Well they speak 3 languages in Luxembourg: French, German and Luxembourgish. I believe Luxembourgish is a lot like German and French (correct me if I'm wrong)
Yes but 4€ doesnt matter that much. 4€ vs free but unreliable makes no difference for me. I need to know that I get where I need to be when I need to be there. The Luxembourg transport is way to unreliable to use even if free.
@@Burnthesof While true for you, as Tom pointed out, there are people for whom that 4€ might mean the difference between eating lunch that day or not. Ideally everyone would be in a position to think 4€ was an insignificant burden, but until we can fix that part of society, removing that burden from those people is a good thing.
@@Burnthesof If its free and bad that is what I expect, when I have to pay for it and it just as bad that is much worse. Given the state of public transport in the UK, I would not complain about it if it was free, the fact it is as bad as it is given what I have to pay that is a reason to complain
it amazes me how other countries have this kind of public transport, in my country, there is not even a national train system and the public transport can take 2 to 3 hours in a trip than in comparison takes 20 - 30 minutes walking
Because nobody rides trains in the US. It's a massive continent of a country. The only reasonably fast way to cross these great distances is to fly. Not to mention American car culture is huge. I don't get how people don't understand this.
@@SoloTravelerOffTheBeatenPath In New York there is vast public transit system called the MTA. The problem is that it's dirty, smells like piss, common delays and the fares keeps going up.
@@SoloTravelerOffTheBeatenPath We're not talking about long distance train travel, we're talking about trains for people commuting to work from outlying areas. We do have them in (I would say) the ten largest cities, but smaller cities than that are just screwed.
As a Luxembourgish person, it feels so surreal watching a video and recognizing every location shown in it. I'm just absolutely not used to it. Honestly great work on the video, explains everything very great :)
@Pro Pane I lived in Luxembourg in the mid 1990s, and passed through again 5 years ago, cycling home to Ireland from Poland. There has been some new bike infra installed since I lived there, but not a whole lot (there's a long segregated cycle track named after Nicholas Franz who won the Tour de France in 1927 and 1928) It's not difficult to cycle there though.
@Pro Pane they have at the moment arojnd 500km of cycling track and want to expant it with 600km more, but they are far behind shedule. But that is typucal Luxembourg 😜 we need 35 years from planing to finish building on a motorway of 20km, incl three tunnels and one bridge (extantion of A7 between Luxembourg and Mersch)
One of the things I find exceptional about trains in Japan is that when your train is late, you can pick up a little late slip as you get off the train that to the nearest 10 minutes says how much you were delayed, and workplaces accept them as a proof of the delay not being your fault. If you try to arrive at work on time and then the train is 45 minutes late, then oh well, you just start work 45 minutes later that day. It's fantastic. If a train is late or unreliable, then it doesn't worry you nearly as much. This also means that the train network has pressure from businesses and by extension local government to operate well. The other thing of course, is that your workplace has to pay you back for your trains to and from work every month.
I think that speaks more to the employers rather than the transit. In America even if you have a late slip or sick note employers would still blame you
@@sqrtof81 for that part, my understanding is they legally have to accept it... it is one of the labor laws. same with the payment for the journey fare, which is usually rather significant the other side of the coin however, is that the employer can tell you where to live, or transfer you from one city to another, and that is the norm. it is also legal to employ only people from a certain neighborhood, this is why certain parts of Japanese cities have a super-high population density, whilst others are relatively empty...
As a luxembourgish student, I have to take the public transport everyday. Before the new law of getting rid to pay for the transports, every student got a card called "schülerkaart" (students card) in which a free transport was already included. It guaranteed a free transport inside the country of Luxembourg, you only have to pay for border-passing rides. Greetings from Luxembourg🇱🇺
I don't know if that's a joke but we speak english, luxembourgish, german and french (and a lot of people speak even more languages because of their origin, lots of Portuguese for example).
I have been to the bay area recently. And from my rural bavarian (where we have shitty trains) perspective I can say: what on earth are you guys doing BA"R"T looks like you captured it in WWII and never maintained it.
4:04 disagree i think free transit is brilliant for tourists when they can just hop on hop off without having to worry about the complexity of getting tickets. it makes a city more appealing to visit.
@@azeria5438 When I was in Melbourne the area that had free transit i.e the CBD is so small, its not worth mentioning that its free. The free part is like 4 stops on the tram, as soon as you go one more than that you need a valid ticket. For a tourist its easier just to get a ticket then figure out where the free area ends. Maybe things gave changed since then?
It's common in US cities around ski resorts, free public transit is common, mainly so tourist can move between the ski slopes, hotels, and restaurants quickly and easily.
If ticket sales only covers 10% of the cost, getting rid of it will lose you even less. Cause you'll save money on not having to maintain a ticket system, checking passengers and so on.
This is one of the arguments in favour of UBI, the infrastructure, staff and buildings required to help people find work uses between a fifth and a quarter of what it would cost to move to UBI and that they only need to find the other 75-80%
The gov has actually stated it will keep most train inspectors, as safety and assistance to people trying to figure out what train to take, etc. Also, i havent seen a bus inspector in years, and I rode the bus on a daily basis all throughout my teens.
I have to disagree on that one cause you don't really need personnel to check and print tickets nowadays. It's Hella cheap to just create a paperless ticketing system (or an app that gets you access to trains) and people have internet on every device imaginable nowadays. You just need the right coding behind it all, that's it. Then you can maybe do 5% and overall you are getting worth 10% or more. Do you get me?
@@SahilP2648 That's probably how they could keep all the people related to it on payroll. From several clips it seemed that the local transport already heavily relies on IT-systems, which is the only way to do it these days. Having a possibility to buy an online ticket though, doesn't make people buy it. That's why you still need respective people doing random checks. Someone before said, it wasn't done (which I am very surprised of), they must have since changed the system or Luxembourg just doesn't think their stuff through. (I am not local, neither do I mean to offend anyone :) )
@@SahilP2648 still need other means as not everyone has a smartphone so ticket infrastructure is still needed, can be machines doing it but an app on its own would not cut it.
As a civil engineer in Luxembourg, I can tell you that if a train is late is most of the time due to works that are taking place on the luxembourguish train lanes, or train stations that are being increase. Luxembourg is investing a lot on new infrastructures and at the moment is in real good progress. Only in few years we will see and feel the result of those investements
The hoodie is part of his standard wardrobe, along with his signature 10 dark red T-shirts, 10 pairs of black jeans, black socks, and, I assume, matching underwear. It must be quite liberating.
@@buddyclem7328 Speaking as someone who buys t-shirts, underwear, and socks (aside from the ones my mother knits) in bulk - it is. Although I maybe should try and find a colour other than black for my t-shirts.
That bloke from the Government is Luxemburg in one image: French accent, with german ways of speaking (individual mobility is a direct translation of Individualverkehr).
I like that very much about Luxembourg. Even if it's silly it makes me assume that Luxembourg, somehow, combines all the positives of France and Germany without the negatives of either.
French accent? No, his accent is typically Luxembourgish. I'm familiar with Luxembourg, I can identify their accent in German, in French and English. It's highly typical.
@@b43xoit Yes, they mainly *speak* Luxembourgish (although all of them also know French and German) but public information is mostly posted in French (and German).
@@majy1735 One of my cousins took a tip to Europe in '98 and briefly went through Luxembourg, bought a newspaper while he was there. Most of it was in German, the entertainment section was in French and there was a page with a crossword puzzle and comic strips in Luxembourgish.
As a Dutch person, it is very convenient and cool, but Luxembourg is also very, very small, and also quite wealthy considering it’s size. It can afford it.
It's not free. Change that mindset. It's payed for through tax dollars. Meaning it's paid for at the point of a gun weather you use it and need it or not.
@@drsch no it's not free but it _is_ much cheaper for the average citizen, because the costs of maintaining a fare architecture (i.e maintaining and tanning ticket machines and offices, paying the salaries of ticket inspectors and gatekeepers) is decimated. In a moral tax system the vast majority of the tax pool will come from corporations and the elite anyway, so it really does help the working/middle class.
@@drsch If you want to go and live somewhere where you have no obligation to anyone else, there's ways to do that. You haven't chosen that option, though, because it's insane, isn't it?
I took a train from a medium sized town to the regional city in Germany, at 8:30am on a weekday. It was on time to within a minute and there were plenty of seats free. Trying to do the same thing in the UK would have meant folding yourself into two different people's armpits or waiting for another doubly-overcrowded train because your one was inexplicably cancelled
@@ArghyadeepPal America covers the same land mass with half the population, and enormous stretches of largely empty land between cities. Some states, like Nevada, are nearly 90% state owned (wild) land. It's absurd to expect such a place to have particularly good public transit. I have also lived in Japan, where public transit is eons past anything in Europe, so Europe can f off. Their transit is a sad third place at best.
When I went to Tokyo, I was blown away by their transit system. The trains were super quick and always on time. You could almost set your watch to them.
It used to be even prettier 4 years ago before they covered half of it up with that ugly electronic sign. It used to be a nice old fashioned mechanical sign that didnt cover up the window and fit the aesthetic of the station better.
"It has happened that people are standing for an hour and a half on the platform, waiting for the train, with no substitute buses or anything. So, that's an extreme case, obviously" Canadian checking in, I was nodding along until "So, that's an extreme case, obviously".
Apples AreGoodz Here in London, Ontario the buses are notoriously bad, and that’s it for public transportation. I’ve regularly waited 15 minutes for a 5 minute bus, only for 3 of them to roll up at the same time, literally bumper to bumper.
@@benjaminmiddaugh2729 exactly. We have city-subsidized transit in the collage town I live in. And there was talk of getting busses to the capital. But we don't have the dedicated passenger-only rail network that we'd need to make it viable on a national scale.
DFX2KX Even if the infrastructure existed it would get very little use. The distances are simply too great. Would you rather take a train from say Houston to Chicago or fly? Most people would prefer to fly, even if it’s significantly more expensive. Assuming the train travelled at a constant 100 mph (which probably isn’t realistic) it would still take ~10 hours to make the trip, while a plane takes 2.5 hours.
There is some public transits here, it's acrually a huge privet company that makes the transport possible but it is opn to the public. I have used them quite a bit. NJ and NY I know for a fact have but idk about other states.
@@kye.warrer Not so. I had a one-way single from Doncaster to Brighton which was over an hour late. I was entitled to (and got) a *full* refund. I'd never been to Yorkshire before in my life and haven't been back since.
2:32 "lot of the rolling stock is dated" shows footage of a trainset made in the '90s. Heh, that is "fairly modern" by the standards of Hungarian railways.
@@the_last_raposa3810 no, not when it comes to trains. Most trains build nowadays will have between a 20-30 year operating window before it isn't worth keeping compared to the cost of repairs. This is not true for all locomotives though. It is comparable to airplanes, but instead of measuring it by how many times the cabin have been compressed/decompressed and how it will affect the body of the airplane, it is measured by when the repairs exceed the expected innovation for new trains on the market. If your country or state is still using rollingstock from the 1980s, they really need funding.
Actually the rolling stock of Luxembourg isn't dated at all, the oldest train is that train set shown but the majority of o rolling stock trains running in Luxembourg are less than 20 years old
I live in Poland and we have awesome public transport - even in smallest unimportant shitty villages you have bus/tram that will take you very close to where you want to go. like you could totally live in in other part of city/other town that you work/learn and not own a car. and also its free for elderly, and free to blood donors
I'm from Switzerland. Our public transport is fantastic but very expensive. A lot of people wish it would be cheaper for elderly. Can I ask you how people prove that they are blood donors (like do they have to carry a special card?)
@@Leenapanther Blood donors have a thing that literally translated would mean "Little Book of Blood Donor" and well it is little book thingy With it you can also skip lines in certain places and get some other services and stuff When it come to special thingies for public transportation there are also other cards and what not. Like for example some cities have cards for large families. As there are essentially 3 levels of regulations of public transport. National, local government and company. It varies quite a bit.
@@Leenapanther in Poland, people over 70 or 75 (depending on the city) have public transport for free. I find it a bit excessive, I wish it was at least limited to off-peak hours.
Me too! XP But TBH, the worst issue with the public transport isn't that it gets late sometimes, but the fact, that to get to certain places one has to do a lot of switching between different lines. The housing cost is terribly high, though.
This is a cool decision and all and a great enviromental move... But I'm more impressed that Tom has the leverage to get an interview with the Deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg.
It's not that hard in a small country of 600,000 people to get an interview if you ask. If you are working on a project, they are most often happy to talk to you. In high school, I did an assignment where I got an interview with him.
@@neues3691 You need public pressure if you want improvements to transit to actually happen in a timely way. Making fares free is a good way to generate that public pressure because obviously more people want to use something if you drop the price. Some people believe that every dollar spent on fare subsidies means a dollar less spent on improvements but that's an unrealistically simplistic belief. Real politics is more dynamic than that.
well buses. this definitely will not help the trains though. it will likely make overcrowding on commuter lines and light-rail worse by a standard deviation or two.
Imagine that on some stretches, there's just a queue of busses during peak hour and just waiting on other busses :P not that that can't be solved in any way tho.
unspokenbrute That is how all taxes work - every person doesn’t use every service they pay into. On the flip side to your concern, there are the lower paid people Tom mentions, who can’t afford a car so travel by train. Their taxes go towards funding new roads and maintaining the rest but they don’t use them. The point of pushing more people to public transport over the private car is the benefits for society in general - less pollution, less noise, better health, roads/car parks which take up large areas of land can be opened up for people rather than cars - the list goes on.
2:32 "A lot of the rolling stock is dated" Lmao what? Most trains are air-conditioned, leaning, double deckers that are only 10-15 years old. The tram is literally brand new. The oldest trains on the network, used on some less-travelled routes, are from 1990. Doesn't London still use tube trains from the 60s?
the train the showed at that time you tagged is the only train that is outdated all the others are at least renewed if I'm not mistaking and the tram well yes that is like completely new
I have to say, this is one of Tom's better videos despite the lack of pizazz. I think it makes a very good point about public transport that all countries need to take into account: Make it reliable, and they will come. It's one of the primary ways we can fight climate change and we need to take the right approach at it.
Yh it really provides a balanced view! I initially came to this video thinking oh wow free transport? Then I realised that it doesn’t really matter if it’s not if a good quality.
And it's why I am a little bit sceptical about the free bit. It's not like there aren't other ways to invest these fares, increasing capacity, frequency and reliability should be bigger priorities imo. Not that Luxemburg hasn't enough money to invest in better public transportation, mind you.
@@barvdw Isn't that what the lady is pointing out? Making it free is not a solution for the real problem, the government is just doing the easiest thing.
The Canadian City Ottawa did it during decemeber 2021 as a"sorry our transportation has been so bad lately" kind of move and it was fantastic. Especially when it's super cold you don't want to be fumbling with your wallet or pulling cards out of pockets or bags when you got gloves on. It was so awesome to just walk onto the bus and have it take you somewhere
Hi, I am from Luxembourg (even born there), now I am 25 years old, and I have to say the Luxembourg public transportations is good! I live in almost the northest place of Luxembourg 5min by car to the nearest trainstation (Drauffelt), where during the week at least 2 times the hour a train goes to Luxembourg city. the journey to the Kirchberg (where the European buildings are located) takes by car 50 min in the weekend and by train + tram 60 min. With the car you need still to find a parking spot and pay for it, excl petrol price! Unfortunatly I need my car during my job, else I would for sure take the public transportation to my work! For my hobby I try to use it at much as possible 😉 What tourist often think, the cancelations and delays in their country are the same in Luxembourg, but that is not! the most train traffic systems are in abroad ring formations, in Luxembourg, because it is small and geological not easy to do that, is here the train system a star formation, where the main point is in Luxembourg city. From here there is going f. ex. line 10 is the northen line and will not loop back. If you cancel here a train, the whole line is blocked, so that won't work. the trains are often delayed (5-15min), but not cancelled! the bus system is going to be improved in the next few years. there are driving already more busses since two years, so this system will changing still and smaller towns like will get also better conections! What we have in Luxembourg too, and not mentioned is, night busses. Because here are a lot of small towns (for you very small towns, with a few hunderds people living) so to go to a party, you have to switch towns. there are three types of night busses: night navette, night rider and late night bus. night navette is a line what only travelles during the outgoing times night rider is a taxi, where the most towns it is free to use. I pay 75€ a year to order this taxi bus for a whole for free. I can order this bus like a taxi from 6pm until 6am in the weekends. It doesn't matter how often or how far I use it in a year. late night bus is only driving for the bigger partys or concerts. this bus have a specific route, where you can enter on a bus station and you will dropped off around 10pm on the party and the bus will go back at 1:30am and 3:30am (partys has to close at 3am) this bus is also free and is there that the people don't drive and drink. if you take this bus, you get often even a free drink sponsered by the organisation! I am proud to live in this luxery country who can afford free transportation for everybody, even for dissabled people, who need a special bus (Adapto)
@@averagecommunist3456 hehe, I could tell you much more about the public transportation in Luxembourg 😅 like extra trains during events in Luxembourg city or with the Luxembourg card (tourist card, really cheap) that you don't only have in most attractions, museums and sightseeings free entrance, but you had also with that card already free transportation 😉 (a must have as a tourist)
To be honest though, it's very rare that busses or trains would be cancelled in Luxembourg. It's only happened to me a 5 or 6 times in my entire 18 years of living there even though I've nearly always used public transport (and regularly). Although it is true that the busses are often late, they are late nearly only during rush hour, which is absolutely a problem but not the worst problem in the world (and if I would travel via car I'd still be stuck in traffic, just for less time)
Still quite high, though, our notions of a cancellation could be quite different, as I live in a big Metropolis where if one bus is cancelled an alternative will arrive relatively quickly
i just returned from a trip to luxembourg and i must say, i really liked the free transport, me and my classmates were able to travel whereever whenever. it could be better, but it is a great start
"it has happened that people are standing for an hour and a half on the platform, waiting for the train." Compared to parts of germany, those a rookie numbers.
You mean the third world parts of Germany like Bavaria? As a person who commutes about two to three hours a day for more than a decade now, I seriously don't get many of the complaints people have for the Bahn.
@@Ruhrpottpatriot It differs widely between different parts of Germany. David Kriesel did an interesting talk on this topic. It is called "Bahnmining" if you're interested.
why can't you just show up later if you know they're always running late? I don't live in the city and I haven't used public transportation before so I'm just curious.
@@anuranansaha7162 crazy! Did it actually come in In Switzerland, if the train is late by 20 minutes, the connection mostly gets cancelled and switches to the next possible train/bus. But I guess in that case you can't compare Switzerlands public transport to Indias
@@curlyy6 Well, trains in India are running for thousands of kilometres and are sometimes weekly once. I have actually sat in a train that was 24 hours late departing from New Delhi. It was coming from 500 km up north. We had to wait an entire day because we had confirmed reservation on that train and getting a confirmed ticket on the same day was not a thing 20 years ago (they have an immediate day service now, with higher charges obviously). I have seen trains getting cancelled in Italy if they get delayed by 1 or 2 hours because the next connection will be along anyway when the entire train journey is just 200 kms max for regional transports (Lombardia).
@@henrywalsh683 that happens in a lot of countries for example in japan the trains go thousands of km and once a train was late by 2 hours and they had to write an apology on the news you can go and check
So I‘m actually luxembourgish and our public transport is evolving so much lately. One main problem I always figured is that, depending on where you live, busses don’t pass by that often a day. Recently this is changing though, as there are more bus lines coming up and they start to drive more frequently. It sure has happened that a bus was late or just didn’t show up, but I‘ve been in Germany now for a few months and this happens way more frequently here. Also it’s still better to miss a bus u didn’t pay for. So I‘d say that overall we can be really happy with our system even though it clearly isn’t perfect, it’s getting better. (Also for all those who commented on how clean busses and trains look: yes they are clean, no they usually don’t smell of piss, are you all okay..?)
@@nonyafkinbznes1420 I mean, when they come every 15 minutes at a precise time every time, that's not that much of an issue. Plus, you can do other things while on a bus or train, like check your email or watch a video. Would much rather chill and possibly even get some stuff done than have to drive in traffic.
@@nonyafkinbznes1420 They do if they're competently designed (or rather, run that precisely the vast majority of the time, and the people who run it will take responsibility if it doesn't). Though, at the point where they're competently designed, there's a good chance you'll also have other alternatives like trams, a metro, and bike infrastructure. Oftentimes these are chained together by people in well-designed cities, such as biking to the metro, taking the metro for a bit, and then biking to their final destination. Notably, even if you're not going to use it, it's in your best interest to support public transit. Downs-Thompson paradox and all that; car traffic will increase until it's faster to take a different mode of transport, so ideally you want the other modes of transport to be quick and convenient so car traffic is as well.
@@celestialtree8602 No, because proponents of the "alternatives" advocate stealing lane space and infrastructure from drivers to put their bike lanes, bus lanes, bus stops and trams. They also advocate raising taxes on drivers and imposing ever more infraction enforcement fines to pay for it. That's why gasoline costs about double in Germany compared to America, plus your outrageous VAT. It's interesting that drivers are told they need to support alternatives, while the proponents of alternatives rarely support driving.
If anyone has read about dan ariely, remember his talk about the magic of zero to us? Luxembourg will see a lot of improvement in their traffic system, which then has ripple effects on other systems
They did speak about investment into the transit system to improve it along with the public encouragement of free fare. The idea is likely to get people riding while making it work better. Best way to know how to improve things is to get a bunch of users in the system to find and squash the glitches. Sounds like they have their work cut out for them.
I mean, even without the ripple effects, any government incentivising the use of public transit is putting their money in lowering the carbon footprint on their country. Efficiency and cost are valid points but as long as more people use it, it sounds like a net positive policy.
I wonder if this actually saves them money since there fees were so low already. Considering they can save on ticket guards and the running and maintenance of ticket machines.
Living in Luxembourg, I never encountered a ticket guard. People joke that they're a myth. I know they exist, but they're so rare many people just risk it.
in britain we have roads that introduced charges to cover the cost of laying the road. decades later, after the construction has been paid for, the charges cover the cost of charging users.
"No one ever knows, if the trains are voing to be on time." As a german with personal experience with the "Deutsche Bahn" (DB), I can totally relate to that statement.
That is a really interesting comment about the German Rail network. In the UK each time the media run a story about how crap the trains are everyone blurts out "BUT IN (insert any Western or Central European Country) THE TRAINS ARE PERFECT"......
@@hellfiregrowler If I recall correctly, Germany (as well as the Netherlands, to my surprise) has one of the most on-point railway systems in the world. Yet, they complain the most about the lack of punctuality of their trains. Really just seems like they're very dependent on it.
At the very least Luxemburg is actually investing in public transit (like building a new Tram system and upgrading the rail network). Usually „free“ transit is oftentimes just mentioned as the be-all end-all solution of transportation but actually ends up harming investment in infrastructure and thus doesn’t really accomplish anything. If Luxemburg succeeds with it, it‘ll be down to increased investment in frequency and reliability rather than the fact of it being „free“.
I am from Luxembourg, The main reason people use their car instead of the bus is because the smaller villages (and there are many of them) around the capital are badly connected to the city centre. Often, there is only 1 bus an hour and the last bus runs at 9 pm so if you are going out with friends, you literally cannot get home on public transport.
Dutch rail transport: "I wish I could hold your beer, but sadly I will be 3 hours late due to leaves on the tracks" And yes, they actually often cancel trains down here due to leaves on the tracks. It is just terrible.
"It has happened that people are waiting for an hour and a half on the platform for a train." Laughs as a Canadian who literally had to wait 13 hours for my train to show up.
Awesome work as usual, Tom! I like how this video shared the benefits, drawbacks, and motivations of this idea and showed how much more complicated things can be when we start looking into them.
That is quite possibly true. I often wonder whether that might be true for a lot of our US toll roads and express lanes, when you consider ALL of the costs of collecting a fee -- building the roads to have separate areas and huge toll plazas, having people collect the fees, having people send tickets who don't pay, maintaining all of the toll booth equipment, and (most especially) the 'cost' of the roads being less efficient for everyone.
There's a lot of admin costs with tickets, from ticket inspectors, machines, databases, etc. Surprised you didn't mention that. Increasing tax by 1% doesn't change admin costs for HMRC or equivalent.
Well, that's a bigger deal when you're starting out. Here, they've already spend money for the machines, so they won't be saving by not having to build them, and actually it may even cost them to have them removed. The savings in maintenance aren't going to be all that high, I'd think.
@@rebeccaard1 you might make admin people redundant but if its increasing public transport use then it's killing one job by creating another not just putting people out of work.
@@Khorzho We don't know if the universe is finite, and there are a lot of resources. The problem isn't in the resources, it's that our needs grow as we get more resources.
Sheng Letucias We're already in a post scarcity world to some degree. When was the last time you missed a meal? All else is luxury. Of which there is of course never enough. And so this definition of post scarcity society will never be met. The rabid left wing move the goalposts. They literally changed the poverty metric from absolute to relative. There will always be those at the bottom. And that is just, in a world where people are unequal
@@Tom_Hadler i miss meals most days, which would be completely ridiculous if this were a "post scarcity society" where the world produced enough food to feed 10 billion people *checks global food production oh no it is already.
Resources are not finite, with the exception of what we lose into space and the meteors that hit the surface of the planet we neither lose nor gain anything, our resources remain the same, we simply lack the means to efficiently turn waste into produce efficiently (recycling to you and me) but we are getting there.
Me: Sees title and clicks on the video to find out my question Video begins: "Luxembourg is a small country." Me: Why can't youtube videos be this direct?
I visited Luxembourg in October last year. Public transport arou d the city was good and they were building new tram lines. When travelling further in the country, part of the train line was closed for whatever reason so a replacement bus was in use. You get free transport throughout the entire country with the Luxembourg tourist card.
Thanks for setting the record a bit straight. People like to complain about our public transport, but frankly it's not so bad. Granted, it can't be as good as in major cities around the world for the rest of our country. But considering the prices it's really great service we're getting.
We're visiting Luxembourg frequently one or two times a year. I was impressed that I don't have to pay for the service. Everything works fine during out visits.
I live in Luxembourg and commute and can tell you that on my route the bus is on time every day! We live in a rural location but there are public buses 3 times a hour all day long and special night buses at the weekends transporting people back to the villages at 1 and 3 am from for city. This night service was always free. Great for the parents of teens.
The lux bus line that stops in my German town seems to be on time all the time. They use the long bus with this extra vehicle and a lot of Germans in suits use it every day.
So I live in Luxembourg and I haven't even seen you and now I'm sad. The country is so small that the chance of not meeting you is probably smaller than actually doing so 😭
In fairness, most stations that have any sort of significant population near to them generally get at least hourly, if not half hourly services each way.
@Jonathan Baker When there aren't problems with the signals...or the train cars don't have any problems...or there isn't the wrong kind of leaves on the line...or there isn't a load of invisible snow...etc,etc,etc......
In Gothenburg there is practically a very inticate network that is close to being "from anywhere to everywhere". The region around called Västra Götaland has the same transit company, and shares the rails with the national railway company. Now, they are not free, and the prices have gone beyond the costs of owning a car, but at least in GBG the parking is a nightmare in which it is sometimes preferable to take public transportation. Within Västra Götaland, should a train be overly delayed there are alternative trains to take, or bus-jumping. Outside this region (like to Stockholm) is trickier. Should a rail line have problems and trains are canceled the whole day bus substitues will be brought in. We do have "express" trains that are 20% faster than the regular, but most often 20% dekayed. ;)
Me: okay Tom even I have my limits. I'm not going to watch an in depth discussion about the Luxembourg public transport system. Also me: okay maybe I am about to. And maybe I'm enjoying it.
I was in Luxembourg back in October 2019. We rented a car to get around because it was more convenient than trains. Also, it's a lovely country! I highly recommend it for any tourists.
It's definitely possible to explore the city with public transport (it's easier than taking a car because of parking space and cost), however if you want to visit places outside the city like the north, a car is much more handy
I can see there have been a few comments already from people living in Luxembourg, but I would like to add my two cents here: As a student, public transportation was already free for me before the reform this video is about, but it's still great. Buses and Trains being late is way less of a problem than this video makes it out to be, in years of using public transportation almost everyday, I have had only a couple bad experiences; and none of them awful. Buses and trains are clean, you have an app to track delays and to give you the shortest route from points A to B. In thr capital itself, there are electric bike renting stations every few hundred metres, which makes transportation incredibly flexible (although here I have to say that the annual subscription for the bikes is 18€, a very small amount but not free nonetheless). All in all, I think public transport in Luxembourg is great!
And then there's the UK where buses and trains don't arrive on time, and cost and arm and a leg. I think the hope with free transport is if local orgs and businesses invest in it, they control the flow of people. For example a new business park or housing suburb with decent transport links.
A lot, depending on where you buy tickets. If you buy tickets directly in the bus (which is common for busses that go between villages and towns) then every passenger slows the bus down by about 5-20 seconds. For 50 people in a bus, that slows the bus down by about 10 minutes total per ride. Most rides are about 40 minutes. That means, you roughly need 1 extra bus for every 3 busses, just because drivers waste time selling tickets.
Nothing, of course. The problem lies on the other side. When you make stuff, people abuse it. This is well-known in all industries, from education to healthcare through consumer. I work at Amazon and we've seen it in statistics across every sector when we try to promote something. Never make something completely free or you remove all incentives from the producer, guardrails from the consumer, and basically you open a whole can of worms for people looking for loopholes. There's a reason no one has done it even though it's actually cheaper. I'm not saying it will fail. Luxembourg is so small it just might work.
@transylvanian i am calling it abuse as its using a service in such a way it was not intended for. I am not saying there should be no support out there, i am saying the support should be paid for my a different government body and not transport.
I love how these videos are so similar to the boring ones you had to watch during geography class and it was so boring. But then 10 years later as an adult it's absolutely fascinating.
In Germany we had the 9€ Ticket a month, for three months in summer 2022. It was a great succes but it showed us that the whole system is low funded and not reliable. But for P.t. the high price for fuel is a great Chance to bind customers.
In Germany instead, trains are so expensive that traveling from Munich to Berlin by car is cheaper even when traveling alone. The result is exactly the same: too many cars.
they are very unpleasant to use, just hard plastic. The most amazing seats are in the "old rolling stock" from the video, these are soft, 20cm thick chairs.
I went there for a student exchange, back in 2022. I remember when I was with a group of around 20 people, and we all rushed to the train because it was about to leave. Immediately, I thought "okay, this is going to get really awkward because there's 20 of us without a ticket". Then I found out that public transportation in Luxembourg is free, and it felt so strange to me. It was a nice experience
Washington D.C. and Kansas City are the latest American cities to offer free mass transit. Other cities such as my hometown, Denver, offer free rides during peak air pollution months.
Not to mention the economic and social benefits of accessible public transport long term. Imagine London without it’s vast network, and everyone just owned cars. The city would come to a standstill, and the economy would seriously suffer.
@@bosstowndynamics5488 Freight trains aren't the answer for every time we need to move stuff. Trucks frequently are used in situations where a train isn't going to be a good idea: anything that's within the same town, multiple deliveries to locations outside of easy train access, contents that literally can't be carted via train for one reason or another (propane dispensing trucks come to mind) Public transit has to justify its' cost because roads are ESSENTIAL, for cars, trucks, people walking, everyone. Public transit really isn't "essential" in nearly the same way
@@gamermanh Roads are essential for moving things short distances from the train station to your house or business. Giant motorways and multi-lane streets reserved for cars where humans aren't allowed to walk aren't. The obsession with moving everything (goods and people) in individual vehicles the entire journey is the problem. If EVERYTHING goes by road then all the roads have to be made bigger, which spreads out the city more because more space has to be given to roads and parking, which means you can't walk to the store anymore, which means now you have drive even MORE which means roads and parking have to get even bigger, and it becomes a vicious cycle until half your city space is dedicated entirely to moving and storing road vehicles, and now what could have been done with a 5 minute walk must be done with a 15-50 minute drive. The overuse of road vehicles destroys the efficiency of cities by forcing cities to adapt grossly inefficient land use. In cities with good public transit (say Tokyo) vs cities with good road-centric networks (say Los Angeles), commute time to *work* stays about the same -- because things like pay and job-fit are more important than minimizing commute time, but commute time to *everything else* (services, school, food, entertainment) goes way down because everything else you need in life is closer.
