> For some reason, public transport is always priced in a way that makes it really expensive for occassional usage. If you go everday, then an annual pass is a good value.
At €1.32/l for gas in Vienna and 10l/100km this trip would cost you €63 in gas alone with an ICE car. This doesn't account for wear and wasted time so it's actually not that unreasonable at all and actually pretty cheap if you're going by yourself. With a family, I agree, it's more expensive. Although I'm starting to see the appeal that traveling by train has with a family, being able to walk around, entertain the kids more easily, etc.
> Cheap fares? You get decrepit busses from the 80s and the timetable's just a suggestion (what my city used to have)
I don’t think this is generally true... If it is true, then the I suspect government subsidize are a bigger factor in explaining the variance of public transit quality then fare price.
Take Reykjavík as an example. It has the most expensive public transit fare price in Europe (86% above the European average) and all you get are some buses every 30-60 min (with only a handful of lines running more frequently during rush hour), timetables from the 80s and a ticketing system that never actually works. It is safe to say that Reykjavík has an expensive, poorly developed and unreliable transit system.
I think a well funded transit system can actually accomplish all three pretty easily, as long as they are willing to sacrifice some convenience for private vehicles.
>If my daily commute is a handful of bus stops and that guy's is a train for an hour from another city
If your daily commute is a handful of bus stops for instance in the Vienna metro, then you can buy a yearly ticket just for the Vienna public transport for 365€.
>Eg you pay 29 EUR minimum for a Hamburg-Berlin ride, compared to 9? for a bus.
Long distance bus are much cheaper, but also much less comfortable and less reliable. DB gets a lot of flak for one hour delays on the first snow, my bus was delayed 3 hours at the start of winter. In general delays seem much more frequent with the bus. The concept of connecting to a different bus also doesn't exist (probably because of unreliable travel times), meanwhile with the train I can travel from anywhere to anywhere.
I would love cheaper trains, but they are already cheaper than traveling long distance by car and much more enjoyable and reliable than long distance bus. They lose badly to cheap flights though.
> 2. Many cities already have rush hour fees on public transportation (or equivalently discounts for off-peak passes) so some price differentiation in bus lines seems possible.
I have never seen that anywhere in Europe or Canada, does that mean there are two different tickets with different prices, and you have to have both if don't know exactly when you're going to take your bus?
Also, I wonder how it works with a monthly or yearly pass.
> One is underfunding, which causes a lack of reliability, and plenty of lines that are overused.
> The 49 euro ticket is a step in the right direction here, ...
Errm, you do see the contradiction here, no?
The 49 Euro ticket is actually heavily subsidized which means more tax payer money is wasted that could be invested into the infrastructure of public transport.
That's the part that makes a system like this subjectively unfair.
If my daily commute is a handful of bus stops and that guy's is a train for an hour from another city, then I am basically funding his commute by overpaying for my pass... even if it's cheaper to ride my bus with a pass than to buy a ticket for every ride.
Edit - I read the website as saying that this is going to be the only pass available in Austria. It looks like it's not, which, of course, makes far more sense in comparison.
> Does it? How do railways work in Austria? In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway.
There are routes on which there is competition (eg: Vienna to Salzburg) where two rail companies operate. For the most part the competition is quite limited, something which I hope will change.
> Is that a good thing?
Yes. Because public transit is primarily for the people who live there and pay taxes. That it's also something that tourists can use is great, but you don't need to subsidize it for them.
My fear is that in case of public transportation, reducing the cost will change the product, and the changed product will be in less demand in the long run.
> Do you have any evidence of a reduction in price leading to a reduction in demand for public transport anywhere in the world?
No, I haven't, and the well-known example of Hasselt in Belgium seems to suggest otherwise [0]. But I am not convinced that what works in a small town in Belgium, or a medium-sized city in Estonia, will work in larger cities.
>Expensive to run. A big reason North American systems are so heavily subsidized is that they are really cheap to ride.
Huh? Here in DC, the subway fares are rather high compared to the fares I payed in Germany and Japan. Germany was downright cheap, with multi-day all-you-can-ride passes available for what it costs me to take 3 rides on the DC Metro. The NYC MTA isn't very inexpensive either, though I think it's still cheaper than DC's. But for the money, it's a far, far worse user experience than the systems in Germany and Japan.
> Wait, i suggest aligning it to the cost of a similar travel with a car!
I would wish they actually align their normal prices with a car.
It's absurd that it's cheaper for two people to travel from Karlsruhe to Frankfurt by car, than to take an ICE train. And that applies to almost any train connection inside a Germany.
> However I strongly suspect you're wrong -- people choose cheaper tickets all the time, they book specific trains in advance
We are talking urban transit here and not advance bookable trains. If given the choice of a 20% cheaper ticket but half the trains people would take the more frequent service.
Why take the choice away? Because more operators means fewer trains/busses/trams per operator as the infrastructure is generally limited. So in urban areas shared ticketing is what customers prefer.
> You mention Swiss train service for example which seemed pretty great as a visitor--but it sure wasn't cheap as is true of a lot of European train service.
The thing is, if you're not a visitor, you'd buy an AG or a demi-tarif (perhaps with a contribution from your employer). The former gives you free unlimited use on almost all public transit (including trains and busses), or alternatively, the latter gives you approximately a 50% discount on the price you paid as a tourist. The latter is quite commonly sponsored by your employer – and even if not, both types pay off very quickly if you actually commute by public transit.
I don't see how this is irrelevant in any way. Why should a transit service make all its profit purely from ridership fares, if it can instead make money with these other methods, which help keep the fares low for riders? It's a win-win-win. Maybe other transit systems should look at Japan's systems and learn something from them; I've never seen space in US stations rented out like this. And it's really great too: here, I can grab a confection or gift or something from one of these vendors while I'm passing through the station or waiting for a train.
>The ridership is also insanely high, partly due to how good the service is, and also partly due to the density (which is a virtuous cycle provided by good service).
Here again, other countries should try learning from this example. Making this system work this well required high density, which brings a feedback loop of more benefits. Meanwhile, some other countries are complaining about unaffordable housing because they insist on houses being far apart and driving cars everywhere.
> This is first and foremost a subsidy scheme to give public transit providers some more money - many people will buy the 9 euro ticket which before did not buy monthly tickets - and for each such ticket, the state will give the public transit provider the difference to a full month ticket, up to 200 Euros.
Do you have a source for that? Considering that the federal government considers 2.5 billion
Euro enough to cover the costs, this sounds false. As far as I'm informed the transport authorities will just get their current costs covered.
>Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of taking a metro home from the airport. I think most people would love that too, which is why everyone is so excited about it. But even if everyone will use it at some point or another, most only go to the airport once or twice a year. Thus, on any given day, not many people will use it. And that means low ridership.
And how is that a problem for the person writing the post?
Other than tax-wise, which can easily be solved with a ticket price?
> DB's Standard fare is far from their cheapest. I have a BahnCard 25 (so a 25% discount)
Well the price of the bahncard should be added to the price you pay per trip, so the question is, how much is that card? Then people can figure out for themselves how often they'd commute and whether they'd save anything.
And still, 25% off of €116 vs. €22 doesn't sound too appealing.
Not criticizing the rest of your post, e.g. I agree that competition is good and available discounts should surely be included in comparisons!
Rail is heavily subsidised in many European countries. But a well-run and affordable rail service is such an essential motor of economic well-being that subsidies are generally accepted as essential by governments and most of the public.
For an example of what what happens when more and more of the cost of a ticket is shouldered by the commuter, look at the UK. We have some of the highest rail fares in the whole of Europe.
Below is research from the TUC (Trades Union Congress) in the UK who campaign against rail privatisation. Whether or not you agree with their stance on privatisation, the cost of a monthly season ticket in the UK is enormous.
Monthly season ticket comparison: UK vs Europe:
UK: Luton to London St. Pancras (35 miles) £387
UK: Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Piccadilly (32 miles) £292
Which transit system with a subscription model does that? We have a year ticket in Vienna and since that is a flatrate you can already not do that.
reply