desire to complain about things - perfect is the enemy of good and all that. There are definitely a lot of issues, ranging from, as you say, the heterogeneity of German public transport to the flat-rate-but-still-somehow-discounted-for-employees pricing structure. But I suspect a lot of this will get worked out over time.
But the foundation does seem to be pretty clear and universal - if you have this ticket for 49€ a month, you will be allowed on all RE/RB/S trains, plus buses and trams. This alone is a fantastic deal for a lot of people. On top of that, some states will have some extra offers or additional forms of public transport with extra rules, but if you need to worry about that, then you needed to worry about that before the ticket anyway.
Honestly I have been shaking my had about he many comedians and new papers have negatively reported about it, because it's short sighted and blinded by some absurd degree of perfectionism.
Sure it's not perfect, by far.
But it's a major improvement.
And you don't build a city in a day, you build it bit by bit incrementally.
For example yes, the 49€ ticket doesn't to allow you to take a dog or bicycle with you (consistently never; some metro trains just happen to not require tickets for dogs at all).
But would you prefer to have a 49€ ticket today, or wait another 3 years until they perfectly discussed out all the nitty bitty details of transporting things which are not humans but consume human sized space?
Instead you get the ticket today _while they work on a extension ticket for bicycle and dog transport_.
Similar yes there is a very small number of regional (non metro) lines which are labeled in a way where it seems to be valid (they are RE lines) but is not. But this is mainly the reason due to how exactly the contracts for this lines have been made. Contracts which get renewed every few years at which point you can either fix this or give them different names. Why should the ticket wait halve a year or more until all of the contracts are renewed just to fix this? (Also non of this lines are major line, they always have similar alternatives alternatives AFIK.)
It's like getting a good car for free and then complaining for days that the backseats are quite bit worn down, just ridiculous. Through they need to put a bit more work into providing easy to find informational materials IMHO.
It's the equivalent of the basic ticket in each city so guests, children, bike, dog, etc. will all vary based on whatever that offering is. Regardless it guarantees the purchaser transit. It's still massively simpler than actually buying a ticket in each city.
It's a ticket without any frills. So you don't get the kind of perks like adding another person you might in some other monthly or yearly tickets. Adding animals or bicycles is not part of the deal here, which makes the use of this ticket more complex for these cases. But those cases were usually a bit more complex before anyway.
Apart from that the ticket is valid in essentially every regional train. There are some weird cases that might not be valid, but those are as far as I understand some unusual edge cases and some of them are being negotiated. But this doesn't affect the vast majority of users.
there is a small number of RE trains which have contracts as if they are long distant trains and are operated by "DB Fernverkehr" (which normally operates IC,ICE trains) but are labeled as RE not IC/ICE..
but this will be fixed over time as the contracts a renewed, either by including the ticket or renaming the train as appropriate (the cases I'm aware of might be fixed in just a few month)
current exceptions I'm aware of are RE17, RE28, RE56 all stations on their line are also included in other lines and their where added as during rush hour parts of the exiting lines where just too over crowded
the problem is there is currently no sane way to check for what RE lines are special cases, but then AFIK this problems will likely be fixed very soon one way or another
Great move, but as someone using it, it's also one of the most unreliable for its size. DB/German railway is infamous for large delays and breakdowns. There was an effort to make the lines more punctual within a decade or so, which was then, almost satirically, moved to 2070[1]. Suburban lines often come to standstill on rain or snow. Germany has a huge network of quality free highways, car ownership is cheap, so public transport has little respect even within cities.
for comparison: Boston's monthly LinkPass, providing unlimited travel on buses, subways, certain ferries and near-in commuter rail transit, is $90 (vs Germany's plan being $54).
Would make sense for cities to accept each other's monthly transit cards in theory - little loss for the home city, and a nice perk for the pass holder that could increase appeal of that product.
Technology hurdles would probably insurmountable though with the different card formats and such.
This is an example where the federal government can do something that is impossible for companies and local governments. All the transit companies in Germany have different systems, different cards, some don't accept digital tickets at all -- but now the government just said they have to accept this new common digital ticket and it's done.
Similar thing happened in Austria with the Klimaticket. There are dozens of local transport authorities, and the government just decided that there should be a yearly ticket (Klimaticket) and everyone has to accept it.
> but now the government just said they have to accept this new common digital ticket and it's done.
This is exactly the power of higher level government.
Everyone loves to talk about making decisions more locally, but the truth is that fundamentally, local decisionmaking is no better or worse than national decisionmaking; it's just different, at least overall. In some cases it's better, but you can see that in a case like this, just having coordination forced upon local agencies that otherwise have little incentive to cooperate is actually fantastic.
it's not that simple, there is of course the question of who is paying for this, since the respective transportation businesses do expect to be reimbursed. but, regional tickets that are valid in all transport businesses in an area already exist everywhere, so the technicalities of working out how to count and reimburse different businesses has already been worked out, and expanding this to an additional nationwide ticket is a small change.
this is a very different approach and culture to for example japan where lots of independent companies providing transport exist, but as far as i can tell no collective ticket, but pay as you go everywhere.
>> Would make sense for cities to accept each other's monthly transit cards in theory - little loss for the home city, and a nice perk for the pass holder that could increase appeal of that product.
Australia (NSW): AUD$50/week cap. They also discount $2 when you change transport modes in one journey, halve prices after 8 journeys/week, cap weekdays at AUD$16.80, cap weekend days at AUD$8.40 and offer 30% off-peak discount - https://transportnsw.info/tickets-opal/opal/opal-benefits which works out to AUD$200/month = USD$132/month
Switzerland started getting unique ticket across public transport companies since 1857. Now it's enshrined in the law (and over 240 different transportation companies are participating, incl. train, bus, gondola, boats, etc.).
(service direct in French, direkter Verkher in German)
I don't know what "public transit population density" is, but there's probably no reasonable measure whereby Boston, a city, has a lower density of any human thing than Germany, a whole-ass farm-heavy country.
Boston is one of the least car-dependent cities in America and Germany is one of the most car-dependent countries in Europe, so I suspect there's significant overlap.
But this is also some deep begging of the question - if you charge more less people use it, no shit. It's not like this price is profitable anywhere in Germany.
>Boston is one of the least car-dependent cities in America and Germany is one of the most car-dependent countries in Europe
original comment covered Boston area, since it includes extra city transit. My expectation is that Boston area population still drive cars much more than Germans.
> It's not like this price is profitable anywhere in Germany.
the question how much unprofitable it will be in US. Say government invested billions in building top notch public transit in Boston area, but population will still prefer to drive cars, it will be huge waste of money.
I think one of the reason why cars are preferred in US is higher wages and lower gasoline and car prices so population can afford driving cars more, and car is more convenient transportation in most of the time.
I think public transit has a marketing problem in the US. People don’t often realize how much more expensive the paradigm of “taxes pay for roads and individuals pay for vehicles, gas, and maintenance” can be than a paradigm of heavy public transit use. While this program for sure relies on taxpayer funding (just as road usage does, I might add), even if coupled with occasional car rentals or taxis, the all-in cost can be so much lower than having a car.
The train system is one of my favorite parts of Germany and I really wish we had something comparable in the denser parts of the US.