I think it's great, but honestly, placing it at 15€ would have made only a little difference to the consumer, who is already getting a lot for the value, and helped the railway operators a good deal. As a compromise the age of kids who can travel together with their parents for free could have been raised from 6 to 8 years.
For anyone wondering why 9€? Not 10€ or 15€ or ... - its consistent with 101 consumer psychology.
First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state. Free would suggest for some "not worth it". Not you, most likely, but this is why some free offers are not taken (seriously). If you want to see what free does, look for the Luxemburg experient: https://www.mobiliteit.lu/en/tickets/free-transport/
Second: Higher price point would make a difference for less subsidy payments for the state, but the psychology is "not even 10 bucks". I know that some will argue that 10 Euros will be hard for low income/poor/out of the system people - but again, this is seen as an experiment and a simple message. The data from the usage will help to understand how one can/might change public transportation on a grand scale.
Third: Its during the summer holidays. People with children in school have to book vacation during that time and so the traffic volume in every year before was less than usual on average. In reverse, a lot of people are on the autobahn and the high speed trains on the first and last days of each school holiday, which are different in each federal state.
Yes that's the scale for monthly public transport ticket price in large number of continental European cities. I don't own a car so I may be out of touch with those expenses, 15% just sounded to me like a lot.
The time value is of course then on top, but the parent accounted for that separately.
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.
I'm still surprised by that, but personally a bit disappointed it ended up at 50 bucks, I think it was increased multiple times during the planning and discussions about extending the 9€ ticket. At least it's not 70, which I think was also on the table at some point. Still, a huge win for people who can use it daily for commute, which is unfortunately not me. I had the 9€ one and occasionally took the train into the green for hiking or other events, but didn't even come close to 50€ in fares.
It's not going to sell as much as the 9 Euro Ticket, but it's going to get a lot of commuting people out of cars and into trains. Even going from neighboring small-medium towns is roughly 100+ monthly. People using cars like certain advantages a car has and the prices were in the ballpark in the past, but with current prices those advantages become meaningless quick.
As a lot of things it's a compromise, but overall I think it's a good thing.
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.
pensioners should pay less because they have less income and are more dependent on public transport.
tourists paying more doesn't make sense, because tourists are not going to use this kind of ticket anyways unless they are in germany for a few months. and even if they get it for just a short visit then they will hardly make as much use of it as locals, so there is no benefit for them paying more.
that said, there could be a more expensive version of this ticket that does not require a subscription that you'd have to remember to cancel.
I'm assuming they have variable pricing based on distance traveled, and 20 EUR covers the highest fare for the system. That could just be my optimistic bias speaking though.
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 price should be 20$+, there wasn't much middle ground, it is nice to have cheap rides for certain things but if the low cost option dominates, the whole model is unsustainable.
? Not a complaint, I don't even have kids. But if it was $99 for the ride (regardless of people) then it's more price efficient for a family flying compared to the hundreds it costs after their promotional pricing.
Imo viability should be considered if the price that the government pays is worth it, the 2022 budget seems to be around €457.6 billion. 2.5 billion seems to be totally worth it, as you agree.
If the measure would be kept year-round, it would cost around 10 billion, which seems a tad high. Are these costs offset somehow by the symbolic price of the ticket? Until 15 of July they sold around 30 million tickets so overall over the 3 months, maybe 40-45 million tickets would be sold. That makes 360-405 million, so around 14-16% of the cost. I'm not sure if this money goes to the transport companies or is used to offset the government's costs. If the ticket stays, but the price increases 2x or 3x (that would still be an enormous bargain IMO), costs would be offset even more, probably.
It's debatable of the economical effect that this measure already had, taking in consideration higher efficiency of public transport, more disposable money for the population, freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. Except the flat cost for the government and the long-term cost of infrastructure (which might be huge) I really can't see many negatives for this measure.
Of course, but if operating a train costs you $10 per seat and you start charging $5 it will never break even..
And the article says:
"€49 a month ‘Deutschlandticket’ has led to a 25 per cent rise in passengers on national railway company Deutsche Bahn's regional services"
and a daily (regional) ticket costs about €20-50 depending on area.
I mean obviously it might very well be worth doing this for other reasons but somebody will have to subsidize the lost revenue for various transport companies.
The article pointed out that the issue was because of the fare lock-ins, not because they were private. Do you realize how ridiculous 5 cents is, even for 1920? That's like 59 cents in todays buying power.
Even the subsidized 285 Euro price you pay for a yearly pass could have afforded multiple rides nearly every day paying per ride at those rates.
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.
I am assuming a large part of that influx was from people who made extensive use of it because of its limited nature. If a similar option was always available, there would be a lot less pressure to squeeze every opportunity into such a short time frame.
If the 69€ ticket came to pass, it would still be more expensive than, or in the same ballpark as most one-off trips. People would make use of it, but the urge to take advantage of it while it lasts would be gone.
My hope is that the political cost of cutting the Deutschlandticket (as in, let it go back to the previous situation) would be too high, so governments will find a way of making it fit in the budget and only bump the price a little.
As context, for people not in Germany: each transportation region sets their own prices, but the new (nationally subsided) €49 ticket is already cheaper than monthlies in most places. This is good and convenient for people living in downtown, but it is a godsend for people living in suburbs, because their distance-based monthlies were sometimes two or three times that. For people living in the edge of a region and commuting to another, it was even worse, as they needed tickets from both regions.
I believe the equivalent "legacy" ticket on Deutsche Bahn (all regional transport free) was something like €212/month. €49 is one hell of a deal.
reply