If they had done that, people might actually buy it. And if you could then buy it monthwise at a ticket machine it might even get more people to use trains...
Really makes you wonder, nobody wants this complexity, probably not even the people implementing this, and yet here we are. Imagine, an central, unified mechanism for issuing this ticket with flexible contracts and standardized rules that everyone understands. What a dream that will never be
@@themariokartlick Nah. that would create too much incentives to use the ticket and the transport system couldn't handle that (see 9€ ticket). Plus it would be far too expesive because we need more austerity, because that always works in rough times
All the criticism here is valid and all of these details will make it a little unconvenient for you, if you are in the specific category. However considering the fact that public transport has always been a central political responsibility of states or even more regional forms of governments, the sheer existence of the Deutschlandticket today for me is amazing and nothing I'd ever dared to dream of even 14 months ago. It is the most important step for a change of thinking about public transport in Germany, that will lead, in my opinion, to a changed perspective of most people discussing such topics. In a few months, a good majority of public transport ridership will use the Deutschlandticket and as the new de facto standard everything that isn't really fit to this new idea, such as IC with RE numbers which will not accept the Deutschlandticket will need to adjust. It might even take a few years, until most associations will have dropped stupid zones, and all the nitty gritty stuff that keeps people not familiar with public transport from using it. But we will get there, slowly but certainly!
It will not change too much, in my opinion. It's great for people who already use public transport and are currently paying more than 49€. However, I dare to say: Very, very few people will actually switch from using their cars to public transport. For those, the quality of service is far more important than the price, and, as we all know, outside of cities, the quality of public transport in Germany is abysmal. On the other hand, for poor people, who already depend on public transport, paying 49€ at a specific point in time is way too much and they will still pay for individual journeys, ending up, often paying more than the price of the ticket. Nothing is as expensive as being poor. The 9€ ticket in summer has been a real game changer for those, giving them the opportunity to be mobile. The "Deutschland-Ticket" isn't.
This is the problem though! Even you, as somebody who already uses the rail system and are therefore, at least to an extent, au fait with it and thus can evolve and use your prior knowledge to navigate it, acknowledges that it needs further work and improvement. Imagine then someone coming to it de novo. It is completely opaque and unfathomable! This, I’m afraid to say, is typical of German over-complication and things not being thought through before implementation. It is very typical to put something in place that few people understand…even people working In different departments within the same organisation or that are open to ambiguity and interpretation….and then only to adjust them on an ongoing basis….”as and when failures or mistakes arise”. Things like this should be piloted and test run by large numbers of Test Users before being implemented. This clearly hasn’t been done in this case because any new Tester User would immediately say: “This is hopelessly unfathomable to the point of useless!” Imagine someone who doesn’t normally use trains in Germany (and perhaps doesn’t speak German very well) trying to understand this mish-mash. It’s simply ridiculous!
@@derin111 The issues you are raising are literally only relevant at the moment of payment and subscription. Once you've got the ticket you just take all the regional and local transport in Germany without further thought. How can anybody in their right mind believe that this is more complicated for the consumer than figuring out what tickets you need when you are travelling through 7 different fare zones when going, let's say, from Berlin to Frankfurt Oder while holding a subscription to Berlin's local transport? If anything, for once, this is an honest attempt at simplification in overcomplicated Germany.
Nobody rants about DB as beautiful as you, Andrew, in spite of British Railways! You truly have earned your german citizenship with bells and whistles! 😁👍
Why did we remove the identifyer from some of UK's company names in the first place? It can be confusing at times. I still hear British Rail being used, despite being replaced by Network Rail (or National Rail) in 1997 due to privitazion. I tend to use Network Rail and National Rail interchangeably as idk what differences to both. There are many English speaking countries. Could have done so at its 50th anniversary. Another example is Highways England (managing and maintaining England's motorways) until august 2021 which has since been renamed to National Highways. However, the latter is the exact same company, doing the exact same things with the only difference being the name (the logo is largely the same except the name) while the former is not even the same company i suppose?. SNCF (Société nationale des chemins de fer français) and DB both already have the identifier in its name
Incan tottaly understand that customers just think "it is a train, the Problem is Deutsche Bahn". You hardly use a utility from two providers parallel at a time. You can't sit in two trains at a time. But for local traffic the horror comes from the federal level: The Bundesland has zero, one or more agencies set up together with the Landkreise(counties) . And those agencies are tendering and awarding contracts for running vehicles on a line, maintaining vehicles, running ticket machines in stations and so on. They look for the cheapest bidder, oh sorry I mean the "most innovative bidder" to run the little portion of the system for 10 to 15 years. After that it will repeat. Because there is no alternative to force market competition in a heavyly.😂 subsidiesed system
Sigh...I can see that you've become more German than the average native-born German at this point, and by that I mean referring to the thing I (as a born and partly-raised German) hate most about them: The permanent complaint culture. Like I mean the problems addressed in this video are extremely minor. The payment system, cancellation policy and the German address thing all essentially boil down to the fact that the ticket was designed, as you said, for residents not tourists. Which is also understandable given that the taxpayer subsidises it. Many neighbouring countries also only design their railpasses for locals (SBB GA, Klimaticket Ö, TGV Max etc). And the thing about the IC/RE trains not being included: Well it's less of a reduction and more of a lack of benefits. Those trains used to be considered Fernverkehr until it was "generously" downgraded. So in a way the Deutschlandticket just doesn't have that additional benefit. Though I imagine they'll fix that in some time like with the 9-Euro-Ticket. Maybe it's just because I'm in the Train social media bubble, but I've seen so many posts/videos along the lines of "Deutschland-Ticket Chaos!" etc. For goodness sake, the government put in a lot of effort (including financially) to get this thing done, and every big project will have slightly rocky start. We will have some of the cheapest public transport in Europe, and all Germans can do is complain. I'm honestly getting sick of it.
I was already perplexed by your previous video and the hoops that your transit provider made you jump through to get the Deutschlandticket. Here in Nürnberg, all annual passes were automatically changed to Deutschlandtickets unless the customers had tickets that were less expensive (Semester tickets for example), or had features that the Deutschlandticket does not, like being able to take someone with you (at least part of the time). Everyone who was paying less or would have to give up features was given the option to „opt in.“ The rest of us who are now getting more and paying less are still being given the opportunity to „opt out.“ I can’t imagine why I would pay almost double for a tiny fraction of the radius of mobility that we are now getting. I got hopeful for our out of country friends based on your recent video. This video brought me back to my initial expectations. It has been extremely difficult to get any useful information about the potential - or lack thereof - for our foreign friends to take advantage of this offer.
It was super actually super easy to buy a D-Ticket as a tourist. All the criticism of DB and the state of German railway service aside, the sheer ease of use and convenience of the D-ticket is unmatched to anything I've seen. Saved me hundreds of euros in regional train travel to boot.
Allowing RE tickets on IC trains from Stuttgart-Singen makes sense because south of Horb it's single track, so capacity is pretty tight and they frequently have to stop at stations to allow trains travelling the other direction to pass. This, combined with the rural area they travel through, plus the winding Neckar valley, means that it stops at pretty much every station and moves no faster than an RE anyway.
And that there is no need to run both types of trains in the rural area, since they both would be almost empty most of the time, and with this agreement they are more economical to operate. Since in sections of the line (Rottweil to Tuttlingen), there is also the Ringzug regional train operating on the same line as well.
Yes! They sometimes also have special benefits if you buy your ticket from them. For example, the company managing the very scenic Harzer Schmalspurbahn, which goes up the highest peak in northern Germany and is incredibly popular, “gifts” you a ride up the mountain with your 49-€-ticket, which normally costs 35 €. In some regions you get some hire bikes for free for a certain period etc. So you better shop around to get the best deal. Also, nobody is stopping you from buying your ticket from one company in this month and from another in the next, i.e. of you’re travelling and want to get the local benefits … :)
The whole "can't use it on local trains operated by DB Fernverkehr" thing seems way more complicated because it makes you think it just looks like your average local train that somehow has DB Fernverkehr hidden somewhere in the fine print like a trap that's just sprung unto you. But then you look into it and realize these are very obvious IC trains along with all the trademark branding that comes with it and it's the RE number that is the "fine print". So same rule as usual applies: Stay off IC and ICE trains with this ticket. Still could be handled better though.
somehow the reason to brand them as RE is not mentioned. Look at a route like Bremen Norddeich with an hourly standard RE. The occasional IC replaces the RE with the same stops at the same minute. Suddenly commuting with a Deutschlandticket cuts a gap in your possible trains.
The question is, when I look up a route asking for regional trains only in the DB app, will it give me these trains? Then I should be able to take these trains. I shouldn't have to realize they have IC branding when I'm already at the platform.
@@SomePotato I just tried with the DB App, and yes, those trains show up when looking for local trains only (I tried Bremen - Norddeich). Additionally, you'll only realize that they're actually IC trains when clicking on the connection, since the list of trains only shows the RE number. That's quite a mess...
Germany always makes things way more complicated than they have to be. The option to buy a paper ticket would be dead easy. An extra app, which could be charged with any method of payment (Credit card, debit card, paypal, bank transfer or cash at a ticket shop) would also have been easy enough to implement, but no: They had to do it the worst possible way...
Don't get me wrong, the Bahn is a mess, and yes -- the federal and (trans-) municipal system is making things unnecessarily difficult. But ... how is the 49€ ticket worse again? Okay, so there are 7 lines out of ... more than 300 that you can't take, not counting the thousands of s-bahn lines and tens of thousands of busses. I agree the naming is a mess here, but is this really that big of a deal? And that you can't pay for them with any crackpot credit card from South Korea shouldn't, let's be fair here, really be an issue. If you want to take a ride in a German train and you *only* happen to have a way of paying that isn't widely accepted in Germany (some might say tough luck but ... ) you can just *go to the ruddy counter* and get it there. They'll even accept credit cards ... geez.
It's a bit messy if you're a tourist and just want to sign up for a couple of weeks. Also, as we saw with the €9 ticket last year, people being fined for being on a train without a valid ticket because they assumed it was valid everywhere ordinary travel passes are is a real issue that people need to be warned about. Also, you probably won't be able to sign up for the D-Ticket with a credit card at a DB ticket office. DB has been very clear about this: because it's a recurring payment, they'll only accept SEPA direct debit transfers. Oh, and some transport associations (and also DB) will run a Schufa check on you before accepting your application, and if you have no credit history at all in Germany that's a disadvantage.
"you can just go to the ruddy counter and get it there" No. The point of the video is that you can't get the attractively priced Deutschland-Ticket that way, it has to be by monthly subscription, pay by bank transfer from an IBAN country, and residence in Germany (for the most part), so it's not a viable option for most foreign tourists. You can get all the other tickets at the counter or at a machine in a station using cash or credit/debit card, but those tickets are far more expensive.
At 4:20 I would like to add the train pair RE 2082/83 between Freilassing and Berchtesgaden, a very touristy route into the German Alps where twice daily the Intercity "converts" to an RE train!
I am kind of getting tired of all the critical voices. For me, for example, it's only a third of the cost for the amount of money I'd need to spend on a 10km distance between home and office monthly. It's basically the first time public transportation is actually going to be affordable. Yes, there are trains where the ticket isn't going to be valid, you can't bring three of your friends or your bulky bicycle, and in some cases like with students or seniors, it might not even be cheaper. Get over it! It's a huge improvement in terms of complication, not having to worry about zones and stuff, and of course in price.
fair, we shouldnt undestate what of a huge step forward this is compared to pre 9euro ticket times. just a month ago I looked up what a monthly subscription for my metro area would have cost me and it was something stupid like 120. But the 9euro ticket was so much better even if you don't consider the maybe necessary price increase. subscription is just a huge downgrade for no good reason only online is a noticeable downgrade, and honestly for the price increase they could have thrown in something else like a couple big discounts/free rides on ICE/IC monthly and all that after they were planning and delaying this for like half a year after the 9euro ticket was just pushed trough swiftly a time in which they could have worked out the minor flaws of the 9euro ticket like the mixup of RE/IC nomenclature but they didn't only thing they did was make the same thing but worse.
@@HenryLoenwind You don't need a phone as you can have the ticket on a smart card, but I am sure you can have more than one ticket on a single phone. And obviously a 6y old won't travel alone. See, your comment was yet another unfounded criticism.
@@freaki0734 That's exactly the broken mindset. The 9-EUR-Ticket was an experiment, but the 49 one is still a large step in the right direction. Like, it's fifty bucks, all of Germany. I especially wonder about criticism about the price - people in need will get it cheaper. But obviously as Germans, we are incapable to recognize something good, even if it jumps us into our face.
After all, it is a subscription plan for regular users and not a one month only ticket for random travelers / tourists. And you may lose some benefits that were included in the "old" ticket like transferability, free bike transport, free additional passengers in the evening and in the weekend
4:24 you forgot the one RE-train per day between Ulm and Oberstdorf that is not an actual regional train. It can be used with the Bayern-Ticket (although Ulm is in Baden-Württemberg), but not with the Deutschlandticket.
I guess my coworkers will have it a bit easier as our company will buy their ticket as a bonus from now on (everyone who doesn't need/want the ticket (like me) gets a 50€ gift card per month). So that hassle is a non issue for anyone working at our company ^^
I know a few local companies that give away their 13th salary in gasoline vouchers; also around 45€ per month. They could switch to the Deutschlandticket, but that one bus serving that part of town takes weirdly shaped routes and is mostly designed at getting people out of town and to the neighbouring town, so it's not really a "mesh" but more a "star" shaped public transportation network. A common problem throughout the world. The real alternative would be cycling or walking, if you're willing and/or able to cycle uphill after a 9h shift. It's in the middle ground or transportation where walking takes about 45 minutes, and a bus could do that in 10, but it takes 30 to 50 instead. So, most of them drive a car, no surprises here. :/
@@indrinita this is quite normal, i´ll get it too, since the law was made that the "jobticket" is a tax free part of my salery. My employer is the state owned public transport agency of baden-württemberg, and they are always looking for bus drivers and train drivers etc ;)
Hi Rewboss, I'm new here and came by this video by chance and I'm incredibly grateful that I did. I had the understanding that I could only book the Deutschland-ticket through DB but their site kept giving me errors and I could never finalize the booking. The error I got at DB was the general 'an unexpected error occurred during the booking process. Your order has not been placed successfully. Please try again later.' Thanks to you I booked it through HVV without any issues, all thanks to you!
As did I (going to ticket office in persona that is)... I got the yearly-subscription changed to the Deutschland ticket... for me it's very useful because it lowers my commuting fees from 190€+ to 49€... but even getting this done required a letter sent to me by snail-mail followed by me personally walking into the ticket office and getting it sorted out... it's all very much typical German bureaucracy. It's normal. Sadly so. But true. Best regards Raoul G. Kunz whose laughably expensive commuter ticket at least will be changed on time... presumably... hopefully...
It was (partially) sorted out! The IC Stuttgart - Singen (- Konstanz) can now be used with the Deutschlandticket! However, it's currently out of service due to track maintenance...
One thing I want to emphasise here is that if you unsubscribe the D-Ticket after 10th of each month, the action will only be effective after the end of NEXT month, meaning you still need to pay one more month of the Ticket. For example, if you stop using the ticket in May, you need to unsubscribe the ticket by April 10th.
AND... To make things more interesting, the province of Overijssel (I do not know about others) has decided to jump on the Deutschland ticket train as well, so it is also possible to use it to and from Hengelo (Ov) and to and from Enschede in the Netherlands. No, I did not even try to make that work...
In Israel, we have a single pass that you can put any amount of money on and it works for all buses, trains, trams, funiculars, and gondolas in the country, and yet we _constantly_ complaining that our public transport isn't as good as that of Germany (or of the 1920s paradise of rail-based transit that we wrongly imagine the US to still be). This...this is a disaster.
Better take a different country as your role model, because the German transport system isn't ideal. Where does Israel have gondolas? Is it really Venice style?
No, Andrew has simply been in Germany too long and taken up our national sport. To be fair, it is a lot more complicated than it should be. But it's *not* a big deal whatsoever.
There is also a question about how to synchronize the semesterticket into the D-ticket system, since the Sommer Semester has just started, as well as the Azubiticket/Socialticket/Schulerticket status. They are quite a mess, it is true, but a first-world problem nonetheless. So, I am somehow optimistic that everything will be sorted out by the time goes on, hopefully without any unnecessary dragging on the politics part.
****Hi! Is it still true that a DE ticket purchased on VRS can be canceled at any day of the month? Can you buy it there without a German address? :)****
The Deutschland-Ticket is, in my opinion, meant to scare people away from Deutsche Bahn. First of all, subscription only. When I subscribe to something, I expect some benefit, like with the magazine I've subscribed to, I don't have to pay for postage and handling. Second, it's digital. Hell, I don't want to have my cellphone on when I'm traveling, or even commuting to work. Tell me later, alligator! Third, the amount of data they want from you and the number of companies it is shared with. Germany has never been the industry leader in IT security, to put it friendly. So my decision is to not subscribe to the Deutschland-Ticket until I can get it on old-fashioned paper, there is no enforced subscription, and I can decide month by month whether to buy it or not.
Some of those are already being addressed, and some are just… not a big deal? The Deutschlandticket is, despite its quirks, way simpler than the previous system and generally very simple. For people who already commute with transport it will save money and simplify subscriptions, and for those who want to test it I think it’s not unreasonable to expect them to understand how subscriptions work. You can cancel monthly. Idk, maybe for you these are issues but I just don’t see it as a big deal 🤷♂️
Exactly this. Why not just sell it as paper ticket at the automat like any other bloody ticket? Payable with cash. Why is personalization needed? My Munich 'Monatskarte' I buy and use it. Und fertig.
@@themariokartlick I think it's a VERY big deal regarding data protection laws within the EU, and don't say after the fact that I didn't warn you. I could have added a fourth or fifth argument, mentioning elderly people who have no or limited access to the internet, poor people who may not have a bank account. The 9 euro ticket was a good thing, I stepped on a bus, bought the ticket with cash, wrote my name on it in CAPITAL LETTERS (that was required), and, alright, deal's done. But that was in "pandemic time", when emergency laws were in effect. The Deutschlandticket, however, is a bureaucratic monstrosity, with no connection to the real life of ordinary people. I also can't tell yet what that subscription means. To me, it makes no sense to subscribe to something without any benefits when I can cancel monthly. That would be the same as buying, wouldn't it? Please don't get me wrong, I think a unified ticket for all public transport in a country, how fantastic would that be? But German bureaucrazy (sic!) is about to destroy it before it even started.
@@eisikater1584 the benefit is to DB etc. if I have the subscription in a month where I can foresee that I will not use public transportation or use it very little. They will make more money for providing the exact same amount of service because I will likely not go trough the hassle of canceling and reapplying. Pretty scummy when you could just have done it the easier way. The fact that this is still an unfathomable upgrade to anything that existed previous to the 9euro ticket is so sad. maybe I live in an expensive region in some way but when I last checked a monthly subscription to my metro area would have cost me something stupid like 120 a month. The main thing that pissed me off about this ticket how it took so long even though everyone right after the 9euro ticket ended wanted it to continue they took like half a year to come up with a product that is noticeable worse like for the increased price they could have thrown in some upgrade like maybe a couple huge discounts on ICE/IC every month? but nah the these RE are actually ICEs thing is not that much of a big deal. To me the online thing is also not a big deal but I can see that being a big deal to other people my biggest hope going forward is that this wil be improved upon but also that other options like ICE/IC or small regional ticket will have to adjust their pricing and become actual attractive options
I´m having a hard time that in an incomplete list of countries that is missing USA and Canada that North Korea is in there and not South Korea. What is more likely is that they used the official name of South Korea - Republic of Korea and someone looked at it and mistook it for Democratic People's Republic of Korea which is the official name for North Korea.
Don't rely on colors for trains - for special occasions, trains are sometimes recolored. I don't know whether that applies to ICs as well, but you never know what the future brings.
German public transport is even more a mess then i imagined... Then the things here like: - 5% price increase for annual 2. class ticket while only 1.5% price increase for annual 1. class ticket - massive price jumps if you cross the border of different regional transportation associations. - SBB increasing the number of shops in the train stations and recently was criticised because they want to buy new surveillance cameras which can analyse where people go - some say to guide people differently to increase the consumation in shops. Together with that, some claimed the rent for the shops would be partially decided by the shops income. Together with that, there are examples where local stores have been basically kicked out of train stations to position new stores that belong to the same chains as there are everywhere else aswell. But i guess all that is quite a gap to DB and the rest of German public transport...
Thanks to your information. i bought my deutschlandticket at HVV on the 14th of mai for only €27. I live in the netherlands. Very happy with this solution. I choose for creditcard option and the (digital) ticket was in the pocket within only 5 minutes.
A politician came up with this and wanted to "get it done asap!". What could possibly go wrong 😅 It was also them who decided that it must be a "digital subscription", for whatever that means. So in typical politician fashion, the result is that they can now say "look we did something, so stop complaining!". Everything else is secondary.
IBAN is a standard for writing your bank code and bank account number as a single long code. Includes country code and check sum so it can detect typing errors. Very practical. If you do not know your IBAN code for your account, ask your bank.
I'm a big fan of the concept of the ticket, buuuuuut not of the RMV. So, I'm still a student at a university here and from the start it was quite the concern on how to combine the existing Semesterticket with the Deutschlandticket. The issue here is that if there is a comparable alternative you can't justify expecting all students to pay for it (you can get out of it but it only works if a majority of students pay). Now, at some point it was announced that students get a cheaper upgrade from their Semesterticket to the Deutschlandticket - now it should mostly work fine and both tickets have their justification. Except that the RMV just unilaterally decided to not offer that upgrade for this semester since "the administrative effort is too high to implement it for this semester". So for this semester students can pay twice if they want to upgrade. I mean yes, some details about this ticket were unclear for quite some time, but apparently the RMV just didn't prepare for this at all. It's also not an unforeseen issue: different Asta's asked about this from the moment the idea of a permanent Deutschlandticket gained popularity last year.
There are reports that tourists can buy the tickets in Munich and Frankfurt local association app with credit card. You can buy it from bus driver with cash without subscription at city of Greiz, I assume located nowhere in the mountains.
I spoke to our local transit agency this week about employer sponsored tickets (JobTicket), and they told me they won‘t be able to offer them until June 1st, because they have been overwhelmed by requests and can‘t keep up with the paperwork. Yes, paperwork. The contract came in the form of a Word document. No word though on if they accept a signed and scanned copy, or if they need it to be sent in by snail mail.
That's only your local transport authority though. In Cologne they just asked us if we wanted to keep the old JobTicket or switch to the Deutschland Ticket and that was it.
I just tried registering with the VRS app from my home in NL. All seemed to be going well until I entered my postal code which was not accepted, yet it accepted my Dutch phone number. I couldn't even enter the Netherlands because the line was taken up by a grey, hard coded 'Deutschland'.
I really don't like the negative attitude towards a generally positive development that is especially beneficial for low-income demographics. It reeks of entitlement, especially since the main point is that it's not good for tourists... Oh no the poor tourists. They can't comfortably use the subsidized ticket. International travel is a privilege, especially long-distance (given that the closest point to Germany that's not a SEPA country is Bosnia iirc, which is 330 km as the crow flies and has 3 countries of buffer to Germany). It costs money, and if you can't afford it, travel locally. No need to fly around the globe. If you want to complain about something, complain about the local public transport not being completely free, not about the ticket not being catered to foreigners.
I think you're getting confused between "complaining about things of no consequence" and "explaining to people thinking of buying the ticket what some of the problems are and what you can do to avoid them".
You have to terminate your contract before the 10th of the month. That is also the case in the VRS area. All changes that come in after the 10th count for the next month because the companies have to report all contracts and terminations on that day to an authority. Intercity trains with additional RE number (Regionalexpress) - so called IC 2 - are long distance trains. But some other regional trains run by the DB Fernverkehr as well. Long distance trains have to operate commercial viable without subventions. On the other hand local and regional trains are heavily subsidized as mandatory offer. The regional client body has to negotiate contracts about compensation money for letting their customers take long distance trains on specific routes. One problem is how to distribute the money? The local government pays the client body and distributes it together with all revenues among all companies. But now it is much more complex. One person bought a ticket in Bavaria but uses in Berlin and Hamburg. How does Hamburg get its share? Until now there is no concept for this problem. That is why some bus companies didn't agree for joining and blocked. There are more than 400 companies in over 60 local associations to please and pay. It would be easy if you could count every journey but there is no technical infrastructure for it.
Also, you need to look the different transport associations, because they are giving some extra perks, for example, the KVB in cologne will give you 30 minutes free for renting bikes
@@rewboss i thought the point of the ticket was to lower public transportation costs for commuter? That everyone can commute to work without using a car. Not that everyone can have a cheap trip to a vacation destination. So you mean i can drive all around Berlin with a 49€ Ticket issued in Hamburg by the HVV?
and if you think about it: If it were a local transport ticket that were limited to a single regional transport association, then it wouldn't make a lot of sense that Deutsche Bahn is selling it. No, it's valid in all of Germany. And if someone lives in e.g. Cologne or Frankfurt and wants to visit Hamburg each weekend, then this will be possible for just 49€ / month. It just takes about 3x switching the train and maybe 2h more travel time compared to using an IC(E)
@@tobyk.4911 DB also sells all kinds of association tickets. And if politicians were able to act sensible and ignore public pressure, starting with mandating that all associations needed to offer a local 49-EUR ticket conforming to certain conditions and then, after e.g. one year, merging those together would have been a good way to introduce it.
You're right: this is once again absolutely ridiculous. But who is surprised by a government that still thinks e-fuels for cars are a good alternative to electric cars, as if the laws of thermodynamics do not apply on german roads.
Not sure what the laws of thermodynamics have to do with that. Current electric cars are heavier than their petrol-driven counterparts and so put more strain on the road infrastructure, the electricity grid at the moment can't cope with all the commuters putting their cars on charge every evening (and this will get worse if we rely on wind power), there isn't enough lithium in the world to make all the batteries that would be needed, and mining for the precious metals needed to make electric vehicles and other modern devices is one of the primary causes of deforestation (second only to beef farming, I believe). E-fuels of course produce carbon emissions, but at least they're not putting more carbon into the atmosphere than the plants took out of it in the first place. In reality, cars -- electric or otherwise -- are not the answer to anything.
@@rewboss The laws of thermodynamics state that energy is lost in every conversion process. Whereas in an electrically powered car about 70% of the energy from a wind turbine ends up on the road in kinetic energy, with e-fuels it is just 16%. Yes, batteries make cars heavier (and you could save that elsewhere if you wanted to - cue SUV), but that's also true for planes and ships. That's why they can't be run on batteries at all, and that's why we urgently need e-fuels for them. But even if you add up all the e-fuel projects that are planned worldwide until 2035, that's not enough for all the planes and ships that are travelling only in Germany today. Yes, the current electricity grid needs to be expanded (another thing we slept through for more than fifty years - the plan for this was decided under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt) and lithium batteries will soon have to be replaced by other batteries (there are a handful of alternatives that do not require precious metals). And above all, we need fewer cars overall. Nevertheless, there are parties in government who think that thermodynamics can be argued with. Small hint: they are the same ones who have turned the "9-euro ticket" into a Deutschland-Ticket for 49 euros.
@@trulifanpurpura5702 They're not arguing with the thermodynamics. It's the practicalities they're thinking of: the availability of power (currently, the greenest options are the least reliable), the current primitive state of these new technologies, the fact that finding slightly greener ways to power existing vehicles is preferable to forcing everybody to scrap their cars before they have reached the end of their operational life and buy new ones that have to be manufactured at great environmental cost...
I love how, at least by feeling, every (local) newspaper publishes articles along the lines of 'you can't use the Deutschland-Ticket on these regional lines!', because all information I've been given there was like, you know there are some exceptions.. As a rule of thumb: if the train is white and it has got a red strip, you cannot use it with this ticket. Background: since some long-distance trains travel along heavily used lines, the owner (for long-distance trains always DB Fernverkehr) allows you on board with a normal regional ticket. If that is the case, the train also gets the identifier of an RE. Since the Deutschland-Ticket is a regional-traffic-only-ticket, it does not allow you to use it on a long-distance train.
the use of the ic as a regional train is a compromise. they wanted more trains per hour, but there was no space for them. so they said, lets use your long distance trains, so the commuters dont have to wait 2 hrs.
Great video and also informative. The Deutsche Bahn is a big mess and the trouble around the Deutschlandticket is a not exception. The Deutschlandticket will not be suitable for tourist since it is subscription for at least a whole month or several and some transportation companies like the HVV mentioned do even make credit checks/ check for credit history in otder to provide the subscription - which is probably a hurdle for foreigners.
No, sorry. I have found the Deutschland Ticket to an excellent mode for train access. When using the DB Navigator app, one can exclude trains that are not eligible. I have used my ticket to expand my horizons across Germany. It’s really nice being able to just jump on any red train and go.
Well from what I could gather it actually got a lot better than I feared. For example there were rumors that it required some sort of malware from some dubious companies to work. Instead you can now get it on a chip card or in some places even on a piece of paper sold to you by the bus driver without even checking your name.
I don't think it makes sense for tourists to travel by train. Tickets are not cheap + walking or finding transport to hotels which are usually far from stations + making in time before check-in closes. I want to be green, but I gave up.
And they'd let you do that? Just walking in with the form? That didn't cause all hell to break lose, printers & fax machines to burst into flames, office workers to maniacally go through papers? I'm losing trust in German bureaucracy if things get that easy.
I did the same in my area ( Oldenburg ), had to cancel my current ticket online.. but could habd a form in in person. But to balance this there was loads of people I the office that were so confused with the process.
I think some of the purchasing problems come because of those who already had a Job Ticket or some other kind of subscriber based ticket with DB. This is cheaper than even the Semesterticket for students. I think a lot of subscriptions and services will simply have to be consolidated into this ticket. Thus, it automatically tried to resubscribe you.
Thus far, the HVV have been mailshotting me that my HVV-Abo will automatically be converted to a Deutschlandticket; nothing I have to do. Will have to keep an eye on that
The easiest option I'm aware of is MVV app. Yesterday I paid for my June ticket using a Spanish-issued card and then I proceeded to cancel it immediately to avoid renewing in July.
As far as I understand it, can you use a normal local/regional ticket on any train, as long as your route does not leave your local/regional area. In Berlin for example (because I live in berlin) we have this A/B/C System. TLDR: A is Center region, B is outwards region and C is outside of Berlin. With an AB ticket you can use any train or bus as long as you don't leave berlin. (On IC/ICE seems to be a bit tricky but how I understood it, you CAN even use them. ... I guess?) So why not SIMPLY make it like this for entire germany with the Deutschland Ticket? As long as you DON'T LEAVE the country, you can hopp on and off of any train or bus or whatever as you like.
That is exactly what the Deutschlandticket is. Incidentally: no, you can't use ICE and IC trains (except the ones I mentioned) with any local public transport ticket.
@@rewboss not really though. I mean you can't just hop in an out of any public transport. You said it yourself. Only real RE trains work with it and others that are actually IC trains don't. And you can use IC/E trains with an AB ticket. But similar to the Deutschland ticket on RE trains you have to check if this specific IC/E on this route allows it.
@@FelanLP You most definitely cannot use an AB ticket on ICE trains, and you can only use them on IC trains that have RE numbers. If you've been using your local Berlin ticket on ICE trains, you've been riding without a valid ticket. That the D-Ticket is currently not valid on RE trains run by DB Fernverkehr is a bit of an irregularity, but that's really only a handful of trains. Apart from that small detail, it works like any local public transport ticket anywhere in Germany.
@@rewboss you can use your VBB ticket (AB, BC and ABC are just berlins price and region ranges) in certain IC and ICE trains. Not in many, true, but there are connections where they are as valid as regular DB tickets. And if you have a monthly subscription ticket (VBB-Umweltkarte) you even have its benefits like another passenger can come with you on that card and so on. Just for the first class you still have to pay its extra cost.
@@FelanLP Okay, so I've looked it up, and it's only certain ICE trains on the Berlin-Prenzlau route. Which I thought were IC trains, but okay: they're actually ICEs. It's not a general rule that you can use your VBB ticket on ICE trains, these are exceptions to the general rule that you cannot. Not that there's much point using an ICE to get from Südkreuz to Gesundbrunnen, but in theory you could, yes.
It is even worse: I have a bank account with an IBAN number, set up everything as they requested and after a while got a harsh reminder that I had not paid. For some reason the payment had not gotten through in spite of this and they offered me no other way of payment. I wrote several e-mails asking for advice and got NO response. Finally I wrote a physical letter and got an IBAN number of theirs I could pay to. It will be a long, long time before I say anything positive about DB!
I wish I had never bought this ticket. Yes, you've guessed it, I'm a tourist, the kind of tourist this ticket is not intended for. The bait was that even for one week spent in Germany, the 49 euros seemed like a good deal, as I went for city hopping and travelled a lot by trains and the underground. However, much as it is fairly easy to buy this thing, cancelling it is an utter nightmare, especially if you don't speak German. And also, by failing to cancel it correctly, now I'm charged for the period I don't want to use it for and it looks like a terrible deal. Also, you can't possibly contact them on their customer helpline (RMV) as it's either always busy or just not responding. I've learnt my lesson (although probably not quite yet). Terrible.
Cheers for these videos - I'm visiting later in the summer and was considering the €49 ticket option thinking it'd be pretty simple, cheap & effective.... Seems odd to me that they don't have a more "tourist friendly" version of it but hey, being from the UK I'm used to logic being out the window when dealing with rail travel!
Maybe they don´t want to? Since this was a "gift" from the federal government to the german people to make commutes easier and cheaper, they may not want tourists to use it but instead pay the regular ticket prices.
Reisen Sie jetzt einfach! Wir brauchen nur Ihre Bankkontonummer, Ihre PLZ, oh, und wir brauchen das bevor der 10. April sodass Sie können die Ticket nächsten Monat nutzen. Was? Sie sind von #Süd# korea?! Nächste Kunde bitte!
Meh. This all seems like rather small details, and on global comparison isn't that outrageous (look at JP Rail Passes for example as a foreigner...). The one thing that isn't brought up here but is in my opinion a serious flaw is the question of long-distance short-distance combination routes. Because of how consumer rights work, it's very different if you combine multiple separate tickets or if your trip has one combined ticket. Right now, you cannot directly combine a Deutschland-ticket journey with a long-distance train journey ticket (as far as I know). That means that if you miss your long-distance train due to a delayed short-distance train, Deutsche Bahn (or whoever) is NOT responsible - when they would be on a combined ticket.
One fairly big problem that on many medium distance routes(200 to 300km) local trains are not that much slower than long distance trains but it would cost 44€ so most did choose the often cheaper long distance trains anyways. Now the cost isnt a problem anymore (just like with the 9€ ticket) but on many of these routes atleast one train only goes every 2 hours or is a small 2 carriage train or both which will not be able to handle the new demand. Last summer that was seen between Hamburg and Berlin the 2 biggest citys in the country. Personally i believe that trains like the Interregio(long distance trains with many stops) will soon return to deal with the demand or that the 49€ ticket will get even more restricted TLDR: Local trains are cheap now so people take them on long distances even though there is not enough capacity on many routes.
That is the curse of induced demand, but it is a good development. Capacity (financial and convenience) creates demand. The problem is that we now create a financial capacity among the population (even though it is much worse than the 9€ Ticket) but fail to provide passenger-capacity on the trains. DB and others will have to restructure with the next Fahrplanwechsel accordingly and overplan immensely, as the greater passenger-capacity will provide convenience which in turn will have more people use the train. So while crowded trains can be ugh, it actually is an important step to get away from IMT.
I only *hope* that my old pass is properly canceled as planned and I get the Deutschlandticket. Last confirmation email from my transport association suggested it will work, but this feels like changing the DSL provider or phone company keeping your old number which is something that can catastrophically fail in Germany.
5:14 I hate that so much. My station is on the route between Bremen Hbf and Norddeich Mole, your 1st example. The line is the only connection east to Hamburg, Hanover or further, for example, to Berlin. But that means for me that although there is a train every hour, I may not take every 2nd train with the ticket. This makes the whole thing so inflexible that so far I do without the €49 ticket. So often I would not make use of it then anyway.
The U-bahn in Alexanderplatz has been open all this time. Maybe you mean that the U2 is interrupted due to the construction of a building in the square affecting the structure of the tunnels? That only affects that line, U8 and U5 run normally.
This is beautiful! This is German organisation completely defined and explained into one lesson in 7.10 minutes. This set of simple, easy to follow rules can be applied to all aspects of life in Germany! Unfortunately, most people are completely hypnotised and baffled into a stupor before getting even one tenth of the way through them. I’m always impressed not only by the number of rules in Germany but more by the sheer lack of thinking about their effect. Joined up thinking seems an alien concept. It always seems that lots of different people have made them up….simultaneously….and on the hoof! 😂 (I say this as, like Andrew, a dual nationality citizen, British and German).
It is very confusing for the public transport providers too. The whole thing was very short notice and, if they don't take care of the funding soon, will be very short lived.
