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Comment by the_mitsuhiko | Hacker News Reader

Some context here: previously there was no single ticket you could get for public transport in Austria like you could in Switzerland. There was a yearly ticket for the national rail services but that was it.

With this ticket you can hop into any public transport now from long distance rail to local city trams.

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Just to clarify : In Switzerland, one can buy a CA Travelcard (for CHF3860 a year, approximately $3850). With this card, one can travel on (nearly) all public transports in Switzerland (trains, coaches, subways, trams, etc.) free of charge. Since the public transportation system is very good, it's a good way to travel.

Ok, so the Austrian version costs less than a third of that for a considerably larger country. And the public transportation system is pretty good in Austria too...

In Germany it's also around 4k. EUR 4,027 for the BahnCard 100. We're much bigger than Switzerland, though.

https://www.bahn.com/en/offers/bahncard/bahncard_100-conditi...

EDIT: I can't find info on whether the German one covers city transportation... maybe it doesn't! - EDIT2: It does according to reply!

It covers most local transportation, but not all.

> The BahnCard 100 is also valid within the City-Ticket zone of all towns and cities covered by the City-Ticket offering

City ticket coverage: https://www.bahn.com/en/offers/tickets-for-local-transport

Oh that's actually a much better deal, then. A Berlin monthly ticket is 86 a month (ok... or 63 with a 1 year commitment), which is already 1/4 (or 1/5) of the 4k...

I maintain my car for for < 1000€ a year.

Given, I have a "car dude" that repairs and sells me used cars in good condition (I don't drive much at all), but even if you would spend a bit more, it isn't as competitive as it needs to be.

But other than that, cars are almost essential today. Have family you need to take care of? Good luck doing that with public transport. Doable perhaps if you quit your job...

> I don't drive much at all

Then why are you comparing your €1000 expense to this €4000 ticket? This ticket is for people who travel multiple times a week by train.

There are still normal tickets available in Germany, you don't have to pay 4000 a year for the privilege of taking a train once in a while.

Even city tickets are for people who travel every day.

... it's Switzerland. Everything is 3x more expensive and salaries are 4x higher. Just don't travel there.

... and only a third of the salary deductions you have in Ausria. Plus, you can choose your own health insurance. Seriously, don't travel there.

I mean, when I was in the area in 2005-2007 pretzels cost USD 2.50 in Germany and USD 7 in Switzerland ...

There were also steep discounts for students and youth for almost everything -- I got a public transit pass for 50% off because I was under 23 at the time.

I love the Brezel example. A freshly baked Brezel at the Trainstation Bern is like 3$. However if you need a human to cut it open and spread butter on it it costs $8.

Products ain't that much more expensive here, human time is.

The rail network appears to be only 20% larger in Austria than Switzerland (5000 vs 6000 km Google tells me). Then the salaries of the people operating those transports are also higher in Switzerland. The GA is a pretty good deal already.

As Austrian living in Switzerland there definitely is a x3 value given here. It's unfair to directly compare given the price difference, but Austrian public transport is simply not on the same level in terms of: quality, speed, timing, connections, reliability (dozens of backup tracks), ..

Is there a bus to every tiny village the way there is in Switzerland? The long distance stuff is all well and good, but I suspect the expensive part is the rural last-mile which is heavily subsidized by the denser (heavier used, cheaper to run) city transit.

Switzerland has a very strong currency which is a factor here. If the ticket alone doesn't make you poor, the coffee might.

And for comparison, the Swiss equivalent costs around USD 4k a year per person 2nd class

> from long distance rail to local city trams.

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.

>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€.

https://www.wienerlinien.at/web/wiener-linien/jahreskarte

I mean this is Europe, and there's much less "this is unfair" versus "we are in this together".

Maybe compared to America, but really, no, there's still a LOT of individualistic thinking here

People living far from city centers usually live in bigger house/flats and less dense districts. That's usually what pull people to move to the suburbs. Some do this because of the cost of renting/buy a big place in inner city but it's the same argument.

The problem is, living in a large place and sparser environment has a HUGE social cost https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_sprawl#Effects which is a major contributor to the ongoing biodiversity collapse (which is at least as big of a threat as climate change).

"We are in this together" but not just to get people to drop private cars. We must commute much less (however clean your mode of transport) so how is it compatible with cheap transport in the long term?

Or we put hard limit on urban sprawl but that will increase the cost of living in suburban/rural places even further than having people pay for their commute distance.

Even on public transport, longer commutes are relatively environmentally unfriendly when compared to shorter commutes (in the medium-to-long run). So regardless of individualism, it would generally be a public benefit to encourage shorter commutes.

Yes, but it's not exactly that you have a lot of choice for where you work, for example.

I suppose it depends on the job and the market, but many people do have a lot of choice where they work (and where they live).

I think we disagree on the "many". I would say "some" instead. Most people i know don't have a choice: they're employed in a shop somewhere or work from specific offices. Of course, the HN crowd may be more exposed to work-from-home, but that's still alien to a great part of the population, especially those who work the most precarious jobs.

I'm not sure how it is in Austria, but here in the US, people on the more "precarious" end of the spectrum (non-management retail and hospitality workers) have a quit rate of (very roughly) ~50% per year. So generally they do seem to be aware that they can choose a different place to work. Do you live somewhere very rural?

Yes i reside in a less populous area (south France) where you can be happy to find a job at all, if that's what you're looking for in life. But from my understanding of bigger agglomerations: there's a high turnover rate in precarious jobs, but just because you can afford to find another precarious job elsewhere doesn't mean you get the privilege to choose where precisely. I hear in suburbs of capitals like Berlin or Paris it's not uncommon for people to travel 2-4h daily to work and back. Chances are if you switch jobs, you might have the same travel times, but to a different location.

Hm yes, my perspective is probably quite non-representative. Thank you for the insight!

Thank you for asking, that was a very pertinent question!

I mean, yes, but that's like saying "all you can eat" buffets are unfair.

The only "fix" would be to never offer fixed-rate pricing.

It's a strange complaint, to me.

If there's a buffet that serves a caviar and I only eat unpeeled cucumbers, then I'm not likely to go to that buffet.

Agreed. Many consumers will still pay-as-you-go. I fail to see the problem.

I am pretty sure that you still can get a monthly/yearly ticket for your local area. These are usually between 50-100 € in Germany. In Vienna you pay 1 € per day, so around 350 € for a year.

The idea here is that you have one ticket that can be used everywhere in the country, so you probably would only get it if you travel more than a local commute on a regular base.

If your daily commute is only a few bus stops, you'll find it way cheaper to get a pass from the local transportation company. This is for people who are travelling a lot (like commuting between cities on a daily or weekly basis).

> 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...

In that case you would not buy this pass, instead opting for a local or regional pass or one tailored to that specific commute.

I've never been to Austria, but I suspect this more limited pass you prefer has been available for a long time in all relevant locales. Certainly that is my experience with other public transit systems.

A look at this classic Viennese ticket machine would convince most people that paying more to never touch it again is not only fair but necessary and effectively a discount:

https://live.staticflickr.com/1096/1427525859_9f6fcf046f_k.j...

But if you only require local travel, why would you buy a national pass?

It sounded like it's going to be the only pass available in Austria. I must've read the site wrong.

Hmm, I wonder what I am 'overpaying' by having close to 1/2 of the land area of my town dedicated to cars instead of trees and grass, just so other people can live in the suburbs.

Pretty much all local city transport networks in Europe offer yearly subscriptions. If you just need that, that's already an option.

If the Kilmaticket is not the only pass now available in Austria, then it makes far more sense.

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