In typically tax-happy Europe this always struck me as odd, agree it is sad when you find out an airplane ticket is cheaper than a corresponding train.
Domestic use is taxed, and at rather steep rates (look at the US!); however, because most flights in the EU are international, it would require both nations ok'ing a tax on flights between them. No one has gone through with this, and it's doubtful any one ever will, for a variety of reasons.
I guess planes might just fill up their tanks in non EU countries and then carry the extra load around and be more polluting.
What about a really complicated solution, since a global solution is not going to happen:
1. Tax local fuel in EU. Everyone who fuels in European airports, must pay more
2. Tax European airliners fueling abroad - in countries that are not in the EU airline fuel tax agreement.
3. Tax inbound airliners according to the amount of fuel onboard
This would probably violate all sorts of treaties, would be hard to enforce and would have lots of all kinds of leaks... but food for thought anyway.
If every country in the EU agreed that every other country in the EU could impose tariffs on flights between them, then this should work.
>barring a specific agreement between those to nations
An EU wide agreement would be an agreement between nations.
Now imagine we slap a tax on jet fuel similar to the one on vehicle gasoline. This would mean that the price of jet fuel would go up by 50%. The round trip ticket Madrid - Paris now costs 170 eur instead of 140 eur. Would it make Madrid - Paris train route competitive? No, not at all.
Truth is, you can make anything competitive with anything else if you put heavy enough finger on the scale, but the reason flights are much cheaper than trains, despite being faster, is not because of lack of jet fuel taxes.
If you buy a train ticket in advance, you definitely are in that price scale. I looked up train rides one month in advance [2] and a ride from Madrid to Spain is now 175€ to 210€, right in the range of the train ride.
But hopefully, Europe-wide CO2 taxes will start to price in externalities and remove the finger from the scale in favor of flights.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/gas-taxes-in-europe/ [2] https://www.raileurope.com/en/journey/madrid-paris-14skjpm
How is this a good thing?
And don't tell me it's important for planning loads: The schedules are mostly fixed anyway, and the usage doesn't fluctuate that wildly. In some countries, like the Netherlands, this is not a thing, and the national train (NS) behaves just like a city metro: You wave your pass walking on to the platform, and wave it again on the way out.
Also, CDG-MAD flight isn't really between Paris and Madrid but between CDG and MAD, which have some additional costs associated with transfers (assuming you are actually going beteween the city centers). So to be competitive a train ride might not need to have the flight price exactly, but can be a bot more expensive.
But a sensible policy would be that when trains are more expensive, taxes should be put on flying until they aren't (taxes directed to trains through subsidies, infrastructure investment and so on).
Just to provide some data points:
Madrid-Paris by train takes about 17-20 hours and costs between 261 and 350 Euros. By plane, it takes about two and a half hours and costs (in your example) around 170 Euros.
Also take into account that for many international travellers, the time saved aspect is more relevant than the money saved aspect, as lifetime is a very limited and non-regenerating resource, and planes will win pretty much always. The idea of Europeans going from Madrid to Paris by train happily is a green pipe dream outside train enthusiast circles (for our American friends: How often would you say you take Amtrak from Chicago to New York, roughly the same distance, before you get bored of it?)
Furthermore, to make a fair comparison you need to:
- Include all the costs of the air ticket in the price comparison, in particular transport to and from the airports. Public transport is sometimes not available, or may not be convenient (e.g. with luggage or small children), and due to the large distance to many airports taxis can be very expensive
- Include all of the time involved in the flight — depending on the cities involved, your two and half hour flight could easily be 5+ hours city-centre-to-city-centre once local transport, check-in deadline, time padding for uncertainties etc is considered.
- Compare to a rail ticket for a specific train at a specific time, which is usually cheaper. The more expensive rail tickets often give you the option of multiple trains on a given day, which is a level of flexibility no air ticket gives you.
If we want to really make it a fair comparison you should also probably compare the price to the business class flight ticket, considering that even the lowest class of train ticket gives you a comparable level of comfort to a typical intra-Europe business class airplane seat.
If you need to get there as quickly as possible, the airplane is going to win on most (but not all) routes. But for many people, having fewer steps in the journey and being able to comfortably work during the journey can actually make the longer train option more convenient.
> - Compare to a rail ticket for a specific train at a specific time, which is usually cheaper. The more expensive rail tickets often give you the option of multiple trains on a given day, which is a level of flexibility no air ticket gives you.
Virtually any airline outside of the no-frills-Ryanair sector happily sells you flexible tickets (often for price).
> If we want to really make it a fair comparison you should also probably compare the price to the business class flight ticket, considering that even the lowest class of train ticket gives you a comparable level of comfort to a typical intra-Europe business class airplane seat.
You must not have had the DB ICE4 experience. I'd rather jump off an office building than to sit in one of their second-class cars ever again. They are extremely space-constrained, and now they build the window walls slightly round (and rounder so than e.g. mid-range aircraft cabins), so you sit in there with an arm folded to the inside, like Ötzi. On my ride back, I shredded the already-paid ticket and bought a new one for First Class, which was only slightly better. No European airline even comes close to that awfulness (and yes, I've had non-Business Ryanair experiences).
Planes may be more uncomfortable, but at least they don't make you sit down for half a day.
> But for many people, having fewer steps in the journey
Are you aware how often you have to switch trains if you are doing point-to-point travel? Even within Germany, I have 4 switchovers between where I live and Berlin (that is, if I am lucky). With the plane? Sit down, stand up, Berlin.
> being able to comfortably work
Unless you travel First Class AND get a seat with a table AND somehow are able to work without internet, I don't see how that argument (which comes up every once in a while) works out for you. YMMV, depending on which country you are in.
> Virtually any airline outside of the no-frills-Ryanair sector happily sells you flexible tickets (often for price).
This is not the same thing. I do not need to tell anyone that I have decided to take a later train using my open train ticket.
Yeah and the amount of space is not really anything specific to the train. You can vary the amount of space in planes, buses and cars as well, and the price will follow, just as in trains.
There is no reason why space is "cheaper" in a train really, it's only the scheduling of few trips that make more space available, if you have more trips on the tracks, similar to a road, space becomes constrained, like you see in subway trains.
This also ignores the speed: if the prices were the other way around, with airfare twice as expensive as rail, I expect most people would still take the plane.
Airlines also typically charge for luggage, RyanAir charge extra for anything they can think of, including choosing a seat, and people booking at shorter notice subsidise those who book in advance. The cost difference for most passengers is probably smaller.
10.5 hours is still longer than 2.5 (or maybe - if you include security checkpoint time - 3.5 hours) by plane.
Also, and this may be related to the airports I fly out of, but I have hardly ever had planned more than an hour of time from entering an airport terminal to the gate. In TXL (sadly closed now for the much inferior BER), I averaged 25 minutes. At Stuttgart, I once managed to get there in 20. It all comes down to being prepared for security, knowing which security controls are often underused and picking up the right departure times. rel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnNyUGhXTsw
This is the saddest part of flying, that it really can take only 20 minutes, and instead of making it as efficient as possible, there's the opposite development, where the recommended time has gone from 1 hour to now at least two hours.
The federal government spends $2BN/year on Amtrak and people lose their damn minds.
Meanwhile, at the FAA, nearly $12BN/year...and that doesn't account for all the local and state funds used to subsidize airports. Or Department of Transportation spending...
I recall a figure from MIT's microeconomics textbook (Pindyck et al.) where they showed the aggregate profits of all industry since its inception were negative.
In EU, subsidies to airlines are an indirect subsidy to the tourism industry.
probably this counts for at least a few billions
Another consideration may be the consequences of possibly diverging tax rates for kerosene: if it's much cheaper to fill up in, say, Spain, than it is in France, it might become cheaper to carry the fuel for the return leg, even if the increased weight increases fuel consumption.
I'm not saying that any of this justifies the state of affairs. But it's possible to arrive at it even with mostly good intentions.
Surely, the actual costs calculations will need to include the infra and operational costs however if you check the energy consumption per passenger per distance[0], rail transport is always on the more efficient side of things.
Unless the infrastructure and operational costs of trains are higher than airplanes, I don't see how airplanes can be more competitive. Is the rail infrastructure that much expensive?
Maybe the argument can be made about convenience but on efficiency, trains look more efficient.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport
It makes flying seem more competitive then it actually is, as trains usually aren't booked relative how much your transportation cost and instead the overall cost to also enable these almost empty routine runs
The people with only outlying routes nearby would be stuck without public transport, which is unacceptable. Commercial train companies only get contracts for the busy intercity routes if they also provide service on the outlying routes.
Building and maintaining one runway at point A and one at point B is obviously much easier than building and maintaining a railroad between them.
Airports also tend to be at the middle of nowhere, IMHO you need to incorporate the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure needed to get somewhere from that nowhere.
If you have ten airports, you have 10 * (10 + 1) / 2 = 55 airlines. If you have 10 train stations, you have only as many rail lines as you're willing to build, which means countries end up spending most of the effort and money on lines connecting major city centers.
Also, if you have an international airport, you're connected to every capital city of the world.
The logistic advantages of air travel are huge. Kerosene will need to get a lot more expensive before these advantages lose out.
Also, trains can switch lines, disconnect, run on the same line back to back etc.
Just look at the Europe railways map: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:High_Speed_Railroad_...
I suspect, with some standardisation and automation, you can end up having very good point-to-point travel options by train. Even better than airlines maybe. The current inefficiencies could be due to poor management and weak integrations. Can you imagine how great could be to have Europe and Asia wide rail network where automated carriages and rail switching systems coordinate to achieve travel from any train station to any train station?
The usual tracks either connect big cities or they run between urban centers and less populated areas. IOW run between every seat taken and almost empty.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftstoffverbrauch?wprov=sfti...
Let's cut out the 96.5% first, then reduce travel.
The same with cars. Automobiles amount for a small portion of total gas emissions. All in all, passenger cars+ passenger aviation is about 10% of total emissions. Yet we heard complaints about these more than anything else. And not only complaints, but policies that want to fix this problem.
Why not focus on the 90%? Industry lobbyists love this state of affairs, we auto-flagellate for 10% and nobody says a peep about the elephant in the room.
Single plastic usage is such a red herring...every time you load up your car with gas, you put in 15 gallons, that is ~50 kilograms. A plastic straw is 0.4 grams, 125,000 plastic straws to amount to the same hydrocarbon footprint. This is a very rough math, but you get the idea. You can compensate for all your life consumption of straws and forks by not filling up once. Plates are heavier, but still marginal compared to everything else.
Another one: plastic grocery bags are 5 grams, that means one tank of gas is like 12000 grocery bags.
You could say: but at least use less single use plastic! Have you considered the alternatives? Would stainless plates weigh much more on a plane, and induce a higher CO2? Would food non-wrapped in plastic spoil more? (We throw away about 50% of all fruits and vegetables anyway).
GHG is a tough problem. Focusing on some token issues like plastic straws and plane travel for ordinary people does not solve it, it only makes it harder for people to accept it.
Also, trains (in large parts of Europe anyway) run on electricity only of which a significant chunk is from nuclear power, which doesn't emit anywhere near as much CO2 to move as many people as a plane would.
And the noise. trains are so quiet compared to planes.
Then when it come to bigger hitters, like industry, building insulation, agriculture etc. you will get exhausted and poorer people that just can't take it anymore. And then you end up with people thinking this is all so futile and so scared of the future that they don't want to even have kids anymore.
I think one of the reasons that aviation is so often in the spotlight in discussions about climate change is the existence of greener alternatives. Of course, those can't replace all flights, but they don't have to. Add to that the fact that air travel has exploded in recent years before Corona, and you certainly have to ask yourself whether taking five weekend trips a year from Zurich to Hamburg really improves our standard of living so much that we should put up with the downsides of it.
Personally, of course, I also like to travel and I think flying is a great invention that brings countries and people closer. Nevertheless, you have to be a bit critical about whether every flight is really necessary.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200218-climate-change-h...
not so relevant for the shorter trips intra-EU, but still a factor
There would be rules around a fuel flight vs a legit passenger/cargo service, assuming they don't want to tax the extra fuel left in a plane at the end of a flight.
But that seem like a pretty straightforward problem to solve.
I'm Swiss and at least in Switzerland such a rule would automatically apply unless the population would do a referendum. And that would lead to a public vote that would almost certainty lose.
They aren’t going to russia for the Paris London flight.
I think your new point is optimistic at best. You would have to switch trains quite often and the time it takes would probably weigh heavier than the price. Especially between EU countries, within country flying is not really that big in EU.
> I love trains and take them over airplane when it's an option. However, trains are often around twice as expensive as flying for may routes.
But I agree that switching trains is also an issue.
Example: From Amsterdam Airport to Palermo, there are 2 flights per week (Friday and Monday). That is 300 passengers per week. It is a profitable to fly planes between these two cities, but a direct rail route including maintenance of the railway system would be far to expensive. This is partly resolved by stops along the way, but definitely not completely. The busiest direct railway routes (AMS-PARIS, AMS-LONDON, PARIS LONDON) in Europe are far from full, with one train an hour.
So the problem is not insufficient capacity, but rather that the scale is to small. I see electric buses playing a big role in the future to allow for better point-to-point connections.
Much like the idea of separating ISPs from the last mile infrastructure by the way.
Timetabled connections are likewise impossible to set up with too much uncoordinated competition, because without making the connection times unattractively long they cannot really be set up between more than one train per relation (maybe sometimes two at a stretch).
Plus connections that aren't ridiculously padded (and therefore result in absolutely uncompetitive journey times) really only work with some sort of through-ticketing so passengers aren't left stranded if they do miss a connection after all.
In Europe. But not in the US.
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroad/us-and-european-f...
http://www.mapattacks.com/2015/01/who-owns-americas-rail-inf...
People are talking about subsidies (by not taxing fuel for instance) for planes, but trains are also directly subsidised to the tune of billions each year. The rail network just costs a ton to build and maintain.
Just wait until you hear about how subsidised the infrastructure for cars and trucks are.
The difference is that trains operate at a loss even with high ticket prices and operational subsidies are necessary for market viability. That is not the case with car and truck usage.
I felt like private cars (the ones that are not taxi/commercial) just stay in one place the majority of its lifetime.
Pre-covid, I had a 45 minute commute. The other 22.5 hours my car just stayed in one place. Engine off. Road trips unfortunately don't happen often for me.
Trains, trucks, planes, and even taxis are probably running/flying more than it's staying still.
As others have told you, you are wrong.
US highways do pay for themselves (<https://web.archive.org/web/20130515013017/http://www.rita.d...>) (non-PDF version: <https://web.archive.org/web/20170712175437/http://www.rita.d...>), and help pay for other modes of transportation. Transit receives the biggest subsidy per passenger-mile, with rail and airlines in between.
(For those wishing more detail: From the executive summary (<https://web.archive.org/web/20170628114204/http://www.rita.d...>):
>*Highways*
>Users of the highway passenger transportation system paid significantly greater amounts of money to the federal government than their allocated costs in 1994-2000. This was a result of the increase in the deficit reduction motor fuel tax rates between October 1993 and September 1997, and the increase in Highway Trust Fund fuel tax rates starting in October 1997.
>School and transit buses received positive net federal subsidies over the 1990-2002 period, but autos, motorcycles, pickups and vans, and intercity buses paid more than their allocated cost to the federal government.
>On average, highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles to the federal government over their highway allocated cost during 1990-2002.)
It's possible that despite all that rail has higher costs - but it's also quite possible that the dominating factor is the unreasonably subsidized airline fuel. The tax-exempt status is absurd, especially given other fuel and power duties - not to mention that a reasonable accounting should be taxing fuel high enough to cover the costs of the climate-change externalities, which would result in an even higher price (as it happens, due to cloud formation, air travel causes even more warming than ground based fossil fuel consumption, though I'm unaware of whether that's a significant difference).
If indeed an honest accounting were to reveal that flight is still cheaper: great! But I seriously doubt it; and in any case it's certainly time to stop subsidizing air travel like this. Let the sector succeed or fail on its own merits, not by virtue of tax shenanigans.
I was just in Frankfurt yesterday and the noise is substantial, in the residential neighbourhood I visited it was the main source of noise during the day.
My point was that train lines are millions of miles/km and run through the center of settlements, by design. Almost everywhere in the world, unless you live in a suburb or village, you have a high chance that you will hear trains multiple times a day.
I think there are less people under flight plaths than near trains.
I guess it depends on luck how noisy they can be. I used to get woken every night at 2am by one fucker.
It might be because we are relatively high up (about 100m) and most of the distance between us and the airport is over the sea.
Edit: Just checked on a map and when most aircraft take off from Edinburgh's runway into the prevailing wind they are pointing pretty much directly away from us which might make it more noticeable.
Sometimes it's not possible to avoid climbing over cities because the city ended up engulfing the airport (e.g. Heathrow) - so they will alternate directions to give various towns a break.
[1] page 30 of https://bisa.brussels/sites/default/files/publication/docume...
Why would that be? A typical 110 ton capacity freight train car weighs 33 tons unloaded. It has no problems staying on the tracks.
Besides both buses and planes typically weigh much more than their freight (and planes need to lift all that weight 10km vertically), so I fail to see how that is an argument against trains.
I'm guessing at the numbers here but just to illustrate my point:
If an empty bus weights let's say 10 tonnes, and an empty train 33 tons. And the load of the passengers around 7 tonnes. So in total you'd transport 40 tonnes of train as opposed to 17 tonnes of bus.
Then obviously for that load rubber tires would be more efficient, and rail would be a bad fit.
There's a minimum load per cubic inch for trains to make sense, you have to have really dense cargo.
Like I said in another comment, subways in Paris run on rubber tires, it becomes especially inefficient with rail when there are frequent stops.
It would make so much more sense, especially in the US, to develop premium Tesla buses that could use the existing freeway infrastructure, than to expand rail.
From [1], the only comparable figures are the American train and the American bus. The bus is about half as efficient as the train.
There are similar figures further down the page ("German environmental costs") -- 0.25MJ/passenger-km for long distance rail, 0.85MJ/pkm for regional rail, 1.14MJ/pkm for bus service.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_efficiency_in_transport...
Exactly, and you need rolling resistance for traction. The heavier the load, the lower resistance you need, and vice versa, because the weight of the load increases resistance. Which is why you don't ship hay on trains, and don't ship iron on trucks.
No, you don’t. Look at e.g. gears: almost no friction, perfect traction.
> Which is why you don't ship hay on trains
No. You don’t ship it on trains because that is uneconomic. You keep your cattle close to your hay producing fields, where they can also graze.
Also, by your reasoning, an empty train would not be able to move?
Flying is better for NYC -> Colorado - LA but trains are better for NY -> DC corridor, and frankly, probably all the way down to Florida.
There is the issue of 'downtown' and 'walkable cities'. If you arrive in Baltimore near an airport, you have to rent a car. In European cities, you hop on the Subway to the Hotel, that makes a big difference as well.
But Boston->DC is ripe for train transformation.
And 'established circuits' SF->LA->Vegas should be high speed - that California can't sort that out is really sad, it's a matter of organizational/systematic incompetence.
There needs to be kind of a 'civic buy in' for it to work
You will come really close to that if you build a road that has the same level of right of way, and drive buses. The benefit of (expensive) bridges and tunnels are not unique for trains. Some of the subway trains in Paris run on rubber tires.
I have taken many Amtrak short trips, like 1h, and 50% of the time the train leaves more than 1h late (and 100% it leaves late, some amount). So I leave my departure location after I was meant to arrive at my arrival location.
In 2005 I took a night train from Budapest to Belgrade, but not really - the ticket I paid for, the platform sign, the ticket agent, all told me that. But once on the train passing the border, the passport checker told me that the route hadn't gone to Belgrade in some time, and that I would be dumped at 2am in Novi Sad, where I was meant to buy a bus ticket. Tickets closed and Euros not accepted. Was a difficult time to resolve, but I bought overpriced Dinars from some travellers with my Euros and got a last minute ticket. Arrived in Belgrade to find 0 hotel rooms due to a football match.
I love trains. But the process needs improvement, just like airplanes. Long-distance travel without a car is honestly quite difficult in Europe and USA imo.
Planes will sell you tickets that don't exist and then pretend like a night in a hotel makes up for it. They abuse you at security. They treat you like trash and everybody deals with it.
Please make trains better, Amtrak, and EU. Please.
Getting a 100 dollar fine because you didn't click a button on a website, being commanded by uniformed people to "show your papers" over and over, standing in line waiting to stand in another line. Being forced to stand in crowded "designated areas". It's super creepy, gives me the heebie jeebies, like I'm being shipped off somewhere..
Once, I had the same problem due to a football match in Rome. In hindsight, how I got a bed for the night was hilarious but it wasn't at the time as I was dead tired (I'll spare you the details—I learned quickly that very strange things can happen in Rome).
A day or so later I was on a train from Rome to Vienna, the trouble was that by then many of those football fans were returning home so we all ended up together on the same train. To make matters worse, many of them were drunk. Suffice to say, Austrian Customs and border police were not amused, the train was delayed many hours.
See, you're not alone, we all have days like that when traveling in strange places especially so when crossing country borders.
"I love trains. But the process needs improvement, just like airplanes. Long-distance travel without a car is honestly quite difficult in Europe and USA imo."
I agree with you about the US and Eastern Europe, however you really shouldn't have any trouble in Western Europe—France, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, and Germany—even Italy (if you're forewarned what to expect). Of course, here I'm referring to major towns or ones that receive a reasonable number of foreign tourists. As always, small villages and places that are way off the beaten track will be difficult no matter where you are (so are one and two star hotels problematic in such places as they are much less likely to speak English).
In particular, I found such travel by train in the US much more difficult than in Western Europe. It seems to me that since WWII all the once excellent (and traditional) railway infrastructure (such as railroad-owned hotels at or near railroad stations, etc.) has either been dismantled and or sold off, so one ends up at one's destination—even in large towns or cities—without any or minimal local support. Right, all this once infrastructure has been transferred, or relocated or rebuilt around airports.
I reckon the US will have a huge job in reversing the process (or duplicating the infrastructure as it once was around rail terminals), that is if it wishes to make rail truly relevant again.
Generally, Europe is miles ahead of the US in this area of public transport infrastructure.
Out of curiosity, any example of the terrible things that may happen in Italy and that travelers should be forewarned about?
Apologies for laboring the (mostly) bleeding obvious in some of these points especially item 5, but it's only because I've seen people not bother to observe them and suffer the consequences (including this once-neophyte traveler—yours truly). :-)
Note: this post is too long for a single comment, so I'll post it in parts.
I suppose the definition of 'terrible' is important here. Anyway, here's some bits of advice gained from a few incidents that I've experienced in Italy, you be the judge of whether they're terrible or not. Whilst I've singled out Italian instances here of course most of what I've to say is pretty much common knowledge and general travel advice. It's just from my experience my comments are somewhat more applicable to Italy than to other Western European countries—although it's wise to consider other notable/problematic places, Amsterdam's main train terminus for instance. Better still, always consider any major train terminus where tourists gather as potentially hostile.
First, I must say I love Italy, its people and their culture, its cities and beautiful countryside not to mention its historical heritage—the Roman Empire, et al.
Anyway, here goes:
1. Always plan your trip to an Italian city when there's no major football match taking place (that's unless you are planning to attend the match). This is especially important if the match is between an Italian team and a foreign one (Europe's obsession with football is legendary, fans are passionate about their teams and are easily excited—'tis likely some wars have started over less drama). Visiting fans can be found all over parts of the city that you're likely to want to visit, and they can get very rowdy.
2. If You have to visit an Italian city when there's a football match on then make sure that you arrange your accommodation well beforehand as you can almost guarantee that every hotel will be fully booked out and you'll have nowhere to stay (again, this is very important if the opposing team is from another country as there will be many fans from that country visiting to see the match). I've learned this from hard experience. Moreover, sleeping overnight at railway stations is not only unpleasant but it's also dangerous.
3. If perchance you do arrive by train (or any other form of transport) and have not booked accommodation in advance when there's a football match about to take place then make sure you arrive early in the day. This is an absolute must, here's why:
My first trip to Rome was done on the spur of the moment and I had no idea that any football match was about to take place let alone that it would be relevant to my visit—nor (given the circumstances of the match) did I have the vaguest notion that one must arrive early in the day to be of paramount importance (if there's any chance at all of getting accommodation then one must be early).
As it happened my time of arrival in Rome couldn't have been worse, not only did I arrive just before a key football match was scheduled to kick-off but also I arrived very late in the day, around about 21h00. After phoning many hotels (all those with outlet facilities on the station as well as others listed on signboards), it was pretty clear that there was no remaining accommodation whatsoever left in Rome—or so I thought!
After the phoning exercise, which achieving nothing of note, I was standing around on the station's concourse and perplexed as to what to do next when I began to be approached by numbers of guys all of whom were offering accommodation. As I later found out they were lone operators and they spoke just sufficient English to get across the point that they were offering me accommodation. Their demonstrable (or apparent) lack of English was such that I was unable to determine exactly what type of accommodation they were offering (suffice to say their 'limited' English was to their benefit, not mine). It's clear these opportunists were well aware of the shortage of accommodation throughout Rome during football times not to mention the arrival of unsuspecting visitors such as me and they took full advantage of the situation.
Eventually after weighing up the situation and being somewhat desperate, I selected the most seemingly respectable offer. In fact, at no time was I ever told the actual nature of the accommodation although it wasn't for the want of trying (again, the language barrier was such that it was easier to give up—and I was damn tired into the bargain, by then I believed I'd accept any any accommodation—or so I thought). It was what happened after this that made me mention my earlier caveat 'if you're forewarned what to expect'. (I can elaborate further details if you wish.)
4. If traveling by train anywhere in Europe, especially so in Italy, then avoid any train that's traveling to a football match which is likely to be carrying football fans. Moreover, it's especially important not to do so on trains that are returning home from the match as the fans are noisy, boisterous and often very drunk. As mentioned elsewhere, not long after the match was over I took an overnight train from Rome to Vienna and it was full of fans who were returning home after the match (the match was between Italian and Austrian teams). It was a horrible experience to say the least. Returning fans misbehaved so badly that Austrian Customs and border police were not amused, they delayed the train for hours not to mention that they searched every inch of the train from one end to the other with Alsatian dogs at the ready (I've experienced such searches on many other occasions but this one was the worst).
<continued>
5. If you're visiting Rome or any other Italian city no doubt you'll want to visit its historical sites (as you know, they're everywhere and hard to avoid). First, here's a warning to be careful to avoid pickpockets. On multiple occasions I've had swarms of very persistent kids swarm around me on the pretext of selling some grotty postcards or such and during the process they do everything possible to distract one and it's hard to keep track of what each one is doing. They're often in groups of six or more in number (and they're very common in and around Rome's main ruins). Moreover, some kids are very young and look harmless and genteel, but don't be fooled, they're not—they're all part of a well orchestrated team and you'll be done over if you're the slightest bit gullible and or not very careful. BTW, in this regard Rome was the worst of all the Italian cites I've visited.
Never leave your wallet, your smartphone and or your passport in the back or side pockets of your pants (or side pockets of your jacket). If you are wearing jeans then place valuables deep down in your front pockets, better still put them in a money belt that's under your shirt. Also, be very careful about looking after anything else that you're carrying, a camera for instance (it's also best not to go alone as members of one's group can keep an eye on each other).
Clearly, there's little point putting one's phone in an 'inaccessible' money belt, my solution for storing it safely but still within ready reach is to store it in the front pocket one's shirt. Warning however: as everyone knows, in recent years shirt pockets have atrophied in size to now being little more than a totally useless decoration. There are nevertheless several solutions: shirts from military disposals often have suitably large pockets, trouble is they either have no button or only a single button that almost everyone never bothers to button up. In either case when you lean over everything falls out including one's smartphone—crash, there's goes another screen, and that's the last thing you need on your trip. The best solution I've arrived at is to purchase several shirts of a suitable style well before one travels. Safari, trail/outdoor or nautical-type shirts that have both decent sized top front pockets complete with easy-close zippers—which you learn to zip closed by automatic reflex every time you put your phone back in your pocket—are, in my opinion, the best option. This extra effort might seem a nuisance but I can assure you it's well worth it.
6. The horrors (perhaps terrors) of diving in Italy. You'll get quite a shock when you first drive in Italy—that's unless you come from France, Germany or other country where maniacal drivers are commonplace—even then Italy has a special place on the maniacal drivers register.
First, there are only two speeds in Italy—stop and flat out. Second, don't expect Italian drivers to obey the road rules in quite the same way that you'd expect that drivers do in anglophone countries, US, UK, Australia, etc. Yes, they actually obey road rules (sometimes) but what they'd deem as obeying the rules is very different, and it can take some experience and time to get used to the differences (eventually, you'll get the gist and be OK—that's if you're not killed first).
There are three memorable instances in my life where I actually thought I'd die before reaching my destination: the first was on the autobahn from Stuttgart to Freiberg when one of my work colleagues—a German who'd migrated but who was back in Germany with me—was driving a small car that'd often get 'airborne' whenever he'd overtake trucks and that was as often as he possibly could (nothing in front of him was too much of a challenge). As the car was small and under-powered, overtaking was slow and dangerous (yet behind the wheel he still drove like a 'Fangio Mark-II', fortunately for me, like the real Juan Fangio, he had nine lives (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Fangio). Incidentally, my colleague once used to race Minis.
The second was a local incident I'll not mention further, and the third was my first experience on the Autostrada A1—the motorway from Milan to Naples (that first time I was on my way from Milan to Rome): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostrada_A1_(Italy). The small rental car I was in could hardly make 100 mph (≈160km/h) on a gentle downhill and just about every car and trucks would pass and overtake me at such speed that the vortex they created buffeted the car with such intensity that they made steering extremely sloppy. Moreover, if one were to travel slower than about 160 km/h then one would likely be rear-ended especially so in foggy conditions (and at the time there was fog on some sections of the motorway). 'Fog—what's that, only sissies would slow down for fog?†' I'm not a timid driver, nor do I scare easily when others are driving but as a novice whose first introduction to driving Italian style was on the Autostrada A1 was certainly a memorable experience to say the least. As they say, it was like being unexpectedly dropped in at the deep end without warning.
Here's another instance of the Italian motorists' driving style (I've already mentioned this previously some while ago). I observed this incident in the residential area of Florence. Here's the scene: the River Arno flows through Florence essentially cutting it in half, busy roads with large amounts of traffic follow along the Arno's banks for most of its length through the city. Whilst over a dozen bridges interconnect these roads on either side of the River there are many roads that run perpendicular to it but which do not intersect at points where the bridges are—that is, these perpendicular roads terminate in a 'T' intersection with the roads that follow the River.
Now picture this, I've left my hotel and I'm walking along the sidewalk of one of the roads that's following the Arno's banks and I come across one of these busy 'T' intersections and its traffic lights are indicating red in the direction I'm walking. An impatient driver—impatience is a common characteristic of Italian drivers—in one of the 'stopped' vehicles intends to turn left into the intersecting right-angled street but the lights are against him (a pedestrian 'walk' sign is green on that road so he has a red left-arrow light indicating that he must stop). He hardly stops—then just before the traffic lights and intersection he immediately veers left to bypass both the roadway and the lights. That is, he turns hard left and mounts the sidewalk not that far in front of me then he disappears down the intersecting side street whilst now still traveling on its sidewalk (technically, he's avoided going through a red light and thus he's not broken that law but no doubt he's broken others). This is what I mean when I say Italian drivers (anyway, a significant number of them) interpret the road rules in ways that we'd not normally expect.
However, that's not the end of the story: the moment after he disappeared driving down the intersecting street's sidewalk I heard a large crash. Upon arriving at the intersection and looking left I saw that he'd driven straight into a huge excavation hole in the sidewalk that was part of street maintenance work. What's more amazing is that when I'd gotten a little closer I could see that he wasn't alone as there were several other cars already in the ditch. That's not the only instance where I've seen Italian drivers bypass red lights in such a manner, however on those occasions there were no ditches around to catch them.
7. (This I've also mentioned previously.) I recall that when I visited the Colosseum in Rome, which incidentally is a fabulous place to visit (I could wax lyrically about it for hours), I came across something rather unexpected, that was the large number of discarded hypodermic syringes in and around the sidewalk that surrounds this monumental edifice. It seems the building wasn't only a huge tourist attraction but also it was a shoot-up gallery for local druggies (keep in mind, I've not been there for quite some time, so things may have been cleaned up since then). The lesson is that it's probably not a good idea to travel hippy-like in bare feet around any of these attractions (on my next visit I reckon I'll wear shoes with rather substantial soles).
There's more but that'll have to do for now.
__
† Not slowing down for fog is also a trait of Austrian and German drivers but from my experience they're marginally less gung-ho about it than Italians (they're more consistent drivers at high speed). I recall once being driven by an Austrian driver from Salzburg to Vienna on the motorway in not only fog but also sleet and rain at speeds in excess of 160 km/h (≈100 mph), it was another white-knuckle experience which would rate next down the list of those already mentioned. Incidentally, the trip was during the winter. When I suggested he slow down he retorted to the effect that 'I must be joking and that he'd be rear-ended in a second if he did that'. Seems these motorists' main aim is to keep constant speed, breaking not only results in rear-enders but one would almost certainly spin out of control on the icy road surface. Such driving isn't for the fainthearted.
1) to find no place to sleep if not booked in advance the day of a major sport event
2) no really, do not try going in a city when there is a major football match without having booked some accomodation
3) if you really insist on going to a city when there is a football match arrive early
4) do not travel (in the event of a football match) by train
5) beware of picpockets
6) Italians drive fast and somehow impredictably
7) you shouldn't go bare footed
#1 to #5 and #7 are (IMHO) little more than common sense and apply to most if not all countries.
Maybe #6 is the only one actually related to Italy, though it probably applies to a number of other not-perfect countries, like Austria and Germany.
No it isn't. As I said Italy's a lovely place. It's just that more can go wrong there than in other Western European countries unless one's adequately forewarned.
"1) to find no place to sleep if not booked in advance the day of a major sport event"
In any city there can be problems with accommodation during any major event (sporting or otherwise) but from my experience things are more intense and or more complicated in Italy. I've been in other cities during major sporting events, Paris and Munich for example, and had no trouble getting accommodation at the last moment - but I've experienced the problem twice in Italy (albeit the conditions of each instance being somewhat different to each other).
"2) no really, do not try going in a city when there is a major football match without having booked some accomodation"
That's probably good advice anywhere. However, having lived in Europe, I've stayed in other non-Italian cities during football matches not having realized that a match was taking place until late into the event. Accommodation was easily available.
"3) if you really insist on going to a city when there is a football match arrive early"
That makes sense whether there's a match on or not. I don't know how much traveling you've done, but my experience is that it's often not possible to arrive early, same goes for being unable to book in advance (especially so if one's does a lot of city hopping, which has been my situation for work). Often things just don't go to plan for many reasons.
That said, I've never been caught out without any accommodation regardless of circumstance. Even that instance mentioned above in Rome I finally sorted out and managed to get accommodation (you'll note, I didn't say what eventually transpired (what actually did is much more likely to happen in Italy than elsewhere in Western Europe)).
The only other time I've come really close to having difficulty with last-minute accommodation was in Vienna (one time I arrived there unexpectedly several hours later than I did in Rome (around midnight) without any prebooked accommodation, that too was also solved after some effort.
"4) do not travel (in the event of a football match) by train"
Makes sense anywhere but generally Italy is somewhat less organized than say Germany is.
"5) beware of picpockets"
The only country/place where I've experienced overt trouble of this kind in Western Europe is in Italy and in Amsterdam railway terminus (no other place in the Netherlands has ever been a problem). Clearly, there are other places that I could mention where I reckon one could easily get into trouble if one wasn't careful but I never have (as always, I follow the rules I've mentioned). Even in Rome I was OK (and I was well aware of what was happening at the time they tried to scam me).
The only time I've had trouble was in Vienna (normally an extremely safe city, I know, I lived there for quite some time) and what happened was my fault (this wasn't the time when I was living there). What happened was that I arrived after traveling half way around the world and was really dead tired. I got into my hotel room, shut the door put my stuff down everywhere and had a quick rest. Trouble was I fell asleep and I'd not locked the hotel door (it didn't have a door that locked automatically).
While I was asleep someone entered my room and stole my wallet but nothing else was taken (they could have just as easily stolen my laptop and camera but they didn't). The loss was highly inconvenient as my credit cards were now gone and I'd not yet even had time to have an imprint from one registered at the front desk (as I said, Vienna is a trusting place, the comment from the desk was 'do all that stuff after you get settled'). Not having a credit card nor any cash, paying the hotel bill was then a potential problem.
What happened next was that I immediately cancelled all credit cards. Two days later the desk contacted me and handed me my wallet back. When I asked how they came by it, they said that several minutes earlier another guest found it just by the entrance of the hotel's front door and handed it in. All my now-defunct cards were still there so was everything else, driver's license etc, all except the cash—that being some $60 or so USD and about the equivalent $20 USD in Austrian Schillings (it was in the days before the Euro). There's about 13 to 14 Schillings to a Euro, so luckily my loss was pretty trivial.
"7) you shouldn't go bare footed"
Surprising many do! Especially so anglophone tourists on holiday. (Same goes for dress sense, once I was in Harrods in London with a group of friends, one decided to wear his skimpy beach shorts (which he also wore everywhere else across the UK) and he was promptly chucked out of the store at very great speed (he wouldn't take our advice to the contrary and that included his Mrs who'd told him earlier that he wouldn't get past the front door looking like that).
"#1 to #5 and #7 are (IMHO) little more than common sense and apply to most if not all countries."
True, but from my expedience Italy is significantly different to other countries in Western Europe, Eastern Europe is a different matter altogether, some countries there make Italy look like a model citizen.
"<...> though it probably applies to a number of other not-perfect countries, like Austria and Germany."
You're skating on thin ice here, what gives to the idea that Austria and Germany are 'not-perfect'? No country is perfect but those two are an absolute model when compared to some others I could name (which I won't do out of deference).
Rest assured that - notwithstanding the single episode you witnessed in Florence - it is not like every day tens or hundreds of cars do evasive maneuvers to avoid red lights and/or senselessly enter construction sites in Florence (or in Italy in general).
Traveling impromptu, particularly if you do not speak functionally the local language is asking for trouble almost anywhere, and as well pickpockets are common in many large cities all over Europe (those with the largest number of tourists).
If we go by anecdata:
1) some relatives of mine have been pickpocketed BOTH in London and in Barcelona
2) I have been refused accomodation (duly booked in advance, BTW) in Munich in the Oktoberfest period (due to some sort of overbooking, or mismanagement of cancellations, not really an issue as I was traveling by car and I managed to find a hotel only a few km outside Munich)
3) in three different occasions someone managed to throw up on me (yikes!), once on a bus in Berlin, once in a train in the UK and once on a Qantas flight to Australia
4) I once eyewitnessed a car entering the highway from the wrong side in France, making a front collision with a truck that was travelling in the right sense, and another time I saw the same happening (luckily with no accidents) in Switzerland
Hence:
1) beware of pickpockets in the UK and Spain
2) double and triple check bookings in Germany
3) be prepared to find in Germany, the UK and Australia (drunk) people that will throw up on you
4) be warned that drivers in France and Switzerland often enter the highway the wrong side
The world is a dangerous place, you'd better stay at home.
Your comment made me think that perhaps I was overcritical so I did a quick search. Other than for some info about what tourists need to drive in Italy, this was the first hit in the list to my query: https://www.thelocal.it/20150326/why-are-italians-such-crazy.... Seems that just a few others agree with me (Italians included).
"Traveling impromptu, particularly if you do not speak functionally the local language is asking for trouble…"
In total agreement, one often experiences language difficulties especially so outside major tourist centers and larger cities. Even native speakers can get out of their depth the moment they cross their border (as I show below).
Avoiding two-star rated hotels/pensions and lower is also to be avoided (often I'd arrive at these hotels and be greeted by someone who spoke perfect English only to find that when that person finished his/her shift then there was no one else who could (I've some funny anecdotes about such encounters for another time). Any arrangements made with the English-speaker were often lost and confusion often ensued. Such confusion isn't necessarily confined to countries where one doesn't speak the local lingo, it can also occur when the natives speak English‡ by default!
Trouble is that for the average tourist Europe has too many languages for comfort (reckon percentage-wise not that many are linguists sporting six or more languages). I've some French and German, and they're very useful at times but of very little help outside Western Europe—Hungary and Serbia for instance (despite the fact that quite a few Hungarians speak German).
What's more the difficulties with language can be very localized. I recall one instance in Alsace when a group of us were in a restaurant and we tried to order meals in German only to be greeted with something gruff to the effect 'no comprehend', this was despite the fact that we had a native German speaker among us who eventually tried to help—Alsace being Alsace, we only brought him out as the big guns when all else failed, however it was to no useful effect (as we eventually ate elsewhere). Moments later when they thought we were out of listening range we could hear their conversions in German. Very strange, presumably if we'd initially tried to order in French then everything would have been OK.
Another striking instance was when I was in Menton in the south of France (Menton† is a border town between France and Italy with the Italian town Ventimiglia† immediately on the other side of the border). I was with my French aunt who normally resides in Paris and who not only spoke perfect French but who also always enunciated her words clearly. She had absolutely no problem with language when visiting the local markets in Menton, nor with conducting any another business in the town however she was totally flummoxed when in Ventimiglia's markets—essentially gestures were her only effective means of communication. Incidentally, Menton and Ventimiglia are so close to each other that one can easily walk between the two as is common practice; moreover, crossing the border which, essentially, is the only thing that separates the two towns, was so simple that to do was a non-event:
† https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ventimiglia,_Italy
Sometimes, unexpectedly, the opposite happens. In the early days of when I was living in Vienna a Greenpeace volunteer knocked at my apartment and asked for a donation. He rattled off his request so quickly that I requested him to repeat a part of it. Without so much as even a pregnant pause he instantly switched mid sentence into English and did so with absolute fluency (how I envy people like that).
"...almost anywhere, and as well pickpockets are common in many large cities all over <...>some relatives of mine have been pickpocketed BOTH in London and in Barcelona"
I'm not disagreeing, the reason I picked out those two instances was that the pickpockets in question were so overt about their aim that even the most novice traveler couldn't mistake their intentions (they worked on the principle that it didn't matter if you knew their intentions or not as, given their numbers, they'd have no trouble getting away). As mentioned, I found other places to be OK, in fact very safe, for instance, I traveled to work every day on Vienna's crowded U-Bahn and I never gave a second's thought about being pick-pocketed (and I never was).
"I have been refused accomodation (duly booked in advance, BTW) in Munich in the Oktoberfest period (due to some sort of overbooking, or mismanagement of cancellations, not really an issue as I was traveling by car and I managed to find a hotel only a few km outside Munich)"
Stuff-ups happen, and I'm not surprised it happened during Oktoberfest (you must have masochist tendencies to have been in Munich at that time). ;-)
"...in three different occasions someone managed to throw up on me (yikes!), once on a bus in Berlin, once in a train in the UK and once on a Qantas flight to Australia."
The most polite thing I can say to that is that with incidents one and two, luck wasn't on your side. Incident three, you have only yourself to blame for traveling on that airline.
My only experience that's vaguely similar happened to me in Manhattan when I was on my way to an important meeting. Whilst waiting at a pedestrian crossing for the lights to change at the intersection of one of the avenues and a cross street (forgotten which ones) a pigeon flying overhead shat on my head and shoulders.
An inconvenient bomb out of the blue to say the least.
P.S.: I really don't like traveling much, I avoid it if I can.
___
‡ At a certain hotel in London's Russell Square that will rename nameless, I made definite arrangements the night before I was to book out to collect an important fax that I was expecting to arrive overnight (I had a very early flight to NY and time was tight). Morning duly arrived and the area around the checkout counter was beginning to fill. When it was my turn to check out I asked checkout clerk serving me (one of three on duty if I recall) for my fax which I knew had arrived as I could see that it was still on the fax machine behind the checkout counter (its printout was of the roll type and my fax was still attached to the roll).
The clerk immediately responded that "the fax operator won't be in until 10AM and I'd have to wait until then", I politely responded that the fax was already on the machine behind him and that I'd already made arrangements the previous evening to collect it first thing the morning but it was to no avail, he simply repeated the exact same mantra again. A heated argument ensued much to the amusement and chagrin of others waiting (I was holding up the checkout line) but the clerk still wouldn't budge. I then immediately jumped over the counter tore the fax off the machine and jumped back again. Clerk: "I'm calling the police", "OK, best of luck—and I'll then accuse you of stealing my goods and I'll charge the hotel for me missing my flight." Cheers and applause from the 'audience' ensued. Yeah, there are some right bastards in this world.
N.B. Hungary has been an EU member since 2004, but Serbia is still not.
> The fact remains that, despite the European Union’s support for rail, the bloc’s governments continue to grant enormous subsidies to airlines — in the form of bailout packages as well as low taxes on jet fuel — although that could change soon.
The conspicuous lack of Pigouvian taxes on a fossil fuel for just one industry is definitely a subsidy. Someone else is paying for the externalities.
And others are benefitting from positive externalities of warmer weather, reducing need for heating, increases yields due to increased CO2 concentration etc. Thing is, it’s incredibly hard to put a number on net costs on climate change. The most serious recent attempt to do that had its author, William Nordhaus, a Nobel Prize in Economics. The estimated figure, by the way, is very low compared to the zeal of the activists.
Now, of course, the carbon tax proponents are not really interested in the actual costs. They either ideologically hate emissions, and their desire to institute carbon tax is vindictive in its nature, and all talk about “externalities” is for them just a distraction, or they are politicians who use carbon tax as an excuse to increase their political power and tax revenues. Nobody is motivated by actual economic efficiency, and calling them Pigouvian taxes is a distraction.
William's Nordhaus models for which he has received the Nobel prize predate the millennium, and have been superceded since then by much better models. His models are highly problematic, now that we know that you cannot extrapolate the average temperature on GDP due to increased amplitude, and for many other reasons. That is why the Nobel committee awarded it not for the current relevance of the results, but for the pioneering nature of the research.
[0] https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/sites/default/files/medien/14...
Once you fix energy production, vehicles transport and heating most of those things are gone.
If we looked air air-travel in isolation it would be a lot lower.
Minus overhead
This report seems to show that trains mostly pay for infrastructure and the network: https://cedelft.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/CE_Del...
I think British trains pay for “red” taxed diesel?
The "Diesel tax levels" charts (p28, p81) show the UK charges the same (0.7€/L) for both road and rail use, and most EU countries charge a tax, although more than half have less tax for rail than road use.
Electricity is taxed in a few countries.
Superficially, flying has relatively lower infrastructure costs because it only needs the two endpoints (no road, no track, no bridges, no tunnels -- all expensive items). That impacts both the initial capital cost, and the ongoing investment in maintenance.
Similarly, planes are fast: above a fairly short distance, it's much quicker to fly (by jet plane) than to travel by train or road vehicle.
But airports are difficult to access, being unwelcome in the middle of cities, and so there's a need to get to the airport as part of your journey. That part of the trip likely requires road or rail transport, and it's the most capital-intensive bits of the road/rail (ie. through urban areas).
The fuel cost of planes is also higher per passenger-distance. And beyond just simply purchasing the fuel, it's much easier (for instance) to electrify a train or car than a passenger plane. So how you account for the carbon cost will make a big difference to your result.
For the last 20 years or so, short-trip flights have been superficially cheap. The most obvious missing cost is the impact of using fossil fuel (and potentially that's even worse at high altitude), but there are other factors like the (ab)use of precarious labour, government subsidies for both fuel and facilities, noise impact, etc.
Whether it's ultimately sustainable or not all depends on what costs you choose to factor in.
It would be amazing to see humans build a large scale fusion reactors and Dyson spheres around the sun and never have to think about energy consumption :).
At the same time, I think we all should be disappointed in our approach towards energy production. We shouldn't have to ration it. Successful governments should be responsible for running sequestrators on tax funding.
There are lot of IFs in your statement. Sure, it's theoretically possible to harvest so much energy that we can regard it as freely abundant without any real external costs. But this is not the case today, and probably won't be the case for hundreds of years - if ever.
* > Successful governments should be responsible for running sequestrators on tax funding. *
There's no such thing as large scale carbon sequestrations. It's unclear if this is a sensible solution to climate change in general. It makes much more sense to switch to renewables as quickly as possible and to limit emissions as much as possible. THAT's what a successful government should be responsible for, not for investing in false promises.
A Dyson sphère around the sun would make life on Earth rather miserable.
> Successful governments should be responsible for running sequestrators on tax funding.
“Sequestrators” don’t exist. There is some noise every now and then about a fancy new technology, and it gets accepted in pop science media as something that works, but we don’t really have anything practical. Besides, this would be a terrible idea, because it means we lower the cost of operations for the industry, generating profits for their private owners, whilst straining public budgets already stretched thin. This would need a radical change of how most governments operate.
You can make hydrocarbons from c02 and water. Make digging up carbon illegal, so that only legal way to get your jet fuel is to buy it from a machine that makes it from the air (e.g. carbon-neutral fuels).
Under high temperature and pressure conditions, with expensive catalysts (I’ve had a grant to work on one of these processes a couple of years ago). It is completely uneconomical unless most government tax emissions very heavily one way or another.
Besides, this does not solve the capture bit, which is also a significant challenge, in similar ways (we have ideas about technologies, thermodynamics do not work in our favour, it would still require radical policies for it to work).
Nobody is going to wave their magic wand and make fossil fuels illegal anytime soon. It is a common techno-euphoria trap: technology is the easy bit, and we’re not there yet on that front. Policy is the struggle after that, and it is much more difficult.
And with electric planes you can go closer to cities, elimintation much infrastructure there and the externailty goes away for the most part.
So this seems just like an argument that we should make planes electric and invest a lot into that.
The fact that the equipment and the crews are absolutely cheaper doesn’t help ticket prices as much as you’d think. Time is money.
You can afford to have a bit more space to sit, wider aisles to walk and can fit a much nicer kitchen.
Bigger tables too so you can spread out your work/shopping/food.
If you haven’t tried train food before I highly recommend it. It’s stereotypically good in the same way plane food is stereotypically bad.
What we've seen here is TrenItalia starting to serve one line, Paris-Lyon (and then on to Milan). The issue is that this is, by far, the most profitable train line in France.
If competitors only get in on the profitable lines and leave the others to the national company, it will probably not end well. Because it's my understanding that profitable lines used to somewhat compensate for the others, SNCF was able to provide a somewhat dense service. If this goes away, they'll either have to reduce (or even stop!) the less profitable service, or the State will have to step in with even more subsidies for those lines.
There's a lot of talk in France around "public service" and I think that things like good rail service, especially in the era of "climate emergency" is important for a State to have. Instead, we're now getting new bus routes - yay diesel!
https://ec.europa.eu/competition/general/liberalisation_en.h...
Partly because airports in Berlin are shit.
If you go at the right times you get a lot of space, you can put your feet up and have a nice table as well.
It is more expensive then flying however.
You leave your house and you either jump on an electric bike or a self driving car of some kind. A 1-person 3-wheeled pod car would be very efficient if you are alone.
You get to a local mini-airport where electric helicopters transport you to the airport. Or maybe you just take the car to the local airport. Depends on where you live.
You jump into a electric plan and fly the city center you want to go to, or you land and jump in a second electric plane (this will happen less often as technology improves).
And then you do that same thing backwards to get the your destination.
The track tax is just what governments choose to do - especially since cargo trucks barely pay any road access tax.