9-Euro-Ticket

https://www.bahn.com/en/offers/regional/9-euro-ticket-en

by _Microft • 4 years ago

875 578 4 years ago

qwertox2• 4 years ago

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.

Shadonototra• 4 years ago

I think it's great, but honestly, placing it at 15€ would have made only a little difference

The ticket exist to relieve citizens due to rising energy costs

What a nice idea to double the price! i suggest to triple it, so they can make even more profits!

Wait, i suggest aligning it to the cost of a similar travel with a car!

Are you american by chance?

https://www.stoag.de/en/dialog/neuigkeiten/detail/9-euro-tic...

We support the idea of the traffic light coalition to temporarily relieve not only drivers, but also the millions of public transport commuters in their mobility costs. It is a clear signal for local public transport as an efficient, climate-friendly and already inexpensive alternative to the car. The industry is working on a technical and entrepreneurial solution in the interests of passengers. The ticket is to be launched nationwide on June 1st.

mtmail• 4 years ago

Are you american by chance?

That was unneccessary. _Microft shared several German news articles in the past.

tut-urut-utut2• 4 years ago

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.

No wonder people like their cars here.

qwertox2• 4 years ago

As an example, the 1-month-ticket for Stuttgart for two zones is 92,20€ [0].

For those affected by inflation, the reduction from 90 to 15€ would already be noticeable, the additional 6€ would be neglectible to the consumer in comparison to the already offered discount (not to mention that these new tickets can be used in the entire country).

And those who will now leave their car in the garage will probably be saving even more. At least in my case it was always cheaper to use public transport to go to the city, at least if I also considered the parking cost. This for a 1-day ticket, which already costs a bit over 6€.

[0] https://www.vvs.de/tickets/zeittickets-abo-polygo/monatstick...

wwwwasmistake• 4 years ago

Maybe this time it's because of rising energy cost, but I remember there was very same deal for short time, little more than 10 years ago when I was visiting there. If one feels adventurous, I can highly recommend buying this ticket.

Tenoke7• 4 years ago

What a nice idea to double the price! i suggest to triple it, so they can make even more profits!

Pretty sure they wouldn't be making any profit at 15e or 27e either.

WA• 4 years ago

Exactly the opposite. It should've been 0€, because then you:

* don't have to sell tickets at all

* don't have to check tickets in trains and reduce costs

The overhead of selling tickets with the new price points might actually eat up all what's left of profits.

k__• 4 years ago

How much does checking tickets cost?

rdl• 4 years ago

0 EUR 2nd class (presumably fairly crowded) and ~market priced 1st (and potentially a car or two of 2nd at normal 2nd fares) might be an interesting experiment.

anaisbetts• 4 years ago

They still have to check tickets in trains because this only applies to one class of train, and they already are paying people to check tickets and can't/shouldn't fire them all for three months only to bring them all back

slightwinder2• 4 years ago

It's also an experiment. They need to know how people react and change their behavior with this cheap ticket. And they still need to check tickets anyway. And the price also serves as a kind of barrier to animate people to at least thing a moment, whether they really need the ticket and can "waste" the monety for it.

captainmuon• 4 years ago

Officially, it is not free in order to gauge demand.

Personally, I think there is an ideological and pedagogical element. They don't want people to get used to the idea that something like free transportation is possible.

I heard an interesting talk a couple of years ago about university tuition fees. Germany has fairly low fees compared to other countries. At some universities it is more like a token fee, a couple hundred € per year. Many students get living expenses paid from the state anyway (BAFÖG). It is silly to then pay back some of that immediately. But the thesis of the talk was that the tuition fees were introduced for educational reasons, not to cover the actual cost of teaching. Students were supposed think of themselves as customers, and of education as a good. And they could back this with quotes from neoliberal think tanks. As the FDP (free market 'liberals') is in the coalition, I'm sure one precondition was that the ticket couldn't be free.

dagw3• 4 years ago

don't have to sell tickets at all

The infrastructure for selling tickets is already in place, the marginal cost of selling one extra ticket type is essentially zero,

don't have to check tickets in trains and reduce costs

Assuming you have to have at least one person working on the train anyway, for safety reasons if nothing else, having them also check tickets doesn't cost extra.

dx0343• 4 years ago

Ticket checks are incredibly rare in most cities already, Germans tend to buy tickets because it's illegal not to, not because it's more economical given the fine you pay without one.

And selling tickets will be an extremely minor overhead, probably <5% including re-programming machines.

fxtentacle• 4 years ago

Can't do that for psychological reasons.

A free Android app attracts the worst kind of people and insults hurled at you on support channels. A $0.99 price is enough to make most support emails friendly instead.

phh2• 4 years ago

Uh this offer is paid by the railway operators, not by the government?

chmod775• 4 years ago

No. It's paid for by the government and expected to cost around 2.5 billion EUR.

It's part of this: https://www.bundesfinanzministerium.de/Content/DE/Standardar...

archi423• 4 years ago

This is a matter of perspective. The ticket is not aimed solely at people with median income of a tech worker (or the typical HN crowd), but help out the general populace as a whole. Including those who can not even afford a car.

Now I think when the times comes (3 month from now) for the program to run out, we might see discussions about continuing it at a price that makes it a more sustainable, permanent offer. But that's my opinion speaking (I wouldn't even mind if it was mandatory like back when I was attending university, as long as it is affordable for people with low to lowest incomes).

Tenoke7• 4 years ago

more sustainable, permanent offer

Seems pretty unlikely that they'll be able to after a 3 month period of operating at a loss (for the government) and likely having more issues due to increased usage.

dmurray2• 4 years ago

Isn't the taxpayer paying the shortfall, rather than the "railway operators"?

_ph_5• 4 years ago

Right, it is tax-funded.

Don't ask me how exactly they assign the tax money to the train companies, but probably they get a fixed amount per ticket sold, which would be another reason why it is important to "sell" those tickets.

mahesh_rm• 4 years ago

I can't seem to find information on whether it is possible to purchase the ticket as a non German citizen.

morelisp• 4 years ago

Yes it is.

b3lvedere2• 4 years ago

Awesome! I might do some holiday travel :)

tauchunfall2• 4 years ago

People who use local/regional transport will be able to buy it anywhere in Germany via channels such as bahn.de and DB Navigator. It will also be available from DB Reisezentrum (travel centre) staff and ticket machines at stations.

Ticket machines can be used without need to identify.

kuschku16• 4 years ago

Buying the 9 euro ticket is possible anonymously with cash at any train station, so yeah, you should be able to.

curiousfab• 4 years ago

I couldn't imagine why not. You just to to a ticket machine and buy it, no need for a passport or anything. Enjoy - Sylt is waiting for you, and you'll be there along with a million like-minded people!

Bayart2• 4 years ago

I couldn't imagine why not.

The single market. Refusing to sell to other EU citizens is very illegal.

RGamma2• 4 years ago

Pack the Schultenbräu! Sylt, it's on!

riidom2• 4 years ago

Invade bavaria instead. As "thank you" for their threat of blocking the ticket :)

GuB-422• 4 years ago

It is still a good question, because there are often special conditions to these kinds of offer.

For example, in Paris, some "all zones" tickets are only available to residents (pass Navigo). The Japanese "Japan Rail Pass" is only available to tourists, and the "Interrail" pass is complicated: you have to reside in Europe but you can only use it in your own country for a single round trip.

biafra• 4 years ago

I am 100% sure anyone can buy it. And I am almost equally sure, anyone using it will not get fined.

_Microft5• 4 years ago

The tickets aren't personalized (some regular monthly passes for public transport are/were though), so you should be fine. Since they aren't personalized and there is no way to check who the owner actually is, I would even expect them to be transferable.

Edit: looks like I was wrong -> see replies. You can also search for "9-Euro-Ticket übertragbar" (übertragbar = transferable) yourself to get a number of different German sources for that.

dmurray2• 4 years ago

Normally DB day tickets, even bought at the ticket machine, are not transferable. You have to write your name on the back - in theory, before the first time you encounter a ticket controller - and be prepared to produce ID matching the name.

germanier9• 4 years ago

This ticket is personalized.

himlion2• 4 years ago

Yes, it would be a violation of EU law to restrict it.

mrunkel2• 4 years ago

No it wouldn't. You could say it's only for citizens of EU member states.

That's a restriction that wouldn't violate any EU law.

chrisseaton2• 4 years ago

I can't seem to find information on whether it is possible to purchase the ticket as a non German citizen.

Biggest hurdle will be getting a Germany ticket machine to accept a regular credit card!

But otherwise, isn't discriminating based on nationality for good and services illegal?

Freak_NL3• 4 years ago

Credit cards aren't regular in Europe. They accept Maestro debit cards though, which almost everyone has, and cash.

elondaits• 4 years ago

I had no problem paying with a credit card on Bahn.de ticket machines (White and red). The yellow BVG ones gave me problems in the past accepting an Argentine card, but it’s likely it’d take it now that it has a chip.

0x0087• 4 years ago

They accept Apple Pay, that might help.

rostigerpudel2• 4 years ago

Yes, anyone can purchase it.

However, contrary to what is said multiple times in this thread, it is NOT transferable. You have to put your name on it and have some form of ID with you.

https://www.rnd.de/politik/9-euro-ticket-ab-wann-erhaeltlich...

Google Translate: https://www-rnd-de.translate.goog/politik/9-euro-ticket-ab-w...

alecco• 4 years ago

Populism. This will make the country consume more energy. There's a crisis and the solution is saving as much energy as possible. And help companies not go bankrupt. But that doesn't sell...

tauchunfall2• 4 years ago

It will consume more energy, when they need more trains or train cars. Excluding the energy needed for devices and in the restaurant on board.

edit: clearified a sentence.

iknownothow• 4 years ago

Sources for claims? Genuinely curious.

mbg7216• 4 years ago

When is there not a crisis? If you're running a train anyway, the marginal cost of attaching a couple more cars for the extra demand seems pretty small.

sascha_sl4• 4 years ago

Not even that. Most lines are already at maximum capacity, and the number of cars is usually dependent on the shortest platform on the line already.

We take this so seriously, any stop, even unplanned, where the doors might open aside from absolute emergencies must be on a platform of sufficient length.

sascha_sl4• 4 years ago

A lot of regional lines are already at max capacity in terms of rolling stock and track capacity. This will incentivise less car use for journeys where direct connections are available.

It will also give access to public transport to those in extreme poverty who have no other means of mobility, whom Germany has been prosecuting as criminals and putting in jail when their fines add up enough. Speeding and parking offenses are civil offenses. Public transport without a ticket? Felony.

macco• 4 years ago

If people use the train instead of their cars, it will save energy by a lot. Trains are the most efficient form of transportation, cars the least efficient.

ryukafalz2• 4 years ago

Bicycles are the most efficient form of transportation if we’re talking energy use, but yes, trains beat out cars by a lot. :)

kuschku16• 4 years ago

It’ll move energy use from highly inefficient personal vehicles burning gasoline to highly efficient trains using mostly renewable electricity, during the summer where more than enough electricity is available.

k8sToGo2• 4 years ago

Still plenty of diesel run train engines in Germany.

Also coal is still being burnt. So I don't think it is mostly renewable.

iggldiggl6• 4 years ago

If this was really about saving energy, they wouldn't also simultaneously lower gas taxes during the same period as well.

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

Denmark is doing a similar thing ...

b3lvedere2• 4 years ago

Soo, i could travel throughout Germany and Denmark for quite cheap?

MandieD6• 4 years ago

If you’re not in a hurry - it is not valid for the high-speed (ICE) and mid-speed (IC) trains in Germany.

sva_3• 4 years ago

In Germany, only in regional (slow) traffic (the RE only goes between 100 and max 200 kmh)

fiber• 4 years ago

Kind of, but you'll have to take the scenic route (long distance trains IC/EC/ICE are not included).

vaylian• 4 years ago

Interesting. Do you have a link with more info?

throwaway4good2• 4 years ago

https://www.dsb.dk/kampagner/rejsepass/

yccs27• 4 years ago

Some context is given here: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-introduces-9-ticket-to-offset-...

The ticket is part of a support package signed off by the German parliament. The will pay approximately €2.5 billion for the ticket offer, as a response to rising energy prices and the resulting high costs of individual mobility.

rad_gruchalski15• 4 years ago

In the meantime I just paid 200% more for heating oil than it cost me one year ago. And I cannot use this public transport offer. But I am contributing to it with my taxes.

seoaeu5• 4 years ago

In other words, your transportation patterns don’t let you reduce your oil use, so you’re doing your part by paying slightly higher taxes to benefit those who can? That doesn’t seem like a bad thing

ephbit• 4 years ago

At some point in time the whole of society needs to be presented with the true cost of individual lifestyles.

And there needs to be a discourse about which lifestyles and life choices should at all and to what degree they should be subsidised by the government and why this is legitimate.

There are a whole lot of subsidies that are neither fair nor sustainable and over time we need to transition away from them.

This is painful and becoming a little more evident these times but it needs to happen.

Letting the price for energy rise is necessary until it'll have become carbon neutral and you're feeling it.

reallydontask• 4 years ago

And I cannot use this public transport offer. But I am contributing to it with my taxes.

Not all government subsidies, benefits, etc are supposed to help everybody equally, this should not be a hard concept to grasp and yet comments like yours are so common that it makes me think that people don't really understand how taxes and government spending works.

tosh• 4 years ago

Imagine something like this for the whole EU.

bullen• 4 years ago

Interrail?

freemint3• 4 years ago

Are there cross country but regional rail lines?

Mordisquitos3• 4 years ago

Yes, there are! For example, I have travelled between Strasbourg and Basel (Switzerland) on a regional train, as well as between Milan and Nice, and between Nice and Barcelona (changing trains at the Spanish border due to the change of rail gauge). There's also a regional line connecting Barcelona and Puigcerdà (a town in the Spanish Pyrenees) which at certain times continues its service a further ~5km and terminates in Latour-de-Carol, a tiny village on the French side which is served by French regional services.

_0ffh5• 4 years ago

I'm sure the private bus operators, who usually are the only cheap option to travel in Germany, are just thrilled by this additional market distortion.

kuschku16• 4 years ago

There’s only one left, all the others went bankrupt, and that one (FlixBus) only offers long-distance journeys, while this ticket only applies to regional trains.

freemint3• 4 years ago

You might be confusing regional bus with long distance bus travel or ride for hire bus companies which will also be impacted.

_0ffh5• 4 years ago

Firstly, long distance is misleading, I do not need to travel the whole length of a route. I can hop into a bus and hop out again at any of the next few bigger cities along the route. In my experience, that's what most people seem to do.

Secondly, the 9€-Ticket is valid in all of Germany, so you could travel the length and width of the country if you wanted to. You'd just have to change trains a lot.

riidom2• 4 years ago

They are. If you can squeeze an english translation out of this somehow, the article considers some potential problems:

https://www.spiegel.de/auto/neun-euro-ticket-verkehrsbetrieb...

Toboe• 4 years ago

For Automatic translations involving German it usualy is a good idea to check https://www.deepl.com/

goodpoint2• 4 years ago

additional market distortion

Are they also thrilled by "additional market distortions" like subsidized oil import and processing and road infrastructure?

Or should we remove all tax-funded infrastructure investment and go back to the middle ages?

_0ffh5• 4 years ago

With more than 50% of gas prices going into taxes, are you seriously suggesting oil is a subsidised commodity in Germany?

FabHK7• 4 years ago

Private long distance bus operators are complaining, indeed. They were looking forward to this summer to finally make some revenue after two years of reduced demand due to the pandemic, and then this measure torpedoes their business.

See for example this [in German]

https://www.busnetz.de/9-euro-ticket-bdo-warnt-vor-negativen...

versk• 4 years ago

on one hand, free travel for millions of citizens, on the other, higher profitability for a handful private bus operators.

Its surprising to me that someone would even consider bringing this up as a valid counter argument. Interesting to see how deeply Neoliberalism has seeped into western culture.

_0ffh5• 4 years ago

What does a temporary reprieve help if it threatens to destroy the outlook in long term? That strikes me as a uniquely short sighted pov. I am not surprised though, given your usage of the word "neoliberal" in that way. I am certainly not a "neoliberal", because that's just a soft form of socialism. I am a laissez faire capitalist.

Havoc• 4 years ago

Wild - that gets me barely a days worth of tube travel in london (6.5 EUR a day)

kilotaras• 4 years ago

Yeah, UKs train tickets are ridiculous if you compare it to rest of Europe.

And that's not even case of UK just being generally more expensive, e.g. cheapest StAlbans - London (~25 km) yearly pass costs around £4k. About a 1000 pounds more than Switzerland GA travelcard which covers basically any form of public transport in Switzerland.

jonatron• 4 years ago

Ebbsfleet International - London possibly beats that in cost per mile. £5272 or £6056 with London travelcard for about 20 miles / 32km.

Shacklz• 4 years ago

As a Swiss GA holder - UK public transport is all privately owned, right?

The joys of free market efficiency in "public" transportation - maximum efficiency for the owners/shareholders, minimum efficiency for the people.

The Swiss SBB is also again and again under assault to be fully privatized, luckily so far this hasn't happened yet, and I hope it never will...

dx0343• 4 years ago

It's not different in Germany outside of theses three months. A day ticket in most cities cost 5-10€. That's why this ticket will be so appealing, 2-4 trips are enough to make it worth for the whole month.

dagw3• 4 years ago

To be fair that is what it costs in Germany as well under normal circumstances. A day ticket for central Hamburg is about 8 EUR a day.

And even that is cheap compared compared to Oslo and Stockholm where it costs 12-13 EUR a day. On the whole the London Underground is quite reasonably priced compared to many major European cities.

Reason0775• 4 years ago

Daily fare cap is now £7.70 (€9.10) in London, and that's just for Zones 1-2. £14.10 if you want to go out to Zone 6.

waffleiron• 4 years ago

A 24 hour ticket in Berlin for local public transport is 8,80EUR, two singles would also make 6 EUR

dgellow• 4 years ago

Hamburg Sbahn/Ubahn are the same price, ~6.50€ for the daily ticket. The 9€ ticket is a no-brainer!

pph2• 4 years ago

The whole day ticket actually costs 8.20€, the after 9am ticket 6.90€ (for the zones AB / city area)

If you're commuting and have monthly ticket it will cost 93.70€ (AB), though you might get around with a cheaper ticket if you're living in the center (zone 000).

rawbot7• 4 years ago

Don't worry. The normal day ticket in Hamburg costs 8.2€. And the one-way ticket costs 3.5€ (with bus being slightly cheaper). So you are doing just fine. Public transport is crazy expensive here.

sva_3• 4 years ago

Im really curious to what extend this will affect how full/busy regional transit will be.

I also wonder what happens to the people who control tickets fulltime. Their job seems pretty pointless when almost everyone has the ticket.

SomeBoolshit• 4 years ago

Likely extremely busy - at least on the inside - because there's essentially no wiggle room in the form of extra vehicles or personnel.

_ph_5• 4 years ago

If the trains get full enough, you don't even have to pay the 9 euros as no one can control your tickets :p

bowsamic6• 4 years ago

It is already at tipping point of fullness without this

sva_3• 4 years ago

Depends on location

bowsamic6• 4 years ago

I'm extremely not excited about how insanely rammed the public transportation is going to be for the next three months

Already here in Hamburg the busses are not at all empty!

sascha_sl4• 4 years ago

And I can't wait for the usual politicians from FDP and Union to draw the conclusion that free or cheaper public transport will forever be unfeasible, not that we need to invest more into the rail network.

bowsamic6• 4 years ago

Here in Hamburg it's really the busses that get overwhelmed. The S-Bahn and U-Bahn are rarely overly full compared to the busses.

dx0343• 4 years ago

If there's such an uptick in demand it would show that price was what kept people from using public transport. In that case I'm sure there will be a lot of pressure to make travel more affordable.

So far, many claimed that a lack of availability was the reason public transport wasn't used more. I guess the next three months are a good way to validate that.

bowsamic6• 4 years ago

I don't think that would show that. It would show that some people don't want to make the investment for a monthly ticket if they aren't sure that they will use it. Now everyone will use the public transport at all times, without thinking about it. Even if the price for a monthly ticket was half its current price it still wouldn't be a no brainer to get one

iggldiggl6• 4 years ago

A few years ago they already did some smaller-scale experiments in a few cities regarding fares and service offerings and the conclusion was clearly that better service was more effective in attracting additional passengers.

Also according to https://www.science.lu/de/faktencheck-gratis-oepnv/was-bring..., while some smaller cities who have experimented with free public transport have seen substantial increases in passenger numbers (but still often only a limited number of conversions from car drivers), the biggest city that tried this so far (Tallinn) only saw an increase in passenger numbers of 8 %. In the recent case of Luxembourg, unfortunately the effects of Covid make it rather difficult to draw any valid conclusions.

While I am not opposed to some moderate fare reductions, it should be kept in mind that in Germany, the average farebox recovery ration for local and regional public transport before Covid was around 75 %. Making public transport completely free would therefore mean quadrupling operating subsidies – and if through some miracle politics was really committed to spend that much more and for the long term, I'd much rather see the majority of that amount being spend on better services.

RGamma2• 4 years ago

For comparison: The equivalent, non-subsidised "Quer durchs Land"-Ticket costs 42€ for one person per day (70€ for 5 people per day) -- https://www.bahn.de/angebot/regio/qdl

Freak_NL3• 4 years ago

There are also the cheaper Landestickets which offer the same, but limited to one (or two) Bundesland and usually starting from €25. Those offer good value for tourists exploring a region too (in the absence of this €9 ticket).

freeflight6• 4 years ago

Wow, that has gotten expensive. I still remember when the similar "Wochenendticket" cost like 20€ and would even allow to bring along some extra people, tho that was like 20 years ago.

lispm2• 4 years ago

That ticket is not equivalent. That ticket is only for Deutsche Bahn and similar.

OTOH, the 9-Euro-Ticket is for all (!) local transport (incl. bus, ferry, ...) and regional trains. That means here in Hamburg I can use all bus, underground train and ferry connections. It's also all month, 24hours/day.

MandieD6• 4 years ago

Very important caveat for all of you who are thinking, “woo hoo, no need to buy that EuRail pass! Or to buy an expensive ICE ticket!”

These tickets are good for all “Nah- und Regionalverkehr,” explicitly excluding ICE, IC, EC (international) and long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich)

If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way.

This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel, not the kind of people who blithely paid 60 EUR to take the ICE. There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but remember, you’re not the target market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with fuel prices…)

butterlesstoast2• 4 years ago

For all the Americans. Converting from euros to USD and liters to gallons, gas is roughly $12 a gallon at this moment.

mbg7216• 4 years ago

Out of curiosity, for people who live in small towns/villages in Germany, how much driving is expected on a typical day? Most Americans commute about half an hour, twice a day, right?

pavlov• 4 years ago

Your math is off by 50%.

A gallon is 3.785 litres, and the euro is roughly $1.05.

So 2 euros per litre = one gallon costs $8.

april_227• 4 years ago

Yes it is extremely expensive. However I don't think most people who have a car will use it. The trains will be extremely crowded and to get to any notable destination you will probably have to change a couple of times. I think people will just prefer using their car instead of having to stand in crowded trains for hours.

Escapado3• 4 years ago

When I was still in school about a decade ago an exchange student from the US was flabbergasted at our gas prices when she found out that the signs at the gas station would display the prices in €/l and not €/gallon. Quick googling shows that €/$ was 1.45 around that time and gas prices were around 1.42€/l which would be a little over 2.06$/l or 7.79$/gallon. At the time the gas prices in the US was 2.79$/gallon.

Scarblac2• 4 years ago

Our Dutch Scouts of age 15-17 also plan their own camps and do so on a shoestring budget, and it turns out that yes you can get from the Netherlands to the Czech Republic with all your camping gear using only like fifteen different German regional trains :-)

april_227• 4 years ago

Especially for traveling across Germany, this ticket isn't quite useful, however I feel like it is marketed as "free traveling across Germany for a month" which isn't really the case. Am wondering how everything will play out next couple of months.

Toutouxc2• 4 years ago

Related: We're a Czech couple, currently planning our vacation in the Netherlands, and we too are on a very tight budget. I wanted so bad to get there by train and spend the week there riding Dutch trains all over the place, but man, the train journey there and back is just as long as a car trip (~10-12 hours) and costs at least twice as much. Looks like we'll be taking our 50 MPG car instead and since it will be there with us, also using it to get around the country. Sorry about the pollution.

germanier9• 4 years ago

If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good

A few days ago Deutsche Bahn has started to label some trains with an RE number (e.g. running Norddeich-Bremen or Stuttgart-Singen) with "9-Euro-ticket not valid".

Aeolun• 4 years ago

That seems to defeat the point. Any idea why they’d do that?

rob743• 4 years ago

[citation needed]... I'm not putting it above DB to do that, but that really sounds like more trouble than it's worth: endless hassle with passengers who think that the ticket is valid in all regional trains (which has been repeated endlessly in the media for the last month, and also on the page we are commenting on), need to adapt the route planner to exclude these trains (an option "only regional trains" is already available) etc. etc.

_Microft5• 4 years ago

There are Norddeich-Bremen connections with a remark that the 9-Euro-Ticket is not valid but these connections include a section/leg with an Intercity train (IC). The ticket is not valid for Intercity trains in general.

There are other connections between these two places without having to go on an Intercity and these do not show the message.

Tomte3• 4 years ago

The RE from Stuttgart to Singen (I used to ride that train regularly and did so recently again) has been co-labeled "IC" for some time now, even though the rolling stock is distinctly RE.

It has been confusing even before the 9 Euro ticket.

johannes12343215• 4 years ago

Somewhat off topic, but still:

long-distance busses (like the one between Munich and Zürich)

Zurich is too deep in Switzerland to be covered anyways. (Salzburg, Kufstein, Basel Bad Bf, etc. however are in Austria/Switzerland but part of German rail rates and included in 9€ tickets)

And that DB bus doesn't exist anymore since the new electrified railway line to Lindau was opened two years ago, as Munucih-Zurich got way faster by train. (I guess Flixbus still offers it but Flix isn't part of 9€ either)

ptspts• 4 years ago

From Zürich to Munich by direct train is now 221 minutes instead of 245 minutes. It'z faster, but I wouldn't call it way faster.

By bus it's 225 minutes, but the bus is often up to 30 minutes late.

jstummbillig• 4 years ago

If the train number begins with RE or RB, you’re good, but of course, those are the slow ones that stop in every village along the way.

Well, that is not exactly true now, is it. REs do actually skip the vast majority of "villages" and are far from being the slow ones, comparatively.

Anyway, for comparisons sake here is some Hamburg -> Berlin options:

- By car (with low traffic, according to GMaps): 3h20

- Regional Trains (the ones you can use with 9-eur-ticket): 4h10, including 1-3 train changes depending on connection

- All trains: 1h50 with no change

Given that going by car will be considerably more expensive than a regional ticket (even the none-9-eur version) I would say that +1h might be a reasonable trade-off for a lot of people.

kuschku16• 4 years ago

Actually, the Hamburg-Berlin IRE should be covered by this ticket as well, which requires no changes at all.

jansan• 4 years ago

Of course, as with all train connections, you have to add the time to get to/from the station and some buffer.

IMTDb2• 4 years ago

This is assuming that your trip starts and stops exactly next to the train station and that there is a non-delayed train available precisely at the right time. In practice that's not the case and those time add up quickly.

Car trip will look like:

  1. Travel from start to location (3:20)
  2. Find parking (0:5)
  3. Walk from parking to location (0:10)

Total time of 3:35

Your train trip will look like:

  1. Go from start to train station (0:20)
  2. Wait for train (0:10)
  3. Train to Berlin (1:50)
  4. Train station to location (0:20)
  5. Wait at location because there was no better train (1:00)

Total time of 3:40.

It stil might be worth it to use the train, as you can work/read in the train which you can't do in a car.

But for the train to be working it needs planets to be aligned: start location must be within reasonable distance to train station; end location must be within reasonable distance to train station; train travel speed is significantly faster than cars; train schedule is aligned with desired arrival time. If any of these conditions are not met, the train option does not work

virtualritz3• 4 years ago

There is also FlixTrain for e.g. Hamburg—Berlin (or vice versa) which is demand-priced.

And includes a reserved seat.

I went for 4.99€ last month – twice (taking early morning trains).

LargoLasskhyfv2• 4 years ago

Additionally: not coupled to a fixed train connection, but no seat reservation either. Could also use the Metronome from Hamburg to Bremen/Hannover/Uelzen, and go to Dortmund/Duisburg/Düsseldorf/Cologne/Bonn/Aachen via Münster/Osnabrück in the morning, using whichever REs are available. And doing whatever there. Though I'd be wary of the way back during the evenings, then you could be stranded for a few hours in the middle of nowhere. I remember a trip like this, initially from Dortmund to Berlin, starting around 23:00, having to switch in Hannover. Would have been stranded in Stendal around 02:30 to something like 4:30 or 5:00. Uncool. Just made it to Hamburg instead :-)

Anyway, it remains to be seen how that develops. I'm expecting overload. Especially in times of Covid, I'd be (still) wary to use it.

/me sings: I wan't to ride my bicycle, baaaicycle, baaaaicycle!

macleginn• 4 years ago

One does not need a car to enjoy this. I live in a suburb of a big city and have to cross two zones to get to work. However, the yearly pass does not make sense for me because I cycle to the office half of the time and work from home on some days, so I'm quite happy that for three months my monthly commute will cost the same as a single round-trip ticket.

metacritic12• 4 years ago

Thank you for the disclaimer of the speed. Useful for travelers to note the time difference!

Yet there is no need to guilt people into it being "German only". The ticket is priced on the slow trains so it already selects for people who care more about money than time. Anyone who chooses a 9 Euro, 4-hour train over a dozens of Euro 1.5 hour train is already not the "upper class".

MandieD6• 4 years ago

Hmmm, didn’t realize it was coming off as “German only” - I wanted people to realize that this was designed for the benefit of less-wealthy residents of Germany, not the convenience of tourists, but that there’s nothing stopping anyone from using it.

Since it’s not obvious, I’m not German, merely a permanent resident (US citizen).

DeathArrow2• 4 years ago

This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter

If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous for my Eastern European country.

I know we should support the war and sanctions and all those nice things, but some poor people depend on transportation for their living. If it costs too much, they might not be able to work. Already surges in food prices and utilities prices made life very hard for the most unfortunate of my countrymen.

snovv_crash• 4 years ago

Germany is a rich country with poor people.

maigret• 4 years ago

Car is probably not the right solution for all those people then. Even I wish I could reduce my dependency on cars.

usr11065• 4 years ago

>This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter
If 2 EUR/liter is too much for Germany, than it's enormous for my Eastern European country.

Germans are always complaining although they are amongst the richest in Europe. In Finland it's 2,50 EUR/liter (somewhat less in the very south) and at least IT salaries are mostly lower.

What I did not see mentioned here that gas(US)/petrol(UK) will also be temporarily subsidized (by tax reduction) by the same law package as this 9 EUR ticket.

(German living in Finland.)

tinus_hn• 4 years ago

Germany has since forever had the Schönes Wochenende ticket which is a similar deal that can be used during the weekend. No need to be a resident or whatever. This is just a similar ticket that can be used during the summer holidays.

It’s very nice because as long as you don’t mind it taking a lot of time you can take the train on holidays for very little money.

generationP• 4 years ago

It's also for the benefit of hikers, sightseers and whoever else needs places that aren't served by the IC/EC/ICE network. I have a BahnCard 50 (a subscription that halves the price of each trip) and yet it would have saved me over 100€ last summer. Note that some of the local bus associations aren't particularly cheap; it's not just the trains.

My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon...

hutzlibu• 4 years ago

"My main worry is whether they'll have the resources to put up with the increased demand. Guess I'll see soon..."

My train ticket inspector vents to everyone how they do not. (they get the heat)

I think it will work out, but will be very crowded at times. Or rather, even more crowded. They are already bad at scaling up or down, at a sunny sunday for example. Also this is, because they have allmost nothing to scale up. This is a long term investment.

roystonvassey• 4 years ago

Given how notoriously unreliable even the IC and ICEs have gotten over the last few years ( i rarely travel but the three times I tried, the train was either substantially delayed or worse, canceled) , this is really a good deal.

User233• 4 years ago

This is still a screaming deal. It's been a while, but this is like getting multiple Monatskarten for for single Tageskarte prices.

unjustified2• 4 years ago

This is for the benefit of people who live here and are struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel

It's also for people normally using public transport.

There's a city in northern Germany where a ticket for one day public transportation costs nearly 9€.

misja111• 4 years ago

There does not appear to be any residency requirement, but remember, you’re not the target market for this (unless you live here and are struggling with fuel prices…)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Do you mean that non Germans should refrain from buying these tickets?

MandieD6• 4 years ago

I’m trying to say that although anyone is free to buy them, they’re not designed for city-to-city tourist convenience or even as a good substitute for the IC/ICE product for long-distance, car-comparable-speed travel.

They’re for making short, local trips more affordable in a country that has a lot of people struggling with fuel and inflation, and for encouraging drivers to consider transit instead more often, and long-distance trips to the sea shore and mountains are a nice side benefit that is a pleasant thing to discuss when we all feel like there’s a shortage of pleasant things to discuss.

That they’ll make local transit uncomplicated for visitors (no trying to work out where to buy a given city’s tickets, or exactly which fare you need for a particular subway ride!) is also a nice incidental, and I, a taxpayer here, will be happy to see tourists using them, but that’s not why the Bundestag is spending 2.5 billion EUR on this.

steven_pack• 4 years ago

Did this 20 years ago, it was called Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte "Good weekend" ticket. You could get all over the country, but real slow. I met loads of people and got invited to people's homes, because they didn't typically see an Aussie backpacker on a local train. Great times, go do it.

not2b• 4 years ago

Yes, did that also. I live in California, but at the time my company had a group in Aachen that I worked with and I visited about four times a year. I often played tourist on the weekend and took trains all over the Rhineland. I used the cheap weekend ticket several times. But I usually didn't go that far, given my time constraints.

nick_meister• 4 years ago

Yes! I went from Stuttgart to Berlin using the Schoeneswochenende Fahrkarte like 20 year ago, it took some time but since we were a group of friends, it was fun actually :) Ahh.. good memories

dathinab6• 4 years ago

struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel,

Yes, exactly.

The main benefits are in context of in and around city travel. Like e.g. a regular in-city ticket (area A,B not C) in Berlin cost 86€/month (but there are many ways to get it cheaper). Now for this 3 month it's 9€ per month and covers all areas and you can even use it to get to day trip locations close to Berlin (like the "Spreewalt").

So it's really a grate deal for locals.

But if you want to travel longer distances IC/ICE are still the choice to go (if you can afford it), like Berlin->Kiel with IC/ICE is ~3.5h switching trains 1 time but with only using RB/RE it's >6h with switching 5 times.

itronitron• 4 years ago

I am thankful that fuel prices are high because it makes the cost of my regular car maintenance seem remarkably inexpensive.

mrzool• 4 years ago

I live here, I’m not struggling with fuel prices since I don’t own a car, but I’m sure happy to be able to get a Monatskarte for 9€ instead of the usual 89€ (I live in Berlin).

TedDoesntTalk• 4 years ago

struggling with 2 EUR/liter fuel

I converted this for Americans like me:

2 EUR/liter is about $8.02/gallon

A 17-gallon tank costs $136.74 to fill.

(Using exchange rate of 1.06 and 3.785 liters per gallon)

Escapado3• 4 years ago

I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been a cool move. - Less/no expensive accounting - Less/no personnel for checking tickets - Less/no personnel for prosecuting people who don't have tickets - Less/no ticket vending machines (and all the maintenance that comes with it) - Less traffic on the roads since you can't beat "free" and hence less emissions (at least in hamburg trains operate on green energy) and less wear on the roads (might be offset by the wear on trains and busses) - Fully non-discriminant with respect to income

I have no idea if that would work for inter-city transport but for inner-city transport the HVV for example (the public transportation network responsible for hamburg and surrounding areas) sells 30 million tickets a year and I wonder how much it truly costs them to do that with all the relevant factors mentioned above.

aloe_falsa• 4 years ago

At least in Berlin, they tried to introduce a free ticket. It failed due to organizational reasons: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/open-mind/scheitert-jetzt-au...

jacobr1• 4 years ago

I have no idea if that would work for inter-city transport

With inner-city transport, while free would undoubtedly have some marginal impact (and more over time as residential and commute patterns shift) there probably wouldn't be large shifts in use.

I suspect for inter-city, you would actually see significantly increased usage, which could outweigh all the benefits cited.

soco4• 4 years ago

Increased usage outweighing the benefits...?? I'm confused by the wording, do you mean that in a good or a bad way?

hhlevnjak2• 4 years ago

Perhaps it would work in DE, but it can create wrong incentives.

Here in Croatia, we had "free" public transport in some places for i.e. students travelling to school. But the price was still paid for by the cities/government to service operators. Which led to inflated prices for the service because there's always a way for the operator and some officials to collude together for extra profit. And the increases weren't transparent until at some point the tickets were no longer "free", and suddenly their cost was way over what it was before it became "free".

soco4• 4 years ago

Corruption always finds a way, with or without free transport. What I mean, that cannot be a reason to not provide some service, because also the paid transport is getting (or can be) corrupted I suppose, just like everything else.

Archelaos5• 4 years ago

I would argue making it free and keeping it free would have been a cool move.

Here in Germany, there were many voices in favour of making the ticket completely free. What I heard about the reason for not doing so is that the government wanted to easily measure the actual demand in different regions for such a "free" ticket. So the price is low enough that anybody who wants to ride practically "for free" is buying it, but so high that most people who do not really use it won't buy it.

I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be replaced by real free rides in the future. And the results of the test period could help determine how the costs should finally be shared between the different regions and local governments.

pwdisswordfish02• 4 years ago

I expect that if the ticket is a success, it will be replaced by real free rides in the future.

What’s your confidence level here? Because if you can make me believe that the ticket is effectively a vote for ticketless/free ÖPNV I will buy them for everyone I know.

Semaphor• 4 years ago

Do you have any kind of source for this? I heard of complaints regarding this ticket already, I do not see this coming back, let alone for free.

cbmuser6• 4 years ago

We had cities with free public transport in Germany.

One example was the city of Templin in Brandenburg.

The project was eventually abandoned because lots of people were just riding the busses out of boredom and busses were permanently full with costs exploding for the city.

See: https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/artikel/nahverkeh...

johannes12343215• 4 years ago

I think the reason is that actually it wasn't meant to be germany-wide. The initial idea was 9€ per public transport network, but they quickly figured out that this will lead to many problems, as some areas have huge networks, others have many small networks and this would be one really complicated. But by then the 9€ message was out of the box and making it Germany-wide on a single ticket was the only way forward.

Consequence of late night negotiations on top level of the federal government, without involving respective experts from states, who are running public transport. ("Wait, we're subsidizing fuel, so we should subsidize public transport as well! Any quick idea?")

Aperocky3• 4 years ago

easily measure the actual demand in different regions

A ticket for $0 would have done it.

Still have to book for it, and probably should have rate limits like other pseudo free services (Google don't charge you for search, etc).

the8472• 4 years ago

A token price (9€/m is cheaper than even subsidized region-specific tickets for students or the elderly) likely has some benefits such as making it easy to count interest based on sales. It might also make the inrush a bit more manageable.

dav_Oz• 4 years ago

I guess one could argue that it is technically "free" for personal use, as tap water is (1 cubic meter (1000 litres) in the Netherlands is about net cost .87€ [0]) if one is not trying to abuse it for a agricultural hobby, a private swimming hall etc. than it actually gets expensive very quick; in the case of a unregistered pipe break (incentivizing inspections) extraordinarily so.

The "price" is for ensuring fair use (on such a big scale)/registering the influx; yes, 1€ could also do the trick but in the case of DB AG we are talking about an highly over-bureaucratized ... so one order of magnitude higher and you arrive at the current pricing.

[0]https://www.waternet.nl/en/veelgestelde-vragen/tap-water/wha...

FabHK7• 4 years ago

- Less/no expensive accounting

Not quite. Many people (eg commuters) have monthly train passes, almost all students have a "Semesterticket" (university enrolment is about 350 EUR every half year, but that includes all public transport in the region).

Now, the 9-Euro-Ticket is cheaper than those options, so out of fairness the holders of all those tickets are getting a refund of 3 months worth of their pass minus 3x9=27 EUR, which is a huge administrative burden for the public transport providers and universities. That substantial burden would not have been reduced by having the ticket for free.

VGltZUNvbnN1• 4 years ago

I am going to need a citation for the substantial burden everything I read is that they are annoyed but its easy to do.

Escapado3• 4 years ago

You are right, however if it would have been made free and kept free indefinitely this would have been a one-time cost.

addandsubtract• 4 years ago

I doubt anyone will be checking tickets in the next three months.

april_227• 4 years ago

The German government did that to compensate for rising gasoline prices. While I think that is in general appreciated by the public, I am not quite sure how many people aged 45 above will use this ticket. They trains will be super crowded this summer and people will just prefer to use their car instead.

Hendrikto3• 4 years ago

Also it is completely useless for people living on the countryside. The nearest train station is a 20 minute drive away from where I live, so this does nothing for me.

Still better than nothing, I guess.

jona-f2• 4 years ago

Afaik regional buses are included in this ticket. I do not know any villages that don't even have those at least once a day.

foepys4• 4 years ago

Over 75% of Germans live in cities or towns which overwhelmingly have reliable bus transit at least at daytime.

Those remaining <25% are not really important here and can still use their cars.

radiospiel• 4 years ago

Well, this is part of a package deal where they also reduce gasoline pricing.

ChuckNorris89• 4 years ago

They trains will be super crowded this summer

In Austria that's already a problem. Due to overcrowding, they're kicking people with valid tickets but no seat reservations off the trains telling them to get the next one.

FabHK7• 4 years ago

The German government did that to compensate for rising gasoline prices

In particular, the government reduced the taxes on gasoline due to the high gasoline prices, a purely populist insanity in these times of climate crisis. Then they remembered that they were elected on a pro-environment platform, and concluded that they also had to support those using public transport, and this was the result.

MandieD6• 4 years ago

It will be an absolute relief to the elderly/near-elderly poor, for starters.

Like the woman I saw in the grocery store a few weeks ago on the verge of tears because the cheapest cooking oil available was 6 EUR/750ml bottle organic canola oil, and that’s still often the case.

Inflation in Germany is every bit as bad as it is in the US, so this is also a bit of a welfare payment to all the people who take public transit anyway because they can’t afford to drive.

I’m 100% for this, by the way; it’s an excellent use of my tax Euros. It will probably make the U-Bahn less pleasant for me, but that’s ok.

0x0087• 4 years ago

Also Inflation is measured really strangely in Germany. The official number is +7.4%. However, as someone who has no car and owns no home my main expenditures are:

- rent (+13 % if I don’t move, at least +30% if I move).

- groceries (+20% up until + 50%)

- eating out / going out.(+20%)

For this year only! Most prices have already risen in 2021 “due to Covid”…

I guess for elderly people in cities it will be similar, probably less going out even and more groceries.

So I really wonder how they come up with this number.

bombcar2• 4 years ago

"Nobody uses the trains because they're all super crowded" reminds me of the quote ascribed to Yogi Berra, "Nobody goes there! It's too crowded!"

jdhzzz• 4 years ago

Who-hoo, let's all go to the summer long super-spreader event.

jona-f2• 4 years ago

Covid is currently not a big issue in Germany. Even so restrictions are lifted and most people don't care at all anymore about protection, the numbers are going down.

Bigpet• 4 years ago

Numbers are still significantly higher than Winter 2020/21. So with lessening restrictions this winter is poised to set another record (for infections at least, deaths might not be as high as last year). People don't care, true. But that's about feeling, not about numbers or facts.

Reason0775• 4 years ago

I wish they would restore stopover functionality on the international booking site (https://www.international-bahn.de/). I remember back when you could book a London to Berlin fare (for example) with Eurostar included, with stopovers up to 48 hours along the way. Amazing value for tourists - often you could visit multiple Belgian/German cities for not much more than what the Eurostar fare would cost alone.

The standard bahn.de site still allows stopovers, but since the pandemic you can no longer book Eurostar segments through it. Sad face.

sdevonoes• 4 years ago

Why don't they make this for the whole year?

_Microft5• 4 years ago

It is meant to temporarily ease the burden of risen energy prices. (Car users are going to get a lower tax on gas soon.)

A quarter of a year might be enough already to find out how much demand for low cost public transport there actually is. I consider it an useful experiment at this point.

kappuchino3• 4 years ago

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.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 4 years ago

Sweden does something similar, they offer unlimited regional rail passes for 1-2 month period during the summer - theirs are quite a bit more expensive than this though. I think closer to 100-150 euro for 2 months if I remember correctly.

felurx• 4 years ago

I think most federal states in Germany have regional tickets for students for the summer vacations. It's probably going to vary a good bit, but here in BW it's 25~30€ for the ~1.5 months.

rad_gruchalski15• 4 years ago

First: Its not free, its subsidized by the state.

„The state“ doesn’t have its „own money“. It is subsided by the taxpayer.

Aperocky3• 4 years ago

It is subsided by the taxpayer.

That used to be completely true, but seeing the US government consistently spending 150% of its revenue every year make me doubt that. Money printer and price go brr

At least Germans are getting train tickets and not shiny new drone missiles.

bromuro• 4 years ago

And where does the taxpayer money come from? :) The state (or in this case the european central bank) owns and distribuites the money, then the tax payers give it back.

kappuchino3• 4 years ago

Not a helpful comment. (And you should know.) The state is funded by taxes and other income. Germans elected representatives to decide/vote on issues like the 9euro ticket. You can try ad nauseam to redirect by adding complexity, but this was supposed to highlight that the difference is been paid for so that there is compensation the loss for regional public transport companies/structures. At the end, we are all atoms miraculously clustred together, somehow self aware and writing comments to each other. (Now go ahead, add some complexity and redirection again /s)

krrrh• 4 years ago

One interesting thing about the Berlin metro system (which is covered by this pass) is that it is one of the few metro transit systems that is nearly or fully supported through ticket fees. I can't find a reference for this at the moment, but it was something people talked about when I lived there.

derhuerst• 4 years ago

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_Verkehrsbetriebe#Fina... the 2020 results are probably not very represenative, but you can find them on page 19: https://unternehmen.bvg.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BVG-Ge...

Ekaros• 4 years ago

Hmm, so social distancing is truly gone and they don't fear this action massively spreading the COVID virus?

Tenoke7• 4 years ago

FFP2 mask are still mandatory on public transport (at least in Berlin) but generally nobody is concerned anymore, and even less so for the Summer.

netsharc• 4 years ago

Feels like the European governments' (I generalize...) thinking is, the vaccine is available, it's good enough, and Omicron is "not that bad" anyway, so, if you don't want to get vaccinated, it's on you, but let's get on with our lives...

avianlyric• 4 years ago

The EU has a 78% vaccination rate and a 52% booster rate. Mask usage in public places is generally very high. The EU never turned vaccination and masks into divisive political and cultural issue.

All of this compares very favourable to the US where vaccination is 65% and boosters are 31%. Plus vaccination, mask usage and lockdowns became deeply decisive topics, substantially reducing the effectiveness of all of them. In the end it’s place the US in bad spot for resolving the the pandemic quickly.

Scarblac2• 4 years ago

It's summer, everybody who wants to has three or even four vaccinations, most people have already had it on top of that, it's safe to say that Covid doesn't spread massively here at the moment.

Maybe another wave with a new variant or in autumn, but it'll most likely be mild as omicron is and there is so much resistance built up now.

So for all practical purposes, Covid is over at the moment.

tut-urut-utut2• 4 years ago

I guess the German health minister and quite a bit of regional health ministers would be thrilled if the numbers of Covid-19 cases increase. Then they can try again to push that mandatory vaccination that failed last time in parliament only due to interpersonal ego issues.

They already ordered a few hundreds of millions of vaccines.

_ph_5• 4 years ago

FFP2 masks are still mandatory and it isn't as if the regular trains were not crowed before.

franciscop2• 4 years ago

When it gets crowded in Tokyo trains you are literally pushed against each other, back to front people against people, specially bad in summer where the aircon cannot keep up. That's only at 9am normally though, and so I do not consider jobs that make me be in the office at that time (9:30~10 is an order of magnitude better). WFH has been a blessing to Tokyo.

So it was funny when I visited my sister in a rural town in England, and there was a festival so we took the bus to get there. It was obvious the bus was more crowded than usual, and people were grumpy, but from my point of view it was almost empty; people were within an arm's distance from each other, which for the locals probably used to less than half the people that was very crowded.

I wonder if the same will happen on the trains in Germany. Japan is used to this though, and they have powerful ventilation and aircon systems to alleviate the situation in summer.

april_227• 4 years ago

People in Germany are typically not very contact friendly and since COVID it got way worse. People here rather stand than sit next to a stranger, sometimes even across. The trains will be beyond crowded this summer (especially the ones going to the sea), so it will be interesting to watch how people will react. I think though the ticket will mainly be used by younger people which are typically more open to this.

paganel2• 4 years ago

If the recent street scenes in Frankfurt are anything to go by I'd say people will be just fine, as long as there will be something to celebrate/look forward to :) (either a fantastic football win, like in Frankfurt, or waiting to get to the seaside, like in your example).

goodpoint2• 4 years ago

Don't you know that there are seats on long-distance trains?

Unless people start sitting on each other's lap the aircon capacity is not going to be exceeded.

franciscop2• 4 years ago

This article seems to be discussing local mass-passenger trains going from town to town in Germany, so I assumed it was trains with seats + passengers standing. Is that not the case for the purpose of this article?

germanier9• 4 years ago

In German long-distance trains, seat reservations are not mandatory and capacity is planed while taking into account that some passengers might not get a seat. Most regional trains (which is where this ticket is valid) don't even offer seat reservations.

fho• 4 years ago

they have powerful ventilation and aircon systems

... well ... the ICEs AC is known to fail regularly at elevated temperatures :-)

kuschku16• 4 years ago

Well, they were designed to survive everything except an every-100-years summer (36°C sustained outdoor temperatures) back in the 80s, which now happens to be every summer.

Even the trains ordered in 2000 were designed for an every-100-years summer (40°C sustained outdoor temperatures) which now some regions are hitting every year as well.

The issue isn’t the ACs, the real issue is climate change ;)

wongarsu3• 4 years ago

There are long distance trains like the RE (or ICE, which is not covered by this ticket) which are designed around everyone being seated, and there are commuter trains like the S-Bahn which are designed to have enough seating space for normal hours and lots of standing space for rush hour. The former are very uncomfortable when overfilled, the latter are designed around it in terms of ventilation, number of doors etc.

I've been in a couple of people-shoving-level crowded commuter trains when traveling to popular consumer trade fairs, and it was ok. Most people took it as part of the experience.

The biggest issue will be people trying to cross the country, packing 40 year old REs beyond their limit in the hottest time of year.

Tenoke7• 4 years ago

The more busy Sbahn lines (e.g. Ring Bahn) absolutely did get crowded enough that you couldnt even always get in pre-covid at peak times, and I suspect it will be even worse in the next 3 months.

wafriedemann• 4 years ago

Socialism is COOL

I_am_tiberius• 4 years ago

I know DB is owned by the state but I'm anyway interested in whether the difference to the original price is subsidized by the state. Or if it's just a special offer that allows them to cover expenses.

germanier9• 4 years ago

The federal state will pay 2.5 billion euro to the 16 states which in turn are responsible to compensate operators (or whoever actually receives the fare for the journey - this might be someone else) for the lost revenue.

amarant• 4 years ago

This is awesome! For comparison, a single fare ticket from the Stockholm suburb I live in to city Central costs about €8.70. 9 euros for a whole month seems like a dream!

lom• 4 years ago

for 3 months*

freeflight6• 4 years ago

It's 9€ per month and the ticket will be available for 3 months.

rawbot7• 4 years ago

It's only a temporary measure. We would be ecstatic if it was permanent. Alas, it is not.

russianGuy83829• 4 years ago

they should rather subsidize heat pumps to replace aging gas heating systems prevalent in the 1960s homes here. Would help to reduce energy dependency on russia

amin• 4 years ago

In Luxembourg, all public transport is free for everyone. I was just there, and as a tourist, it saved me a lot of hassle not needing to figure out where and how to buy which ticket. Jump hop on any train, bus or tram :).

And yes, I understand why this wouldn't work well in other countries.

swarnie• 4 years ago

While interesting, it doesn't seem like a fair comparison.

Luxembourg has more tax evading corporations registered than actual people. I'm sure i can make a public transport system work well for free given those conditions.

sonar_un• 4 years ago

I was there last winter and the free transport was just incredible. Especially for a tourist. On top of all of the busses and trams being super new and clean, it was a dream.

pflenker2• 4 years ago

Traveling through Germany with regional trains was one of my favorite pastimes back in the 90s, but the prices have increased dramatically: The "Wochenendticket, which was valid either on Saturday or Sunday, started in 1995 costing around 11 EUR (inflation-adjusted), and ended costing 40 EUR in 2016 (also inflation-adjusted).

I am happy that they are experimenting with bringing it back.

Pete-Codes• 4 years ago

Giggly - may have to re-think summer plans

xenago• 4 years ago

This is a really good initiative! I wish the Canadian government would encourage more efficient transport instead of cars.

The-Bus• 4 years ago

This is a great idea for the US as well, if only we had a significant mass transit infrastructure that this could apply to.

unjustified2• 4 years ago

These are going to be wild chaos days.

https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/politik-gesellschaft/chaosta...

k8sToGo2• 4 years ago

This is why we can't have nice things.

Cockbrand• 4 years ago

Mainly, IMHO, sensationalist "journalism" like this is much more of a reason why we can't have nice things, compared to the actual event predicted (which likely isn't going to happen, at least not to the extent described).

MarkusWandel• 4 years ago

This is fantastic. Despite the warnings to not count on it, these local trains generally will transport your bicycle. So you can go for a bike ride some distance from your home location (or from your home location and return by train if you don't feel like riding back). Practically for free.

mariusor• 4 years ago

When you take your bicycle on public transport usually you require a special ticket for it.

0x0087• 4 years ago

On Regional Trains need to go into the special bicycle compartment, also on S-Bahn.

On Subways, Buses, and Trams you might not be allowed to take a bicycle at all depending on the city’s regulations.

Regardless of that, you will always need to buy a special bicycle ticket.

In fact same goes for dogs. So this 9€ ticket will be really useless for dog owners since they need to pay normal ticket prices for every fare for the dog.

paganel2• 4 years ago

Hopefully this measure will persist even when (and if) inflation goes back to "normal" levels back again, imo heavily subsidised public transport is the way to go if we want to reduce car use.

Asking people for a lot more money in order to decrease the regular use of their cars (either through higher gas prices or forcing them to purchase relatively expensive newer EVs) is really not fair if you don't offer something in return.

seu• 4 years ago

For comparison, in Berlin the monthly ticket for the A-B zones (does not reach the airport) costs €86, and a 4-ticket pack €9.40. A €9 monthly ticket is an insane bargain, even if you only plan on using public transport within the city.

(source: https://www.bvg.de/de/tickets-und-tarife)

hansel_der• 4 years ago

might even be cheap enough to make them fare dodgers reconsider

hit8run• 4 years ago

The idea behind it is to keep the idiots commuting just to sit down in the wage cage 9000. It’s for three months only btw and just a trick to improve acceptance of the new German Poverty caused by very bad political decisions.

lispm2• 4 years ago

Keep in mind that this is the website from Deutsche Bahn, which operates a lot of trains, regional trains and local trains. But not every public transport is from Deutsche Bahn. The 9-Euro-Ticket is valid for all public local transport, too - not just for the Deutsche Bahn.

The ticket is for local transport operators, too. One can also buy the ticket there. A subscription ticket will be automatically converted. One can for example buy it at the local Verkehrsverbund (transit district), which here serves in Hamburg several million people with all kinds of regional trains, city trains, underground trains, busses, ferries, ...

Thus one can use all (!!!) local and regional public transport for 9 Euro for a month, 24 hours a day, for all of Germany, for all public transport operators. The is done for three months, each month costs 9 Euro.

jgehrcke• 4 years ago

The login system of the Bahn app amd website is experiencing issues right now -- wonder if it has to do with HN peak traffic, hm :).

javajosh• 4 years ago

Heck even if you're just going to move around a single City at a time this is a great deal. Ubahn and Sbahn tix are quite pricey a la carte!

dubswithus• 4 years ago

Unfortunately, it's going to be really hard for my wife to get a schengen visa. The appointments are already full.

mvexel2• 4 years ago

Very cool. Reminds me of the "Wochenende-ticket" DB sold in the 90s. It was something like 30DM and was good for travel on all regional DB trains for up to 5 people.

I used it with a group of friends to travel to Berlin from The Netherlands in 1993. I was a bit of a rail geek (still am, I guess) and had purchased a "Kursbuch" on a previous trip to Germany. This was a 2000 or so page, 3 pound book that contained all the timetables for all German trains. We pored over the timetables for hours to find an optimal route from the closest German border station to Berlin. I remember it being relatively few trains, something like Bad Bentheim - Osnabrueck - Bielefeld - Kassel - Dessau (!) - Berlin. It was a fun trip, lots of people were traveling long distance on local trains and Berlin attracted very...interesting people at that time.

After arriving in Berlin we sold our ticket, which was still good for another day, for 15DM.

flobosg• 4 years ago

DB was still selling those tickets (as Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket) until 2019.

mvexel2• 4 years ago

I think that was what it was actually called back then too! Interesting that it's lived on all that time.

partiallypro• 4 years ago

I assume this doesn't apply to urban rails like the MVV in Munich, etc. Has to be DB operated.

q3k• 4 years ago

It does.

locallost5• 4 years ago

For comparison, the federal government is dead bent on building additional 4.1km of highway through Berlin that is estimated to cost over 500 million. And the critics say it will balloon to billions since the estimate is 10 years old anyway.

So basically millions of people will ride the train for three months for almost free, and the cost will be in the same ball park as 4km of one highway.

0x0087• 4 years ago

Also it is really ridiculous because it goes straight through a rather central part of the city, removing old construction and very close to where a lot of people live in an attractive part of the city.

Instead they could build it a couple kilometers further out to still connect the ring, the distance in drive time would probably be less than 5 minutes.

But they stick to stupid plans they made 10 years ago like they always do in this city.

locallost5• 4 years ago

The city doesn't want it, the federal government is pushing for it. Probably because the person in charge is a free market theologist from FDP so he wants to spend as much tax money as possible to have as little impact as possible. Wait, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but it's what's happening.

aspyct• 4 years ago

Nice!

And here I am in Belgium, stuck with the SNCB/NMBS, a small country where doing a few miles by train takes an hour, the trains are always late, there's no place to sit, and it's expensive.

I love Belgium, but not its trains.

lbschenkel• 4 years ago

The region of Skåne in Sweden has a similar initiative, although not as cheap: a "summer ticket" valid for 3 months that costs ~70 EUR and includes any form of travel in the region. Similar offers exist in the other regions of Sweden.

Unfortunately for me who commutes to Copenhagen on a daily basis for work, this offer does not include trips to Denmark (monthly ticket costs ~250 EUR).

9-Euro-Ticket

Related Stories