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Comment by the_mitsuhiko | Hacker News Reader

I'm somewhat surprised that they go for this model. It's 49 Euro per month with restrictions to regional services. However that ticket is available for tourists, students, pensioners, workers and regular people at the same price point.

I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners.

The way the Austrian ticket works (91 Euro per month for regulars, 68.5 Euro for teenagers/students/pensioners) is interesting. It's a yearly subscription, but you can cancel monthly. It includes all services, but train companies can sell you goodies on top (upgrade to 1st class, seat reservations etc.). I think that sort of system is more reasonable because it also enables some level of competition and it lets the rail companies charge higher prices for tourists.

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One benefit of the flat pricing is that it saves a lot of overhead on having to check eligibility. I'm not arguing whether that's good or fair, but it does simplify the system.

Conductor still needs to check the ticket itself. You would have to show your student/pensioner ID in addition to the ticket. Overhead of eligibility check is negligible in my opinion

It's not about the conductor...

Why not? You (as the seller) don't care if someone buys a ticket they're not eligible to use and has to come back for another one, or never uses it, or whatever. You'd be checking eligibility at point of use anyway.

* It’s inefficient. Eligibility must only be confirmed once while ticket control happens often. Ticket control needs to be fast. * Training all inspectors to verify student IDs is much more effort compared to training people at point of sale only. * Many places also accept tickets with student badge instead of student IDs for verification.

This is probably also the reason we don’t get discounted 49€-tickets yet. They’re sold digitally so they can’t check the student ID at point of sale.

A digital student ID could improve this but implementing this internationally is hard.

They are already trained to check eligibility. Yes, that includes student IDs.

They know all students id from all universities in europe?

I find this hard to believe.

This seems to hint at a more fundamental difference in approach.

The grandparent comment is saying that the conductors should check for student IDs to validate that the passenger is travelling with correct authorisation.

Your comment indicates that because they have the ticket they are automatically authorised to travel.

In the U.K. as an example, if you’re travelling with a student (or other form of discount) ticket but cannot produce the corresponding ID card proving this, in effect you are not authorised to use the ticket and thus subject to a penalty fare, or a fine. This makes it so that eligibility must be validated simultaneously with inspection.

Not verifying eligibility at the same time as inspection means that an ineligible user may be inclined to obtain a ticket from an eligible user.

Different systems, different attitudes.

(Of course in the U.K. a flat reduction in ticket prices across the board would ameliorate the likelihood of this occurring in the first place, but that’s secondary)

I guess a better system would be to have different tiered pricing but not strict checks.

I guess the counter argument is that this is the only ticket that has flat pricing, even in Germany.

> […] higher prices for tourists.

The goal of these initiatives is to get people to choose public transport over cars. That includes making it attractive for tourists (foreign and domestic). A single ticket which allows you to just use any local public transport without having to figure out pricing and tickets beyond the basic rules of this ticket is pretty attractive.

The €9 ticket was a steal (I've used it myself as a tourist). This version is a bit on the expensive side, and not even that attractive for tourists (although certainly convenient).

The political discussion has not ended with the introduction of the 49 Euro ticket. One still hears a lot of voices calling for a cheaper ticket, even down to zero Euros, or discounts for welfare recipients. The high price is due in particular to the fact that German federal budget is currently under great pressure, especially because of the consequences of inflation, increased arms spending and high costs of other social policy innovations (expansion of childcare subsidies). However, due to the popularity of the 9 Euro ticket, I would not be surprised when some parties are going to make a cheaper or free ticket a special issue in the next federal election campaign (probably in 2025).

> I would have assumed they make that ticket only available yearly and with discounts to students or pensioners. The way the Austrian ticket works [...] It's a yearly subscription, but you can cancel monthly

What's the difference between a monthly subscription and a yearly subscription that you can cancel monthly? Either way you pay for however many months you choose to have it? It sounds like the difference is that you need to fork out the cash for a whole year up front (and get it back if you cancel early), which I could but idk about students and such

> What's the difference between a monthly subscription and a yearly subscription that you can cancel monthly? Either way you pay for however many months you choose to have it? It sounds like the difference is that you need to fork out the cash for a whole year up front

The difference is in the process mostly. They make it a process that requires a physical address, you need to return the plastic card etc. It's something that you can absolutely do if you live there, but it's something that is inconvenient if you do a two month summer vacation. You can pay month by month, so the upfront cash is not the issue.

That... doesn't sound like a benefit? Why be surprised they didn't go for this? Guess I read a meaning into that comment (that it could have been better by changing a technicality about billing period) that wasn't there.

> That... doesn't sound like a benefit?

Not sure I follow. The 49 Euro ticket is also a subscription in Germany so not sure how you interpret that "they didn't go for this".

Yearly subscriptions are usually cheaper than 12 month subscriptions. In my country you can't cancel a yearly subscription (and I don't think you can give it to someone else either).

That's actually a cool thing in my region (Aachen) that I didn't see before: you can get the yearly subscription, billed monthly, and cancelable monthly. If you have it for 2 years and 3 months, you'll end up paying 2 yearly amounts and the last 3 months are converted into a monthly subscription so you pay a bit more on the last installment (something like 5% more for each month that wasn't a full year). Why a monthly subscription exists and is purchasable, when you can also get the yearly straight away and see for how long you want it, I don't know, that's the only quirk really, otherwise this seems ideal/fair/flexible.

(All this goes out the window with the 50 euro flat fee monthly subscription of course; this thing was 90 euros a month and didn't even cover the state, let alone the country.)

It is "subscription-only" with a monthly cancellation, meaning the purchase options in practice limit it to long-term residents since you need to order by mail to a residence.

It is cheaper than the existing discounted options for students/seniors, previously those have been managed by the regional companies and I think they have an uncertain future.

People on social services still have other options, e.g. Berlin has a 9 eur ticket.

Which is precisely what it's trying to accomplish. This is BTW a very common theme for rail pricing in Europe. For instance there is INTERRAIL which is only available to EU residents and then there is EURAIL which has different prices and ticket types for non EU tourists.

Most of it seems to be pricing things more cheaply for tourists than for residents (Interail is not available in the EU country you are resident in.) And Eurail seems to be even cheaper than Interail:

Interail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class €352

Eurail 7 days within one month adult 2nd class $282 (€265)

I considered buying an Eurail ticket last time I went back to Britain though for my trips it made little difference to the total cost after factoring in the supplements for intercity trains as I was travelling off peak anyway.

The price structure for Interrail and Eurail are different which makes them tricky to compare. They in some countries don't even include the same trains.

Depending on the location, students might already have it with their student card. When I was studying it was around 130 per semester in the end for multiple things including the train ticket. Although it was limited to one federal state.

Why would it be desirable to have pensioners pay less and tourists pay more?

I imagine this model will attract quite a bit of additional tourists (without their annoying cars), which is a good thing (for most cities).

pensioners should pay less because they have less income and are more dependent on public transport.

tourists paying more doesn't make sense, because tourists are not going to use this kind of ticket anyways unless they are in germany for a few months. and even if they get it for just a short visit then they will hardly make as much use of it as locals, so there is no benefit for them paying more.

that said, there could be a more expensive version of this ticket that does not require a subscription that you'd have to remember to cancel.

> pensioners should pay less because they have less income and are more dependent on public transport.

Less income than who? Twenty-somethings? I doubt that. More dependent? Many pensioners have cars. And they, by definition, don't have a job to commute to every day.

young pensioners in their 60s maybe, but the older they get the less likely they are to drive.

more than 20% of single (or widowed) pensioners in germany have less than 700€ per month. only 40% of couples get more than 2500€ per month (that's more than 1250€ per person). the rest is somewhere in between.

so yes, pensioners do have less income. and twenty-somethings get student discounts.

especially very old people are often isolated and depend on public transport to get around.

Cause if you're a tourist you're expected to spend money and a small price hike compared to locals won't impact your decision one way or the other.

I also had this reaction a couple of years ago when my city started to introduce special touristy pricings, but nowadays I don't think it's a bad thing. The local government introduced a special "city card" which is essentially a museum card + hotel discounts + free public transport (within the city) + cheaper or free access to all touristy spots. If you travel on a budget, you just have to jump through an overtly advertised hoop, and if you can't be arsed to do so you end up paying a little bit extra. Locals don't have to bother, as showing our local ID is enough to "unlock" lower pricing. Win-win in my book.

There was a LOT of negotiation with the various regional providers that went into this.

Which is why I'm even more surprised that it ended up like this.

>because it also enables some level of competition

Does it? How do railways work in Austria? In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway.

>and it lets the rail companies charge higher prices for tourists.

Is that a good thing? I assume at least one of the reasons is to get people out of cars. It's unclear to me why a tourist not using a car is worse than a local not using a car.

> Does it? How do railways work in Austria? In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway.

There are routes on which there is competition (eg: Vienna to Salzburg) where two rail companies operate. For the most part the competition is quite limited, something which I hope will change.

> Is that a good thing?

Yes. Because public transit is primarily for the people who live there and pay taxes. That it's also something that tourists can use is great, but you don't need to subsidize it for them.

> Because public transit is primarily for the people who live there and pay taxes.

Public transport is transport for the public. This explicitly includes visitors. Tourism is a large part of the economy of most countries, and unless you are talking cities with over-tourism like in Amsterdam, getting rid of tourists is very much not what the people who live there (and who earn a living through tourism) want. Resolving congestion, improving air quality, and generally making cities more pleasant to live in, means getting as many people out of cars and into public transport, including tourists.

>That it's also something that tourists can use is great, but you don't need to subsidize it for them.

Although many places do. There are often city passes of various sorts for tourists. There are JR Rail visitor-only passes in Japan. I'm sure there are other examples.

> There are often city passes of various sorts for tourists.

Absolutely, but they are usually more expensive than it is for residents. In Vienna the tourist 7 day pass is ~17Euro which comes to 2.5 Euro, if you have the yearly subscription it's 1 Euro per day. The situation is quite similar in most cities I have been to.

but this is not a tourist/residence differentiation. but more like buying in bulk or not.

i have lived in vienna for years and never got a yearly subscription but bought weekly or monthly tickets as needed. and many others do as well. a better comparison to the yearly subscription is the monthly pass which is ~50€ and transferable. so two or more people can share it, and that may turn out cheaper than even a yearly pass in certain circumstances.

i never considered monthly or weekly passes to be only for tourists. they go from the beginning of the week or month which is not flexible enough for most visitors. only more recently a more flexible variant has been introduced that goes 31 days starting any day. those are obviously more useful for visitors but they cost the same.

that said, looking up the tickets now it appears that anything but the yearly subscription is considered for visitors. when i lived in vienna this was not the case. and in other cities it still isn't. tourist tickets were/are those valid for 2 or 3 days and they often are considerably more expensive because they include things interesting for tourists that i never needed even when i was just visiting. everything else was/is for locals.

it is also worth noting that vienna in general is considerably cheaper than many other european cities. which is probably why i never bothered getting a yearly subscription myself.

In the UK companies bid to get monopolies on routes. So you don't really have competition anyway.

you have competition in the bidding process.

but no, there are no monopolies on all routes in austria or germany. on main routes like vienna to munich or vienna to prague multiple train companies offer services and compete for travellers.

> It's unclear to me why a tourist not using a car is worse than a local not using a car.

You need to give people an incentive to buy an annual ticket. If an annual ticket costs 365x the price of a day pass, then nobody would buy it, because it would be cheaper to buy day passes.

It's better if people have annual tickets, because then they have an incentive to take public transport every time -- otherwise they would see the price every day and would maybe take the car more often.

However, I do agree with you that public transport is too expensive for occasional users, and a lot of people might be more motivated to switch to public transport if it wasn't so expensive for occasional use. (and if there was a single ticket type instead of a dozen different types of tickets...)

You have discounts for locals--at least for those using a system on a day-to-day basis. But you also see various discounts for tourists--I assume to entice people to visit in the first place. (I actually expect that so many factors go into deciding to rent a car vs. taking trains/buses that transit discounts probably don't factor in that much.)

Eurail passes are still a steal, and include long distance trains. I'm honestly a bit upset I can't buy one to use here.

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