I'm not happy if they increase the price, but before the Deutschlandticket I paied around 120 € per month and I wasn't able to travel with it outside of my home region. The Deutschlandticket is the best thing the current government has done for me.
It''s already too expensive to be an inclusive measure. It's so typical for our government. Stingy in all the wrong places. It should have stayed at the 29€ it was when it was first introduced for 3 months. And now everyone is discussing only in one direction instead of discussing a way to make it cheaper by increasing funding. Personally I only have it because I can get it subsidized by my employer so that I only pay 33€ for it.
I wish, they wouldn't increase the price. For me, it's just not worth it, if I have to pay even more. I need to keep a car anyway, so it's an additional expense for me, not an either/or situation. 49€ I'm just about willing to pay for the convenience, of just being able to hop on a tram or underground at will and the occasional short train ride. But with more, I'll go back to buying single tickets for the former and using my car for the latter. Because buying single use train tickets is just not an option, they're ridiculously expensive compared to what I pay for fuel.
@@raraavis7782 But are you sure you are making the right calculation? When you compare a ticket price to your car expenses you can't just look at what it costs you to fill up the tank. You have to add tax, insurance, your monthly rate if it is still not paid off, maintenance costs and loss of value.
@@Quotenwagnerianer @raraavis7782 ADAC calculated around 0,67€ for a compact gas car per kilometer. Thats just a little over 73 km you can go for the price of the Deutschlandticket. Crazy how expensive cars are in the end. I want politicians to keep public transportation cost as low as possible, but we shouldn't pretend the Deutschlandticket isn't a great deal already.
Of course it takes 3 weeks to process the cancelation. The email has to be printed out, sent to the central canceling processing center by snail mail, then scanned and sent to the processing officer who prints it out in order to stamp and sign it, then sends it back to the regional canceling office that then sends a mail to the customer.
When we had a visitor over, we got them a Deutschlandticket from DB (because they were the only ones that would hand out the ticket instantly and not send it by mail) and they offered to immediately cancel it for the end of the month, before we even asked for it. This is not something I take for granted, so I recommend tourists to always ask to immediately cancel it for the end of the month (unless you stay longer).
There is the Mopla which has the most clear instructions and terms and conditions for their Deutschlandticket offering. I actually didn't believe such a modern approach could exist. It helped my friends greatly in their visits. It is very easy to cancel as well. It doesn't have the SEPA shenanigans or ID requests.
Yeah, I had the exact same experience with a guest of mine, too. Got it from DB right at the airport, and cancelled the subscription immediately to match her departure date.
I think the idea with the 1-week ticket is missing the point. This is something heavily subsidized by the German taxpayer for people actually living in Germany. It's fine for tourists to use it, too - but come on: it's already an incredible deal as it is.
@@Sotha42 I honestly don't think most tourists would even want a monthly ticket. One week is perfectly sufficient for most. Why not offer a one week ticket for say 30€? One you can buy as a paper ticket with absolutely no fuss on a ticket machine? I bet, most tourists would prefer that to the hassle of finding out how our monthly ticket even works and which app is best and having to cancel a subscription and all that stuff. Heck, I would probably use that. I mostly get around by bicycle during the week and car on the weekend, as I use the latter for weekend trips (hiking and camping and visiting people all over), where using public transportation simply isn't an option. Especially as I often take my kid nephew with me and I'm not using our unreliable train system with a child and camping gear or luggage, thank you very much. Not to mention that that would cost me another 50€ because there is no cheaper kids version available, for some reason. Having a monthly ticket is very convenient, but barely worth the expense as it is, for me. I would probably prefer to just buy a weekly ticket for less, when I actually do need it, than paying for a monthly ticket 'just in case'.
@@raraavis7782 I doubt a 1-week pass will end up cheaper than the monthly pass if you leave out the subsidies and consider that tourists will mostly be heavy users during this one week.
@@Sotha42 Are they really, though? Most will use it to get from the airport into the city or wherever. And then for a little sightseeing. There's a specific type of 'backpacker tourist', that travels around a lot, sure. But most people aren't Iike that. They don't buy a monthly or weekly ticket, because they actually make heavy use of it. They buy it, because our ticket system is horrendously complicated and expensive, even for someone who actually lives here. Buying single use tickets is a nightmare, even if you speak the language and somewhat know your way around. It's just not doable for a tourist and *that* is, why they want to buy an 'all inclusive' ticket, not because they actually make heavy use of it. That's my estimation, at least. I mean, I live here and speak the language and even I buy the monthly ticket for exactly that reason, not because it saves me money. It doesn't. I rarely get 49€ worth of rides out of it. But the convenience factor of being able to just use public transport at a moments notice, is kinda, sorta worth it. Tourists want an easy and convenient solution. If you travel to Germany, you probably aren't the kind of tourist who worries about 10 or 20€ anyways, we're not that kind of travel destination. Well, Berlin maybe. But that's the only destination I can think of, that really attracts a lot of comparatively 'poor' young people who just want to party.
As someone who is eyesight-impaired (I can get around safely by bike and on foot, but can't get a moped-license, let alone a car-license) having something like this in Sweden would absolutely be a godsend. I am very much reliant on my parents/friends and the public-transport network.
to be fair, local public transport in e.g. Stockholms län and neighbouring Uppsalas län, and probably in some other counties as well, is very easy to use, a simple time-based ticket valid in the entire county on every type of local transit would be a godsend. In some places, you still need different tickets whether you travel by train, bus or tram, they use a complicated system with zones (that aren't always clearly indicated), etc. I was quite impressed when travelling from Nynäshamn to Stockholm, Södertälje, Sollentuna, etc. 2 months ago.
There is SJ Årskort with Resplustillägg, but its expensive since it isn't subsidised by the government and it also gives you access to intercity and high speed trains including seat reservations +nighttrains with couchette or sleeper. The cheapest årskort goes for 43 000kr + Resplustillägg 20 000kr
@@barvdw Yeah, having a "Sweden-Ticket" that gave access to all regional transport (X-tåget and the bus here in Gävleborg, and SLs trams and buses and metro in Sthlm) would be very good!
Think one of the greater things with a, let’s call it Sweden-ticket, would be the “region enlargements”. Mälartåg is a good example since it, except for the parts in the region of Uppsala (and to Gävle/Sala) which still has the old tariffs in place, is quite expensive to ride with regularly. It works due to cheaper housing prices in smaller cities and higher salaries in (especially) Stockholm, which compensates the high ticket prices. However, it doesn’t work the other way around, since those living in Stockholm wouldn’t be able to finance themselves with high housing cost, lesser salaries (in cheaper towns) and high ticket prices. With a Sweden-ticket, at least in theory, money would be spread over a larger region (instead of just one financial city), since commuting would be able to go both ways. Businesses would also follow, and would be able to establish themselves in cheaper cities, with more potential workers, which would mean more money and resources being spread around instead of the fixation of Stockholm. I would guess other regions would enlarge in the same fashion as well, such as Öresundsregionen and around Umeå.
That 10th-day-of-the-month thing comes from the federal registry, not the individual sellers. They have to register the subscriptions they have with the registry to get the subsidies, and the 10th is the deadline for removing existing subscriptions. I don't know how mopla gets around that, but I suspect they always cancel all subscriptions and then "renew" them as new ones at the start of each month.
Even If they do so (mopla) They can do 😊 Other ones May chellenging. F.E.. Munich City Center Provider (MVG) Had challenges to issue the Ticket when it started. Why ? It haven t been fully digital ! Even If you ordered online , a Person have to Register the rate plan in their systems. I Just laughed when they advertised "Buy local, I do Not buy my Brezel in Kiel or somewhere else either" So my own City lost me as customer Mopla was very easy like everythhing in the app. May they Had challenging with the recancel (re-brwak) in the 1st weeks thats it. Even to Cancel the Deutsche Bahn Ticket in their own App ist a Bit of searching and Like asjust Data privacy Settings in Facebook 😉
Do they have to name the subscribers when they report their numbers each month? If not, then maybe they just over report the number and have to pay for unused or cancelled subscriptions, but still somehow make money?
The 10th is just the most the law allows for to give the companies "time to adapt and manage their customer data" as if they are still handling paper forms. Clearing for e-tickets between companies happens (at least) daily so there is no technical reason for it. Another counterexample would be HVV and S-Bahn München (and probably many others) that allow you to buy D-Tickets that are valid starting the next day, just for cancelling they suddenly need 20 days...
There are some very different conditions about how to cancel the Deutschland Ticket depending on where you buy it. I presume the long cancellation time is meant to give the companies a better way to plan for the near future. One thing about the ticket I like best is the fact that in Hamburg you can use the ferries in the harbor. But be aware: That is the public transport from pier to pier, not the "Hafenrundfahrt".
As a German: I don't find it normal that there is this early cancellation date and find it even more jarring that it is enforced for digital (phone) only tickets as there is no fraud vector. It is the 10th for most companies as this is the most the law allows for, so they just force the most they can, hoping people forget it and pay more. The other way around some companies even encourage you to buy it for the ongoing month by only making you pay the remaining days in the first month (e.g. HVV, S-Bahn München). They even ridicule their customers: "If you cancel after the 10th of the month, your hvv Deutschlandticket will automatically be renewed for a further calendar month before it then expires. Being tied down to long contract terms was yesterday - this is pure flexibility!" 🙄
HVV sell it pro-rata so you could get that for about €14. The downside is they also require cancellation by the 10th of the month so you would have to buy the pro-rata rate in advance, setting it to start on the 25th and cancel before the 10th.
Hi Andrew, while it may be technically possible for operators to process cancellations sooner - it is for most of us quite simply a question of staff availability and cost. Add to that the resistance to move to digital products and the huge administrative burden operators face as a result of the Deutschlandticket (on top of the day to day business), I am not sure that enabling a monthly on/off culture is the way to go. Though I can of course see the benefit to the customer. It is good that you have mentioned the financial impacts on the operators - the Deutschlandticket is a fantastic product but the funding of it needs to be urgently put on a solid and longterm basis. Marc Bichtemann (KVG)
Good video. Not specific to this Deutschland-Ticket, my travel rule for decades has always been to just get the darn pass. If you’re somewhere for five days, just buy the seven day pass. If you’re somewhere for 11 days, just buy the two week pass. Your whole trip for a full week or two it’s a far higher cost and value than spending a lot of time figuring out if you’re gaining or losing three euros on transit.
You could get the €9 Ticket from any old ticket machine, so I don't know why they don't do that with a slightly more expensive version - €59 maybe - to reward the Abo users. If I were visiting as a tourist I'd be happy to just do that at the airport. I feel it may be a bit too cheap. For me it's cheaper than the Zone 1 Stuttgart monthly ticket I would have bought and I get a lot more. If it were €99 it'd still be a great deal for me and that would be much better than risking the whole thing falling apart, or perhaps the regions being forced to cut back on services, both of which seem like possibilities.
@@DanCojocaru2000 As long as it is possible to order the ticket and cancel the subscription immediately, you gain nothing from a subscription model but additional adminstrative overhead.
In Great Biscay (my fictional country), when you subscribe for something, the service provider tells your bank to set up a standing order. The bank then contacts you (used to be in the post, now it is usually in an app) notifying you of the standing order and if you don't approve within a month, subsequent payments won't go through. You cancel a subscription through your bank by telling them to cease the standing order. Then, instead of the next payment, they will send the payee a notification that the standing order has been abolished, at which point the service provider simply stops providing the service. They can then sue you for the cost already incurred in futile preparation for serving you for the month, but in the case of digital services this is virtually nothing so it never happens.
Still the question remains, why can't short time travel have attractive prices too to encourage people to use the environment friendly transport? I recently had to go to the nearest big city a single time and thought "maybe I'll take the train for this, it will be less flexible than by car, but should be very cheap now that we have the D-Ticket". Well, nope - it would have costed around 35€ for 2x1 hour. So I took the car, was faster, more flexible and paid less. Imagine if you could just press a single button to get a D-Ticket for a single day for 10€ and if that was well known. How many people would spontanely decide to take the train instead of the car. And for those who need it 5 days a week, the subscription version would still be cheaper and more comfortable than buying a new one every day. With the current price models, for most people it will be either buy a car and then use that for 100% of travels - or don't buy a car in the first place. If you already have a car there is barely any point to consider not using it.
Because it's f*cking expensive. Like he said, public transport operators lose money on it, and also, they don't really make money overall, especially in small and/or spread out cities. Either they make it less attractive (cancellation on the 10th before, more expensive, etc), or the government subsidises more. Which they won't, especially not in the next legislative period.
To be really nit-picky: There are a couple of places where the Deutschlandticket is valid outside of Germany. The most interesting one for tourists is likely Neuhausen-Rheinfall in Switzerland just across the Rhine falls. Other nice places you can go, if you don't mind being stuck in local trains for hours are Basel and Salzburg. (Just be aware that the Deutschlandticket is only valid on trains to and from Germany).
I live in Berlin and have the luxury of being able to cycle everywhere. I went to visit friends on the Baltic Sea for the weekend. I used one of our taxi apps to buy the d-ticket and cancelled it right away. You have until the 25th to cancel.
I have used the Deutschland ticket a couple of times as a tourist. The biggest problem I had at first was finding a transport association that would accept my UK credit card for the subscription. I started with the man-in-seat-61's list and worked through till I found one that worked. Once that hurdle was overcome the rest was straightforward. It is all handled by the transport association's app, in english, and buying and cancelling is a just couple of button pushes. My last trip was towards the end of June, and even though I know that it's the subscription that I'm cancelling, not the ticket, it did feel really weird though to push the cancel button, before I had even left the UK.
I've used mopla before (or rather, set it up for my mum to use) when it was already past the 12th and she needed a ticket for just the one month. It worked fine
I was stationed in Germany three times and had an automobile the last two times. Later, in the 1990s & 2000s I returned often as a tourist. In the 1960s & 1970s buying a ticket for public transit was a straightforward process anyone could understand. Later it got so confusing I avoided public transit as much as possible. The Deutschland ticket sounds like the ideal solution. It isn't the cost that troubles tourist so much as the complicated system of buying, validating or whatever. A tourist version, even one more expensive than one for residents, would certainly be an improvement. But Germans do seem to like to keep things complicated whenever possible.
I feel with you. I once bought a ticket in a different city and boarded a train. The ticket wasn't valid because I didn't validate it. In the city I live, single tickets are valid directly after purchase. Finding out which ticket to buy in the first place can be another challange. How should I know if it's one zone or two or three -- or rings etc? That's become easier with buying tickets on the phone where you can say were you want to go. But then there was the case of people buying a mobile ticket just when the train arrived and being fined because they didn't wait at least one minute between purchase and boarding the train...
€49 seems incredibly cheap for unlimited public transit everywhere in the country. If I were a tourist spending 2 weeks in Germany, I'd probably be willing to pay €150-200 for just those 2 weeks for such an amenity.
It is best for trips of at most 300 to 400km because you are only allowed slow trains that don‘t go very far. Munich-Hamburg (ca. 800km) will take about 14 hours and you have 7 changes of trains. OTOH the 49€ ticket is great for „city hopping“
It is cheap, but you have to add the expense of other trains to it. Intercity or ICE trains aren't included, but you kinda need those if you want to get to multiple cities in multiple provinces. Technically you can travel everywhere by slow local trains, but you really don't want to. It can be incredibly pretty - the route through the Ruhr runs along a river for quite some time - but it takes forever. I've involuntarily done Hamm - Enschede after an autumnal storm blocked all traffic on the high speed corridor. I was traveling from Berlin to Amsterdam via Bad Bentheim, somewhere along the halfway point everything went to shit and i got stuck in Hamm for the night. DB put me up in a hotel after waiting from 15.00 till 22.00, but the next day the high speed stuff was still not ready. The Hamm - Enschede route took about double the time it would normally take on the bog standard Intercity. If you're there for the ride, go for it. If you are traveling to see your destination, you really don't want to be stuck in the local stuff.
@@mfbfreak A few weeks ago there was maintenance on the ICE line between Köln and Frankfurt so I had an ICE going along that pretty route along the Rhine. It was sooo pretty and didn't even impact the arrival in Frankfurt. Got a three hour delay further along the route of that train though so in the end it did cancel out but it was still a nice part of the trip.
@@Bayerwaldler It's 12h 58min with 6 changes, as long as all trains are in time. Last week, my wife and I travelld to Hamburg from Frankfurt with the Deutschland-Ticket. It was an experience but I don't want to repeat it.
One of the great things about this ticket is the fact that you can use local transport once you're in a city. No more forking out small change for U-/S-Bahn and bus connections.
It would cut the revenue even more. It's explicitly not meant for short-term thinking! I wouldn't even mind an annual subscription. Maybe add a tourist version for, say, 30 euros a week. It's similar with another form of transport, cars: Need it all the time? Buy one. Need one for your holiday, or for special occasions? Rent one, and pay more money per day.
@@PotsdamSenior Heck, it could be 50 euro a week. Especially if the tourist version allowed one or two ICE trips during that time, or could buy discounted ICE trips as an addon.
@@truckerallikatuk Sure! The price doesn't matter that much. More important: make it simple and easy to use. A Schengen-wide ticket would also be nice. More work for future transport ministers!
I would like the D-Ticket to continue in some form, but I fear it will either get watered down, or its price increased to a point where it becomes useless -due to the history of similar attempts in the past.
@@xaverlustig3581 For me too, but not by much. And since I am also regularly in FFM it evens out even more to me. Since costs will go up for regional tickets as well, I do not expect the difference to matter in the end.
The long cancellation span thing is plagueing so many system in Germany. It is a source of endless amounts of headache, a money sink with no value and a spending inhibitor.
I had once a type of ticket, where I had to pay nothing for RE and so on (with a yearly fee of ~60€ a year, when I remember correctly). And during that time, I used it to travel from Hamburg to Nurmberg. That trip had two downsides, so that I have never redone it: 1. I had to switch trains about 4 times on one tour. 2. The complete tour was about 10 hours. The last trip from my hometown over Hanover with ICE had only one train-change (and one of the trains wasn't an ICE) and was just about 4,5 hours with a big detour.
in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region, we have the Lítačka card, which allows you to go in any of the tariff zones you pay for. It's not a subscription service and you have to renew it manually, which is a much better system imo. There's no surprise payments if you take care of them yourself, and if you suddenly can't pay, you can just not buy it then, and buy it when you can.
Early deadlines, non-gliding months etc. are all remnants from a pre-digital era with organizational limitations. Nowadays bureaucrats just mindlessly add them to simpler technological solutions so they can feel useful.
When my girlfriend came to visit, I got her a D-Ticket, but since she arrived after the 10th, I had to pay for the next month too even though she would have left. But I didn't mind, it was only 49€ and it also went to a project that I like and support so it's fine. Also I was contacted for a poll and they asked me if I'd keep the ticket if it got more expensive and I said yes. Honestly I already overpay, I only use the tram a couple times a month, and some months I don't even use it, and I take the trains even less, and when I want to go somewhere I take the ICE anyways, but the convenience of not having to check for a ticket and look for a validation booth, some have them outside, some are inside, it can get very confusing, having to carry small change with me... skipping all that is totally worth the 49€ to me
Any visit under 5 days and within city boundaries is more worth to not bother with a D-Ticket. But here's the paradox, depending on how you use it it might be cheaper to take a monthly D-Ticket, cancel it immediately and use it for a month (or however long). In Munich the firsr thing I did was to look at the local tariffs and well for the purposes of my trip (and just the two tickets in and from the airport would cost like half D-Ticket) where i would have to cross the M0 zone multiple times it was more worth it to take a D-Ticket, because the city tickets were twice more expensive and I would have to worry about which zone am I in. For most people, a city card would probably be fine, but probably if you just stayed for less than 4-5 days and only in the city.
We had one, so we stayed longer than we intended in Germany and went to many regional places. I get that it's meant for residents, but it was the shoulder season so not very busy, and we stayed in many hotels and visited many sites we couldn't afford otherwise as retirees. I would like a similar ticket for visitors, but perhaps 3x the cost. It's a great idea.
It would be so much easier when the coalition would have agreed on an overall digital ticket agreement. Every Verkehrsverbund would have been forced to accept mobile tickets and in the end the system would calculate the minimum price you would have to pay with your history of checking in and out. Every system is different, yes. But the biggest advantage of the Deutschland Ticket is, that you do not need to care about it anymore, whether there are arbitrary zones or city based systems in place in the Verkehrsverbund. Unfortunately, the main reason why this does not happen is because the Verkehrsverbünde are interested in the data and an overarching system would leave them without them.
I don't believe it's the data that is really as important for the Verkehrsverbünde (especially the smaller ones would not really use the potential of this data anyway), I fear it is much more this idea of culture and autonomy about how ticketing has to work, that would not make those traffic associations like this idea of having to accept such an - in their eyes - complicated and expensive digital ticketing system. This is this "Kirchturmdenken" that dictates this idea "why would anyone not like our 'easy' regional zone system? So going to village C instead of village B from village A would be more expensive and this would be more fair". The idea that is implemented by the Deutschlandticket however, those traffic associations already know from previous offers of "Ländertickets" or the former "Schönes-Wochenend-Ticket". And these are just umbrella tickets from above that is just mandated to be accepted. But they don't have to participate in a complicated new ticketing system. The reason why I believe it is so difficult for these traffic associations to break their old habits? Until now only the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund seems to have integrated the idea of the Deutschlandticket completely in their ticketing line-up. All other subscription offers have been discontinued by the HVV, radically reducing the complexity of the tariff system. I have not yet seen other traffic associations embracing the Deutschlandticket as much and using it to their advantage. There's still a very long way to go.
That wouldn't have been possible, because Verkehrsverbünde are in the responsability of the federal countries, so the Bundesregierung has nothing to say here.
Do you really want to check in and checkout in buses during rushhour? And miss you connection because the first in the row is not able to checkout? Most transport units just check tickets at random and are happy if the crowd is moving in and out and is using all available doors.
@@carstenmoller2248 In other countries (like in Copenhagen) you do not need to check in or out anymore. The apps just follow where you go and make their conclusion. Some random checks and finished. When there is a problem the app asks to clear up. Of course you do have to have alternatives for those who do not like to be followed by the app. And of course when you make a card based system you can install card readers at all entry points of busses.
When ordering, you should be able to choose whether you want the D Ticket for just one month or with automatic extension every month. The first option should be open to tourists, without the need of having a German account or address. Simple as that.
I saw a lot of complaints online about this Mopla when friends came to visit. I decided to order a D-ticket for them and remembered to cancel it so they wouldn’t charge again the month after
I was in germany for ~2 months and I had purchased the deutschlandticket. The issue was that I only needed the ticket for 1 month. I wanted to buy the ticket early in case of any policies, but my boyfriend (who is german) insisted we wait until we needed it, which was on the 12th of the month. I ended up having to pay for 2 months because we made the subscription late. But my card got rejected for the second month because I had not enough value in it 😂 I think it isnt a term that germans are used to either, at least in my experience, but lesson learnt
In Denmark you can use "Rejsekort" very easily (works like Oyster Card in London) all over the country on any train or any coach service. That is very convienient, but Denmark is also much smaller than Germany. I don't know what I shall think about the Germany ticket. I think in the longer run it will make public transport more expensive, and it makes it already inconvinient especially in summer as it leads to overcrowded trains.
Overcrowded trains are a good thing, it means more people are using public transit instead of cars. The solution to overcrowded trains isn't less people, it's more trains
@@DanCojocaru2000 Only somebody who does not take the train for going every day to and from work can say that. Leisure users do it one day or two days... and think it is good. But they do not have any emotions for working people. This is why the Deutschlandticket has to be removed in benefit for the working class.
@@hassanalihusseini1717 So what you're saying is that the working people should have less money because they can no longer use public transport with a cheap ticket, but paying 200€/month instead of 50€/month is good because they can maybe have less people in the train? What?
@@DanCojocaru2000 No the priviliged leisure priviliged people take the seats of working people. It is unjust. Working people had before a better chance toget a seat every morning. Now with spoiled leisure travellers who do not think about others they are frustrated in every morning and evening. Stop this anti social ticket!
It doesn't take 3 weeks. The deadline's sole purpose is to stop short term users from buying it. Germany's commuters had a rough couple of months with the 9€ Ticket that wasn't subscription based. Everyone went on the bus and train for their holidays and weekend trips and so on. So much that regular users of this mode of transport were pushed away from it. Now I think it's good to have these tourists and vacationers on the train without forcing them into a long term commitment. However, the current system of transit is nowhere near able to support that ridership. And this won't change in the near future as public transit, in the traffic ministers eyes, is still only the second best option next to cars. So at the moment it is what it is and this forced long term commitment (it's only two months, after all) is necessary I believe
A simple solution to this would be to leave the subscription service as it is but offer an identical ticket at a slightly higher price, say 55 or 60 euro, as a non recurring ticket. This could be sold on the spot by ticket vending machines and could (should) be valid for a full month from the day of purchase (say the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next. I believe the subscription service only operates on calendar months (i.e. 1st to 31st) so for any length of subscription you will probably not get full value in the first and last months.
The Deutschland ticket sounds amazing for residents - for comparison, a ticket from Redhill to Colchester by train in the uk (a journey of around 80 miles) is £46 on the day - give or take the same price as this ticket for a whole month! If I was travelling around Germany, even as a visitor, I’d be looking at this ticket!
That seems similar to a journey from Frankfurt to Würzburg. If you want to use the Deutschland-Ticket the journey takes nearly two hours; you can't use that ticket on the faster ICE trains, which takes a little over one hour but costs between about €50 and €90 on the day.
Actually the Deutschlandticket made me to use public transport in order to get to work, especially that my company pays 25% of it (so I pay just 36 €, it's cheaper than I used to pay for gasoline). The trip may take longer but I have time to read books, learn languages or listen to podcast.
Because I read that argument several times here now: Yes, the Deutschlandticket is very subsidized, however it is still saving the tax payer money, because necessary expenses for car traffic by the municipalities are still three times as high in Germany than those for public transit. Public transit is always more efficient and will always be cheaper for the tax payer. It would be stupid stopping those investments, because in the end, with even more people going by car, the system would be even more expensive.
That‘s not true. Yes, roads are more expensive, but also needed. You need a road for emergency services anyway and as long as you don’t need to add more lanes this road won’t be more expensive if more people use it. Trains are by far more cost efficient, so the 3:1 ratio makes a lot of sense, not to mention the fact that private investment isn’t added up even though Deutsche Bahn is a state owned company
@@piekay7285 You forget more cars means more maintenance, healthcare costs from people getting into road accidents, plus the money "spent" by the government effectively goes back into people's pockets, whose spending drives the economy
@@oisinnh That is not my argument. OG said that the system would be more expensive, because people would use the car more if it didn’t exist. He specifically focused on infrastructure expenses, which I focused on in my first comment. Yes there are other effects, but you can also use them on the other side. It’s not like there isn’t a car industry that employs far more people. Yes, there are far more and deadly accidents on the road, but the Deutschlandticket didn’t curb demand away from the road. So this argument also isn’t valid. It is very successful for Germans, especially those with low income though. I am not against it, but we shouldn’t subsidize something for tourists.
@@piekay7285 But you claimed that "a road won't be more expensive if more people use it". That just isn't true, of course it's more expensive to keep a heavily-used road in good shape, and to design it in a way that's safe for drowsy early-morning commuters rather than just wired-up emergency services drivers. Plus emergency vehicles can drive through areas that are closed to regular traffic. So if those areas are to be accessible to other drivers as well, you need to build extra car infrastructure.
@@piekay7285 "He specifically focused on infrastructure expenses, which I focused on in my first comment." Infrastructure expenses in dense urban areas especially also means parking infrastructure and also a lot of related expenses (more investments into police and emergency services). No, it is certainly not just "streets" (and bridges and tunnels of which you'd need far less without so many cars in any scenario) and just because you need some kind of streets for emergency services and busses doesn't mean that the extreme amount of car traffic doesn't dramatically increase the costs of this infrastructure. But to shorten this discussion: There's a comprehensive study about this topic from the University of Kassel. And their result is already considering all the factors you have brought up. Factor 3 is not about road investments, but is already broken down to every passenger kilometer of transport performance, meaning overall every kilometer driven by car is three times as expensive for society as every kilometer a person went by public transit. More car use will always cause more costs for the society.
With the different carriers in Germany, it is also rather idiotic at times. Lets say, Hamm/Westfalen. A single ticket that has you head from the main station to near the Oberlandesgericht, puts you back 2.80 Euro, one way. Same with Herringen to Werries, nearly the longest distance (only stop further out than Werries is Uentrop, which is fully detached from the city proper). Now, Bochum, from Dahlhausen to the near last stop in Bochum-Werne (nearly in Dortmund), same logic applied. 3 times the distance, all by bus. 3.40 Euro. Basically, either the Stadtwerke Hamm (who run Hamm's transit) are making fat bank, or Bochum/Gelsenkirchen (they collaborate for their public transit and also have tram and underground tram lines) are running themselves into bancruptcy. And this has been the case for nearly 2 decades now.
To be completely honest, the D Ticket is probably one of the best German initiative in recent years. I might say it is probably one of the only good thing DB has. It has become so familiar and convenient that when I travel out of Germany and have to change city during my trip, it feels so bad.
Once i needed some help from a DB Travel Center, took a number and waited, and waited... and waited, when I asked how I could wait past the number I have (it's not like it can count backwards) but no, that number was never in the system and I'd have to take a new number and wait 30 min. more
I subscriber via our local Verkehrsverbund because the student unions negotiated an upgrade scheme for our mandatory semester tickets. Now that the semester ticket itself gets turned into a Deutschlandticket, I too have to cancel my subscription - and it’s somewhat finicky to cancel. I believe this is by design, to not encourage single month bookings so more people keep it renewing even if they won’t particularly use it that month. To a degree I don’t begrudge them, as this may even out some financial losses for thethe Verkehrsverbund. But all in all - for residents - this is the biggest and most influential public transit reform in Germany for the last few decades, maybe ever.. nkt so much because of the possibility to travel through the entire country on regional trains but especially because one can take local transport literally everywhere.. this comes in so handy for people who are often in different cities.. *Although I believe that we must fight for its future existence and long-term low prices!*
Car infrastructure costs many times the amount necessary to build and maintain railways. So it's only logical to reduce spending on roads to keep the Deutschlandticket at its relatively affordable price.
Given that the collapse of the bridge in Dresden has seriously disrupted the public transport system, now is not a good time to talk about reducing spending on the roads.
@@rewboss I may not done a great job laying out my point trying to keep it a short read. Reducing spending on roads as I would advocate for isn't "hey let's just let it all rot and collapse". It's a forward-looking approach to reduce car usage by making sure that newly built infrastructure promotes alternatives to driving. The idea is that car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and inefficient. A country would do well not to spend as much money on that and instead channel the budget towards more efficient means of transportation such as trains and that includes maintaining the bridges they traverse. It also includes subsidies for train tickets, keeping the Deutschlandticket at its relatively affordable price. And if anything, the time to start advocating for a change in infrastructure spending was decades ago. But of course I sympathise with the people affected by the bridge collapse. I am genuinely relieved that nobody was injured or killed.
Lets hope the D-ticket stays the way it is! Operators need to be compensated but especially with expensive zoning in some cities this was very popular instead of using the car. Best example is from Rosenheim. The RE5 takes 27min and doesn't make any stops until Munich east or another 15 minutes from Bad Endorf. From Rosenheim a monthly ticket would cost 272€ per month!!!! Especially from these regions the D-Ticket is a great deal for 49€ per month. Moreover if it stays permanent it is easier and cheaper for people to live outside the city so the housing shortage will be mitigated.
Well, the ticket is heavily subsidised from the Federal Budget so that's kind of the point behind it... it's supposed to the for residents that pay their taxes in Germany.
Well, it’s a popular hobby to complain about stuff, innit? As someone who relies on public transportation when going abroad, I wish things were always as easy and affordable as the Deutschlandticket. If people were staying with us, it would cost them 10 euros a day to go downtown and back. The DT would pay for itself in less than a week! Also, the cancellation link comes in the purchase confirmation, so it’s not like it’s complicated to cancel. Plus, nobody is preventing you from purchasing any other ticket options! As somebody already pointed out, the idea behind the DT is to get local people to use public trans more often. Nice if tourists benefit, as well, but not the primary target group.
So if you buy the ticket for example on the 11th of November will you be automatically obliged to pay for the full December to be able to cancel the ticket from January on?
yes - you need to cancel before 10th of December and you will be charged with November (or at least the 20 days left - see above with HVV) and December.
mopla works well, they accept CC and Paypal (most companies require at least an EU/SEPA bank account) Protip: HVV charges the 1st month per day and the 2nd month full (at once), so if you need a ticket over the monthly rollover, you can get this and just cancel before the 10th of the following month, saves some money. And you forgot to mention that it's a personalized ticket, people need to show an ID/passport to the conductor
Pro tip: you can cancel your ticket months in advance. So if you're only staying a few months, cancel it right after buying it. They will ask you which date you want to cancel it for.
I have a D-ticket - it's great as far as I'm concerned but then I live in Frankfurt. As for German administration, that's how it works. I'm afraid. Mopla - sounds great. Might look into that. Then I could go home to England and suspend the ticket for a month. The price is supposed to be increasing by E10 I think this year. It's a great scheme for the consumer but needs more support I guess.
I bought the D Ticket on 14th of the month, which eventually meant that It will auto renew the next month even though I cancelled the subscription immediately after buying it. Very hard to understand 😕
It's meant for commuters not for tourists. It's meant to bring daily traffic from the road to the track. 😊. And one disadvantage it's not family friendly. Every family member has to buy its own. 😮
The truth about Kündigungsfristen in the digital age is that they can, but they don’t want to make it easy. Ideally, all digital subscriptions should be able to be canceled until the moment they renew. Exceptions are obviously when you subscribe to something unique made or provided just for you.
The only gripe there is, is the odd 3-weeks notice cancellation. But the price is fantastic and cancelation is 5 clicks and typing your name. Thats basically the absolute minimum of bureaucracy you can even achive - nevermind that happening in Germany of all places and for a heavily tax subsidised service. Im gladly paying for tourists to use that service (which is meant to combat increased Cost of living, not cost of holiday), but them turning around and saying "tourist trap" for their lack of dilligence is almost impudent. Its was never a problem for Netflix free trials to active the service and immediately cancel it.
In my opinion should we fight for it that the price isn't getting increased. 50€ is a lot of money for many people which rely on public transport and which are really happy that for the first in a long time it got less instead of more complicated. The fact that tourists are trying to buy it too despite it never being intended for them, shows what a riddle of a madman the "normal" ticketing service is. Maybe it would be a better idea to create a different (but simple) tarrif just for tourists. Making the ticket price even more expensive would break the neck of people which got used to rely on public transport and would reset progress which was made so far in actually moving away from our car centric transportation system.
Then you'll have to explain how the ticket is to be financed. It's ultimately going to be tax revenue that goes to subsidize it, so we're going to be paying for it one way or another; but something has to be done, because some transport operators have already had to cut services to avoid going bankrupt.
@@rewboss i know that the money to subsidize it has to come from other sources, if the german government wants to keep the Schuldenbremse (i won't go into it wether or not that is a smart idea to currently keep it) But as i see it, is there an opposition sitting in the government to cutting, shrinking and/or changing other subsidies in the transport sector which are currently contradictory f.e. to the CO2 taxation and the plan to decarbonise the transport sector and which could contribute money for further subsidizing the Deutschland Ticket. Instead it seems tho that this opposition is betting on making public transportation less attractive again by making the Deutschlandticket too expensive for financially weaker parts of society. This allegation do i make in face of the weird election promises this party has made for the regional elections this fall. (Like opening pedestrian zones for cars)
@@rewboss Tax the Rich! They have recently upped a single ticket in Magdeburg to 2,90€. That means that I have to pay 5,80€ each time I want to go to my therapy and back. And when I want to leave my city, I need to throw in 30€ at least. Usually much more. The monthly budget for a Bürgergeld receiver for transportation is 50€. But you usually need parts of that money somewhere else. Mobility is so expensive that I can usually only go by Flixbus, even though it's less comfortable than train. Last year and this year I had the luxury of being able to once visit my parents in a town in Thuringia (no Flixbus goes to that town anyway) and to go to a festival in Selb (instead of, say, making vacations abroad) by train. It's so much more convenient than Flixbus. But next year I will probably have to take the bus again, because it's not worth anymore to use the ticket. It fucking sucks!
@@ag4444 ROFL, definitely not the rich! Because any money that you receive from "investing" and any money that you receive as rent for real estate you posses is taxed at a far, far lower rate than any money you earn from working. The rich are not the people who get a salary of 100,000 a year. The rich are the people who own the company and pay that salary to their employees. And in turn keep all the profits.
I believe not 100% true - around Berlin there are (used to be) some RE trains run by DB Fernverkehr and therefore not included in the Deutschlandticket scheme.
Did you know that in germany you can exchange your labor for payment? They call it Arbeit. But beware - there are a lot of pitfalls if you want to do Arbeit short term! Your contract will be upheld INDEFINITELY until you cancel it! If you want to do Arbeit there, they make you fill out a bunch of tax forms, it's not tourist friendly at all! Jokes aside, the Deutschlandticket is so brand new, they have hardly figured out the process for native germans yet, I got mine (free of charge) as a digital code linked to my student ID only a couple of months ago. Like as in, the process for that didn't exist before, the uni just mailed me with how to set that up literally at the start of this semester. Calling it a tourist trap is kind of hilarious, like I'm sitting here feeling a touch of national pride to learn that it's usable in any capacity for tourists at all. Like damn it's *that* easy? Tourist can do it? You don't need an adress here or a tax id code or anything? That's amazing, we're living in the future. Yeah yeah boohoo gotta cancel it within the tenth of the month, dude if I need something from my Bürgeramt, I've gotta book an appointment two months in advance
As a student that got a Deutschlandticket instead of the normal buscard for my local area it is awesome that i can just go on any public transit vehicle up to Regional express and do a daytrip or weekend trip as a resident, finaly we have the transit tech of the netherlands :D 5:25 naja das zeigt dass bezahlbahre öffis halt einfach nicht mit dem privatmarkt vereinbar sind....
I recognize that people might get caught paying for a second or even third month before they figure things out, but as the video says: it's standard German practice. Just cancel immediately, no need to wait for the tenth day of the month. Tourists should be clued in because it is a subscription. it is going to need to be cancelled. just act proactively. by the way, while it is a good price, it has made traveling on regional trains (as opposed to city mass transit) a nightmare.
To be fair the terms are probably so bad on purpose to deter tourists from getting it since it's heavily subsidized meant for residents. As a Swiss I find it very weird though that it's sold by all kinds of regional transport companies instead of just one central company like for example DB.
Cancellation takes seconds. When I buy the Ticket and cancel it immediatly ( this is how you buy the Ticket for one month only) I often get the cancellation confirmed, before i get confirmation for the opening of the subscription. To announce a cancellation is very very short, it's only 20 days and a commitment. Usually you have to quit 3 months in advance, like for your appartement, or 1 month in advance for most insurances. So reducing it to 20 days makes a one month subscription possible. That's an advantage! The only arbitrary thing is, to decide to sell the Ticket as subscription only. But it's a monthly Ticket, no matter how you sell it. So the tourist have to know buy and cancel the Ticket before the 11th of the month. If they arrive on the 12th they need to buy it at home in advance!
D-Tickets are not meant for tourists and never will be. Even subscribing requires you to put your address of residency in Germany (even though people can put anything they want in the registration form).
The transport association I subscribed with was quite happy to accept an address of residence outside Germany. But yes, I agree the ticket isn't meant for tourists.
I think it’s terrible that it’s pushed as a digital subscription. I would think that this could be much easier if it would be available as a one off payment and also available at ticket offices / ticket machines?
Don't remind me of that hell of a system 😢 Coming from Darmstadt, I always had to pay 3,25 € for just two stations going from Babenhausen to Aschaffenburg. And It always has to be paid in cash while riding the train because you can't buy it with a RMV ticket machine... In some cases, when I got a grumpy RMV seller in the train, he started to accuse me of not coming to him at the start of the journey so he now "loses worthy time" by selling me the ticket and can't control other people 😂
I used the Deutschlandticket when I was visiting Germany for a month but I didn't understand what the cancellation meant so paid twice. Still fairly good but surely failing to pay means an immediate cancellation rather than legal action?
Why should it mean an immediate cancellation? You promised that company that you'll pay for the next month, the company is losing money until they get your money, so why shouldn't they sue you for you to keep your promise?
@@DanCojocaru2000 It's not a bill, it's a subscription. I haven't signed any contract that promises that I'll pay for the next month, only that I have money to pay for this month. Netflix doesn't sue me because my credit card expired and I never updated it, they'll just cancel my subscription until I resubscribe. T&Cs also don't count as agreeing to pay for next month because that would be deemed to be unreasonable here and thrown out.
You don't immediately get sued. First you're sent a reminder -- perhaps, as you say, your credit card expired or a bank transfer failed, so they don't just cancel the service, they first assume something went wrong with the payment. If you don't pay within two weeks of receiving the reminder (by which time the next month's ticket is already running), they send at least one reminder with the warning of possible legal action to be taken. If you still don't respond it usually goes to a debt collection agency; if you still don't pay you can be sent a formal demand for payment; and after that, _then_ they can sue. In Germany it is perfectly legal to write T&Cs in which you, the customer, agree to continue paying the subscription fee until you cancel the subscription. The terms of a cancellation are also set out, and if the deadline is "by the 10th day of the calendar month", then that's the deadline, and if you miss it you are committed to paying the next month's fee as well. As long as those terms are made clear and not hidden away in the fine print or written in legalese that an average person would have difficulty in understanding, then they can be enforced.
If you buy it after the tenth, does that mean even if you cancel immediately you'll still be charged for the following month? 4:03 It's a fare question!
It's not only cancelling the ticket which can be a confusing and unneccesary pain, signing up in the first place can be a bewildering hassle as well. I tried to buy my Deutschlandticket through VBB, but the VBB only allows you to buy a ticket up to the 20th of the previous month in order for it to come into usage the next month. On the advice of some random commenter on the Internet, I wound up purchasing my ticket through the Stuttgart app, which allows you to purchase a Deutschlandticket up to four or five days into the current month. This random commenter told me to cancel immediately and then order a new ticket from VBB for the following month. I have not done this, partly out of my own laziness but partly out of protest that I am expected to do this. I even had my method of payment expire and had to renew it a few months ago, and it was even before the end of the month but beyond the 20th, so VBB didn't let me buy my ticket; I simply re-upped it on the Stuttgart app. So I've been riding Berlin transit multiple times a week with a valid ticket, but the actual Berlin carrier has not gotten a cent from me for several years now; instead, Stuttgart's more sensible policies have resulted in a tiny windfall each month, as I've only been to Stuttgart once several years ago and have no intention of returning. Occasionally I get a niggling that I should indeed do my civic duty and make sure the VBB gets my tariff instead of Stuttgart, but I also don't want to reward Berlin bureacrats for having made my life slightly more annoying than it needed to be. (They do enough of that in so many other ways, anyway).
now the DB struggles with a huge scam. they withdrew the costs for the D-Ticket multie times from many customers. And totally fail to handle the problem. The whole DB has become a huge failure
I had the opposite problem; the bank transfer never went through and after an email in German so formal I didn’t even register it as a threat, my case ended up going to inkasso before I even noticed the money hadn’t been withdrawn. It only ended up costing me an extra 30€, but it sure would have been nice if there was some other way to pay. Say, some kind of card? Maybe one for credit?
I very much hope, that they change terms and conditions so that you could book it on whatever day of the month and then use it for 30 or 31 days of course not as a subscription model, I’m already paying so much for my creative cloud, and my heated seats and steering wheel in my Bimmer. Not to forget the subscriptions, that I forgot about which I will pay for until the end of planet earth.
Obviously, the other companies can do that, but they don't _want_ to do that. They make much more on selling regular tickets to occasional customers, so they want it to be bothersome to cancel and they want people to pay for more than they wanted to. So in a sense, it is a scam, just a legally accepted one.
There should be an option of not having an automatic renewal, perfect for tourists but also for locals who want to try it out first for a few weeks and then decide
There are many comments saying ‘the ticket is not for tourists because they don’t pay taxes.’ This makes it sound as if it is reprehensible for tourists to buy the ticket, so extra high hurdles must be put in their way. Foreign tourists spent a good €47 billion in Germany in 2019, about €1,175 per person. This results in additional revenue for the German state of about €8 billion. In total, about 40 million foreign tourists came to Germany. The figures come from Destatis. Even if tourists don’t pay income taxes, the economy, municipalities, states, and the federal government benefit from them. I just don’t get it. Everyone complains about too much bureaucracy in Germany. But where does it come from? Because, at any cost, we want to prevent someone from receiving a service they supposedly don’t deserve. In the end, we all harm ourselves with this. Also, in 2024 there are still less visitors in Germany than pre-corona. Shouldn't we embrace the D-Ticket as simple, non bureaucratic way to support the tourism industry? But then it has to be developped to something that can be acquired more easily, such as a monthly ticket with a flexible start date.
What‘s your issue though? Tourists can still get the Deutschlandticket just like anyone else. In other countries like Spain tourists are always treated worse than locals. Higher taxi prices from airports, local only prices etc. In Germany you get free autobahn, deutschlandticket and still people like you complain. Lol. Where is the 49€ spain, france, italy ticket?
Tourists are mostly a negative for Germany. The housing crisis, overcrowded cities and public transport are fueled by tourism. It doesn't make sense to spend tax payer money to incentivise even more tourists to crowd into already overburdened trains. That's why the D-Ticket was designed to discourage use by tourists.
"and most of them have the kind of cancellation policy that Germans find pretty normal" No we don't! In my circle of friends and acquaintances, nobody thinks this cancellation period is normal. Not ugly normal nor pretty normal. This is what happens when 16 politicians sit around a table and discuss the terms and conditions for something that they have no idea of.
So the TLDR is that you should immediately cancel the moment after you have subscribed as it will take like 3 weeks and you probably only need a months travel.
My 2 Cents, have the ticket be valid for 4 weeks / 28 days from the date of the purchase. (Edit: Optional, if you have bought 12 tickets, you get the 13th for free.) Since it is digital auto-renewing ticket, you should have no problems whit there being more than 28 days in a month, other having to pay twice in two months of the year (e.g. for 2024 January and September)
There, of course, should be a week long tourist version of the D-ticket. It could even be a bit more expensive than the equivalent period for a full monthly ticket. It's obvious.
I'm not happy if they increase the price, but before the Deutschlandticket I paied around 120 € per month and I wasn't able to travel with it outside of my home region. The Deutschlandticket is the best thing the current government has done for me.
It''s already too expensive to be an inclusive measure.
It's so typical for our government. Stingy in all the wrong places.
It should have stayed at the 29€ it was when it was first introduced for 3 months.
And now everyone is discussing only in one direction instead of discussing a way to make it cheaper by increasing funding.
Personally I only have it because I can get it subsidized by my employer so that I only pay 33€ for it.
I wish, they wouldn't increase the price. For me, it's just not worth it, if I have to pay even more. I need to keep a car anyway, so it's an additional expense for me, not an either/or situation. 49€ I'm just about willing to pay for the convenience, of just being able to hop on a tram or underground at will and the occasional short train ride. But with more, I'll go back to buying single tickets for the former and using my car for the latter. Because buying single use train tickets is just not an option, they're ridiculously expensive compared to what I pay for fuel.
@@raraavis7782 But are you sure you are making the right calculation? When you compare a ticket price to your car expenses you can't just look at what it costs you to fill up the tank. You have to add tax, insurance, your monthly rate if it is still not paid off, maintenance costs and loss of value.
@@Quotenwagnerianer @raraavis7782 ADAC calculated around 0,67€ for a compact gas car per kilometer. Thats just a little over 73 km you can go for the price of the Deutschlandticket.
Crazy how expensive cars are in the end. I want politicians to keep public transportation cost as low as possible, but we shouldn't pretend the Deutschlandticket isn't a great deal already.
Same for me. But 145€ per month
Of course it takes 3 weeks to process the cancelation. The email has to be printed out, sent to the central canceling processing center by snail mail, then scanned and sent to the processing officer who prints it out in order to stamp and sign it, then sends it back to the regional canceling office that then sends a mail to the customer.
Also, if the Bundescanceler is on holiday or sick-leave you're out of luck becaus he alone can approve any cancellation.
😂
Don't forget about the fax!
😂
snail mail? nah we use a much better state of the art technology called fax.
When we had a visitor over, we got them a Deutschlandticket from DB (because they were the only ones that would hand out the ticket instantly and not send it by mail) and they offered to immediately cancel it for the end of the month, before we even asked for it. This is not something I take for granted, so I recommend tourists to always ask to immediately cancel it for the end of the month (unless you stay longer).
There is the Mopla which has the most clear instructions and terms and conditions for their Deutschlandticket offering. I actually didn't believe such a modern approach could exist. It helped my friends greatly in their visits. It is very easy to cancel as well. It doesn't have the SEPA shenanigans or ID requests.
@@ongunkanat You can also pause Mo-pla on the last day at the touch of a button!
Yeah, I had the exact same experience with a guest of mine, too. Got it from DB right at the airport, and cancelled the subscription immediately to match her departure date.
I got mine online on the RMV app and surprisingly it was easily cancelled.
Plus I could pay via credit card which was awesome since I bought it from overseas.
I think the idea with the 1-week ticket is missing the point. This is something heavily subsidized by the German taxpayer for people actually living in Germany. It's fine for tourists to use it, too - but come on: it's already an incredible deal as it is.
Couldn't agree more. They should offer an easily available 'tourist ticket', but at a different price point.
@@raraavis7782 Then they would need to block the regular ticket for tourists and it would get more complicted again.
@@Sotha42
I honestly don't think most tourists would even want a monthly ticket. One week is perfectly sufficient for most.
Why not offer a one week ticket for say 30€? One you can buy as a paper ticket with absolutely no fuss on a ticket machine? I bet, most tourists would prefer that to the hassle of finding out how our monthly ticket even works and which app is best and having to cancel a subscription and all that stuff.
Heck, I would probably use that. I mostly get around by bicycle during the week and car on the weekend, as I use the latter for weekend trips (hiking and camping and visiting people all over), where using public transportation simply isn't an option. Especially as I often take my kid nephew with me and I'm not using our unreliable train system with a child and camping gear or luggage, thank you very much. Not to mention that that would cost me another 50€ because there is no cheaper kids version available, for some reason. Having a monthly ticket is very convenient, but barely worth the expense as it is, for me. I would probably prefer to just buy a weekly ticket for less, when I actually do need it, than paying for a monthly ticket 'just in case'.
@@raraavis7782 I doubt a 1-week pass will end up cheaper than the monthly pass if you leave out the subsidies and consider that tourists will mostly be heavy users during this one week.
@@Sotha42
Are they really, though? Most will use it to get from the airport into the city or wherever. And then for a little sightseeing. There's a specific type of 'backpacker tourist', that travels around a lot, sure. But most people aren't Iike that. They don't buy a monthly or weekly ticket, because they actually make heavy use of it. They buy it, because our ticket system is horrendously complicated and expensive, even for someone who actually lives here. Buying single use tickets is a nightmare, even if you speak the language and somewhat know your way around. It's just not doable for a tourist and *that* is, why they want to buy an 'all inclusive' ticket, not because they actually make heavy use of it. That's my estimation, at least.
I mean, I live here and speak the language and even I buy the monthly ticket for exactly that reason, not because it saves me money. It doesn't. I rarely get 49€ worth of rides out of it.
But the convenience factor of being able to just use public transport at a moments notice, is kinda, sorta worth it.
Tourists want an easy and convenient solution. If you travel to Germany, you probably aren't the kind of tourist who worries about 10 or 20€ anyways, we're not that kind of travel destination.
Well, Berlin maybe. But that's the only destination I can think of, that really attracts a lot of comparatively 'poor' young people who just want to party.
As someone who is eyesight-impaired (I can get around safely by bike and on foot, but can't get a moped-license, let alone a car-license) having something like this in Sweden would absolutely be a godsend. I am very much reliant on my parents/friends and the public-transport network.
to be fair, local public transport in e.g. Stockholms län and neighbouring Uppsalas län, and probably in some other counties as well, is very easy to use, a simple time-based ticket valid in the entire county on every type of local transit would be a godsend. In some places, you still need different tickets whether you travel by train, bus or tram, they use a complicated system with zones (that aren't always clearly indicated), etc. I was quite impressed when travelling from Nynäshamn to Stockholm, Södertälje, Sollentuna, etc. 2 months ago.
There is SJ Årskort with Resplustillägg, but its expensive since it isn't subsidised by the government and it also gives you access to intercity and high speed trains including seat reservations +nighttrains with couchette or sleeper.
The cheapest årskort goes for 43 000kr + Resplustillägg 20 000kr
@@barvdw Yeah, having a "Sweden-Ticket" that gave access to all regional transport (X-tåget and the bus here in Gävleborg, and SLs trams and buses and metro in Sthlm) would be very good!
Think one of the greater things with a, let’s call it Sweden-ticket, would be the “region enlargements”. Mälartåg is a good example since it, except for the parts in the region of Uppsala (and to Gävle/Sala) which still has the old tariffs in place, is quite expensive to ride with regularly. It works due to cheaper housing prices in smaller cities and higher salaries in (especially) Stockholm, which compensates the high ticket prices. However, it doesn’t work the other way around, since those living in Stockholm wouldn’t be able to finance themselves with high housing cost, lesser salaries (in cheaper towns) and high ticket prices. With a Sweden-ticket, at least in theory, money would be spread over a larger region (instead of just one financial city), since commuting would be able to go both ways. Businesses would also follow, and would be able to establish themselves in cheaper cities, with more potential workers, which would mean more money and resources being spread around instead of the fixation of Stockholm. I would guess other regions would enlarge in the same fashion as well, such as Öresundsregionen and around Umeå.
@@joelthorstensson2772 svenskticket
That 10th-day-of-the-month thing comes from the federal registry, not the individual sellers. They have to register the subscriptions they have with the registry to get the subsidies, and the 10th is the deadline for removing existing subscriptions.
I don't know how mopla gets around that, but I suspect they always cancel all subscriptions and then "renew" them as new ones at the start of each month.
Even If they do so (mopla)
They can do 😊
Other ones May chellenging.
F.E..
Munich City Center Provider (MVG) Had challenges to issue the Ticket when it started.
Why ?
It haven t been fully digital !
Even If you ordered online , a Person have to Register the rate plan in their systems.
I Just laughed when they advertised
"Buy local, I do Not buy my Brezel in Kiel or somewhere else either"
So my own City lost me as customer
Mopla was very easy like everythhing in the app. May they Had challenging with the recancel (re-brwak) in the 1st weeks thats it.
Even to Cancel the Deutsche Bahn Ticket in their own App ist a Bit of searching and Like asjust Data privacy Settings in Facebook 😉
Do they have to name the subscribers when they report their numbers each month? If not, then maybe they just over report the number and have to pay for unused or cancelled subscriptions, but still somehow make money?
The 10th is just the most the law allows for to give the companies "time to adapt and manage their customer data" as if they are still handling paper forms. Clearing for e-tickets between companies happens (at least) daily so there is no technical reason for it. Another counterexample would be HVV and S-Bahn München (and probably many others) that allow you to buy D-Tickets that are valid starting the next day, just for cancelling they suddenly need 20 days...
There are some very different conditions about how to cancel the Deutschland Ticket depending on where you buy it. I presume the long cancellation time is meant to give the companies a better way to plan for the near future.
One thing about the ticket I like best is the fact that in Hamburg you can use the ferries in the harbor. But be aware: That is the public transport from pier to pier, not the "Hafenrundfahrt".
As a German: I don't find it normal that there is this early cancellation date and find it even more jarring that it is enforced for digital (phone) only tickets as there is no fraud vector. It is the 10th for most companies as this is the most the law allows for, so they just force the most they can, hoping people forget it and pay more. The other way around some companies even encourage you to buy it for the ongoing month by only making you pay the remaining days in the first month (e.g. HVV, S-Bahn München). They even ridicule their customers: "If you cancel after the 10th of the month, your hvv Deutschlandticket will automatically be renewed for a further calendar month before it then expires. Being tied down to long contract terms was yesterday - this is pure flexibility!" 🙄
Legends remember the 9€ ticket
Sylt residents remember it alright, too.
Sylters fear the 9€ tickets
@@zzclockz oh no. the poor tosh folk having to share the island with those pesky commoners
What makes them legends? Remembering something that happened recently?
Yep, and I remember what that did on our trip from Würzburg to Frankfurt. Nothing legendary about it.
I have mo-pla, it's great! The Germany ticket was never intended for tourists.
@@iamwitchergeraltofrivia9670 Eh?
Arnoux! Schönes Wochenende!
@@sisuguillam5109 Hi Sisuuuuu dir auch
It also always starts on the first of the month, meaning if you purchase on the 25th you can only use it for the rest of the month (5 days)
HVV sell it pro-rata so you could get that for about €14. The downside is they also require cancellation by the 10th of the month so you would have to buy the pro-rata rate in advance, setting it to start on the 25th and cancel before the 10th.
Hi Andrew, while it may be technically possible for operators to process cancellations sooner - it is for most of us quite simply a question of staff availability and cost. Add to that the resistance to move to digital products and the huge administrative burden operators face as a result of the Deutschlandticket (on top of the day to day business), I am not sure that enabling a monthly on/off culture is the way to go. Though I can of course see the benefit to the customer.
It is good that you have mentioned the financial impacts on the operators - the Deutschlandticket is a fantastic product but the funding of it needs to be urgently put on a solid and longterm basis. Marc Bichtemann (KVG)
Good video. Not specific to this Deutschland-Ticket, my travel rule for decades has always been to just get the darn pass. If you’re somewhere for five days, just buy the seven day pass. If you’re somewhere for 11 days, just buy the two week pass. Your whole trip for a full week or two it’s a far higher cost and value than spending a lot of time figuring out if you’re gaining or losing three euros on transit.
You could get the €9 Ticket from any old ticket machine, so I don't know why they don't do that with a slightly more expensive version - €59 maybe - to reward the Abo users. If I were visiting as a tourist I'd be happy to just do that at the airport.
I feel it may be a bit too cheap. For me it's cheaper than the Zone 1 Stuttgart monthly ticket I would have bought and I get a lot more. If it were €99 it'd still be a great deal for me and that would be much better than risking the whole thing falling apart, or perhaps the regions being forced to cut back on services, both of which seem like possibilities.
Because the Deutschland-Ticket is very heavily subsidized. A non-abo version should probably be 400€.
@@DanCojocaru2000 As long as it is possible to order the ticket and cancel the subscription immediately, you gain nothing from a subscription model but additional adminstrative overhead.
As a visitor for a week, it took me a full hour to find the right solution. In part thank to your comments on reddit. Thanks!
In Great Biscay (my fictional country), when you subscribe for something, the service provider tells your bank to set up a standing order. The bank then contacts you (used to be in the post, now it is usually in an app) notifying you of the standing order and if you don't approve within a month, subsequent payments won't go through. You cancel a subscription through your bank by telling them to cease the standing order. Then, instead of the next payment, they will send the payee a notification that the standing order has been abolished, at which point the service provider simply stops providing the service. They can then sue you for the cost already incurred in futile preparation for serving you for the month, but in the case of digital services this is virtually nothing so it never happens.
Still the question remains, why can't short time travel have attractive prices too to encourage people to use the environment friendly transport?
I recently had to go to the nearest big city a single time and thought "maybe I'll take the train for this, it will be less flexible than by car, but should be very cheap now that we have the D-Ticket". Well, nope - it would have costed around 35€ for 2x1 hour. So I took the car, was faster, more flexible and paid less.
Imagine if you could just press a single button to get a D-Ticket for a single day for 10€ and if that was well known. How many people would spontanely decide to take the train instead of the car. And for those who need it 5 days a week, the subscription version would still be cheaper and more comfortable than buying a new one every day.
With the current price models, for most people it will be either buy a car and then use that for 100% of travels - or don't buy a car in the first place. If you already have a car there is barely any point to consider not using it.
Because it's f*cking expensive. Like he said, public transport operators lose money on it, and also, they don't really make money overall, especially in small and/or spread out cities. Either they make it less attractive (cancellation on the 10th before, more expensive, etc), or the government subsidises more. Which they won't, especially not in the next legislative period.
Do not forget the Elbe ferries in Hamburg - included!
In Magdeburg too.
Riding down the Elbe with Käpn Iglo or The Lion King ❤
To be really nit-picky: There are a couple of places where the Deutschlandticket is valid outside of Germany. The most interesting one for tourists is likely Neuhausen-Rheinfall in Switzerland just across the Rhine falls. Other nice places you can go, if you don't mind being stuck in local trains for hours are Basel and Salzburg. (Just be aware that the Deutschlandticket is only valid on trains to and from Germany).
and young people can use it in france - région grande-est as far as paris!
Or you can go to Kehl, cross the Rhine (right next to the railway station) either by foot or by hopping on the D tram and you're in Strasbourg!
@@JanMichalSzulew I know, but I'm nitpicky. Kehl is in Germany and you have to pay like 2€ extra if you want to go to Strasbourg.
I live in Berlin and have the luxury of being able to cycle everywhere. I went to visit friends on the Baltic Sea for the weekend. I used one of our taxi apps to buy the d-ticket and cancelled it right away. You have until the 25th to cancel.
I have used the Deutschland ticket a couple of times as a tourist. The biggest problem I had at first was finding a transport association that would accept my UK credit card for the subscription. I started with the man-in-seat-61's list and worked through till I found one that worked. Once that hurdle was overcome the rest was straightforward. It is all handled by the transport association's app, in english, and buying and cancelling is a just couple of button pushes.
My last trip was towards the end of June, and even though I know that it's the subscription that I'm cancelling, not the ticket, it did feel really weird though to push the cancel button, before I had even left the UK.
I've used mopla before (or rather, set it up for my mum to use) when it was already past the 12th and she needed a ticket for just the one month. It worked fine
I was stationed in Germany three times and had an automobile the last two times. Later, in the 1990s & 2000s I returned often as a tourist. In the 1960s & 1970s buying a ticket for public transit was a straightforward process anyone could understand. Later it got so confusing I avoided public transit as much as possible. The Deutschland ticket sounds like the ideal solution. It isn't the cost that troubles tourist so much as the complicated system of buying, validating or whatever. A tourist version, even one more expensive than one for residents, would certainly be an improvement. But Germans do seem to like to keep things complicated whenever possible.
Believe me, lots of us would like to have it more simpler, but the terms and conditions have been set by politicians.
I feel with you. I once bought a ticket in a different city and boarded a train. The ticket wasn't valid because I didn't validate it. In the city I live, single tickets are valid directly after purchase.
Finding out which ticket to buy in the first place can be another challange. How should I know if it's one zone or two or three -- or rings etc? That's become easier with buying tickets on the phone where you can say were you want to go. But then there was the case of people buying a mobile ticket just when the train arrived and being fined because they didn't wait at least one minute between purchase and boarding the train...
€49 seems incredibly cheap for unlimited public transit everywhere in the country. If I were a tourist spending 2 weeks in Germany, I'd probably be willing to pay €150-200 for just those 2 weeks for such an amenity.
It is best for trips of at most 300 to 400km because you are only allowed slow trains that don‘t go very far. Munich-Hamburg (ca. 800km) will take about 14 hours and you have 7 changes of trains.
OTOH the 49€ ticket is great for „city hopping“
It is cheap, but you have to add the expense of other trains to it. Intercity or ICE trains aren't included, but you kinda need those if you want to get to multiple cities in multiple provinces.
Technically you can travel everywhere by slow local trains, but you really don't want to. It can be incredibly pretty - the route through the Ruhr runs along a river for quite some time - but it takes forever. I've involuntarily done Hamm - Enschede after an autumnal storm blocked all traffic on the high speed corridor. I was traveling from Berlin to Amsterdam via Bad Bentheim, somewhere along the halfway point everything went to shit and i got stuck in Hamm for the night. DB put me up in a hotel after waiting from 15.00 till 22.00, but the next day the high speed stuff was still not ready. The Hamm - Enschede route took about double the time it would normally take on the bog standard Intercity. If you're there for the ride, go for it. If you are traveling to see your destination, you really don't want to be stuck in the local stuff.
@@mfbfreak A few weeks ago there was maintenance on the ICE line between Köln and Frankfurt so I had an ICE going along that pretty route along the Rhine. It was sooo pretty and didn't even impact the arrival in Frankfurt. Got a three hour delay further along the route of that train though so in the end it did cancel out but it was still a nice part of the trip.
@@Bayerwaldler It's 12h 58min with 6 changes, as long as all trains are in time.
Last week, my wife and I travelld to Hamburg from Frankfurt with the Deutschland-Ticket. It was an experience but I don't want to repeat it.
One of the great things about this ticket is the fact that you can use local transport once you're in a city. No more forking out small change for U-/S-Bahn and bus connections.
I don't understand why there is no "this month only" option.
It would cut the revenue even more.
It's explicitly not meant for short-term thinking! I wouldn't even mind an annual subscription. Maybe add a tourist version for, say, 30 euros a week.
It's similar with another form of transport, cars: Need it all the time? Buy one. Need one for your holiday, or for special occasions? Rent one, and pay more money per day.
@@PotsdamSenior Heck, it could be 50 euro a week. Especially if the tourist version allowed one or two ICE trips during that time, or could buy discounted ICE trips as an addon.
@@truckerallikatuk Sure! The price doesn't matter that much. More important: make it simple and easy to use. A Schengen-wide ticket would also be nice. More work for future transport ministers!
Its made for people commuting to their jobs
I would like the D-Ticket to continue in some form, but I fear it will either get watered down, or its price increased to a point where it becomes useless -due to the history of similar attempts in the past.
I don't mind paying a little extra (59€,69€,79€) for not having to deal with the Holy Roman Empire of German Local Public Transport Associations.
Actually, even if it were twice the price, it would still be advantageous to me. Of course YMMV.
@@__christopher__ Not to me. At double the price it would be more expensive than the monthly ticket I had before.
@@xaverlustig3581 For me too, but not by much. And since I am also regularly in FFM it evens out even more to me. Since costs will go up for regional tickets as well, I do not expect the difference to matter in the end.
The long cancellation span thing is plagueing so many system in Germany. It is a source of endless amounts of headache, a money sink with no value and a spending inhibitor.
I had once a type of ticket, where I had to pay nothing for RE and so on (with a yearly fee of ~60€ a year, when I remember correctly). And during that time, I used it to travel from Hamburg to Nurmberg. That trip had two downsides, so that I have never redone it: 1. I had to switch trains about 4 times on one tour. 2. The complete tour was about 10 hours.
The last trip from my hometown over Hanover with ICE had only one train-change (and one of the trains wasn't an ICE) and was just about 4,5 hours with a big detour.
in Prague and the Central Bohemian Region, we have the Lítačka card, which allows you to go in any of the tariff zones you pay for. It's not a subscription service and you have to renew it manually, which is a much better system imo. There's no surprise payments if you take care of them yourself, and if you suddenly can't pay, you can just not buy it then, and buy it when you can.
Early deadlines, non-gliding months etc. are all remnants from a pre-digital era with organizational limitations. Nowadays bureaucrats just mindlessly add them to simpler technological solutions so they can feel useful.
They're added on purpose to discourage tourists from using the ticket.
When my girlfriend came to visit, I got her a D-Ticket, but since she arrived after the 10th, I had to pay for the next month too even though she would have left. But I didn't mind, it was only 49€ and it also went to a project that I like and support so it's fine. Also I was contacted for a poll and they asked me if I'd keep the ticket if it got more expensive and I said yes. Honestly I already overpay, I only use the tram a couple times a month, and some months I don't even use it, and I take the trains even less, and when I want to go somewhere I take the ICE anyways, but the convenience of not having to check for a ticket and look for a validation booth, some have them outside, some are inside, it can get very confusing, having to carry small change with me... skipping all that is totally worth the 49€ to me
Any visit under 5 days and within city boundaries is more worth to not bother with a D-Ticket. But here's the paradox, depending on how you use it it might be cheaper to take a monthly D-Ticket, cancel it immediately and use it for a month (or however long). In Munich the firsr thing I did was to look at the local tariffs and well for the purposes of my trip (and just the two tickets in and from the airport would cost like half D-Ticket) where i would have to cross the M0 zone multiple times it was more worth it to take a D-Ticket, because the city tickets were twice more expensive and I would have to worry about which zone am I in. For most people, a city card would probably be fine, but probably if you just stayed for less than 4-5 days and only in the city.
We had one, so we stayed longer than we intended in Germany and went to many regional places. I get that it's meant for residents, but it was the shoulder season so not very busy, and we stayed in many hotels and visited many sites we couldn't afford otherwise as retirees. I would like a similar ticket for visitors, but perhaps 3x the cost. It's a great idea.
Well explained, thanks :)
It would be so much easier when the coalition would have agreed on an overall digital ticket agreement. Every Verkehrsverbund would have been forced to accept mobile tickets and in the end the system would calculate the minimum price you would have to pay with your history of checking in and out. Every system is different, yes. But the biggest advantage of the Deutschland Ticket is, that you do not need to care about it anymore, whether there are arbitrary zones or city based systems in place in the Verkehrsverbund. Unfortunately, the main reason why this does not happen is because the Verkehrsverbünde are interested in the data and an overarching system would leave them without them.
I don't believe it's the data that is really as important for the Verkehrsverbünde (especially the smaller ones would not really use the potential of this data anyway), I fear it is much more this idea of culture and autonomy about how ticketing has to work, that would not make those traffic associations like this idea of having to accept such an - in their eyes - complicated and expensive digital ticketing system. This is this "Kirchturmdenken" that dictates this idea "why would anyone not like our 'easy' regional zone system? So going to village C instead of village B from village A would be more expensive and this would be more fair". The idea that is implemented by the Deutschlandticket however, those traffic associations already know from previous offers of "Ländertickets" or the former "Schönes-Wochenend-Ticket". And these are just umbrella tickets from above that is just mandated to be accepted. But they don't have to participate in a complicated new ticketing system.
The reason why I believe it is so difficult for these traffic associations to break their old habits? Until now only the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund seems to have integrated the idea of the Deutschlandticket completely in their ticketing line-up. All other subscription offers have been discontinued by the HVV, radically reducing the complexity of the tariff system. I have not yet seen other traffic associations embracing the Deutschlandticket as much and using it to their advantage. There's still a very long way to go.
That wouldn't have been possible, because Verkehrsverbünde are in the responsability of the federal countries, so the Bundesregierung has nothing to say here.
Do you really want to check in and checkout in buses during rushhour? And miss you connection because the first in the row is not able to checkout? Most transport units just check tickets at random and are happy if the crowd is moving in and out and is using all available doors.
@@carstenmoller2248 In other countries (like in Copenhagen) you do not need to check in or out anymore. The apps just follow where you go and make their conclusion. Some random checks and finished. When there is a problem the app asks to clear up. Of course you do have to have alternatives for those who do not like to be followed by the app. And of course when you make a card based system you can install card readers at all entry points of busses.
When ordering, you should be able to choose whether you want the D Ticket for just one month or with automatic extension every month. The first option should be open to tourists, without the need of having a German account or address. Simple as that.
If the first option costs 400€, I agree
@@DanCojocaru2000 Why?
I saw a lot of complaints online about this Mopla when friends came to visit. I decided to order a D-ticket for them and remembered to cancel it so they wouldn’t charge again the month after
I was in germany for ~2 months and I had purchased the deutschlandticket. The issue was that I only needed the ticket for 1 month. I wanted to buy the ticket early in case of any policies, but my boyfriend (who is german) insisted we wait until we needed it, which was on the 12th of the month. I ended up having to pay for 2 months because we made the subscription late. But my card got rejected for the second month because I had not enough value in it 😂
I think it isnt a term that germans are used to either, at least in my experience, but lesson learnt
Its because the offices of big companies are slow . They receive the Mail but till something is done can take weeks , even if its just a sign
In Denmark you can use "Rejsekort" very easily (works like Oyster Card in London) all over the country on any train or any coach service. That is very convienient, but Denmark is also much smaller than Germany.
I don't know what I shall think about the Germany ticket. I think in the longer run it will make public transport more expensive, and it makes it already inconvinient especially in summer as it leads to overcrowded trains.
Overcrowded trains are a good thing, it means more people are using public transit instead of cars. The solution to overcrowded trains isn't less people, it's more trains
@@DanCojocaru2000 Only somebody who does not take the train for going every day to and from work can say that.
Leisure users do it one day or two days... and think it is good. But they do not have any emotions for working people.
This is why the Deutschlandticket has to be removed in benefit for the working class.
@@hassanalihusseini1717 So what you're saying is that the working people should have less money because they can no longer use public transport with a cheap ticket, but paying 200€/month instead of 50€/month is good because they can maybe have less people in the train? What?
@@DanCojocaru2000 No the priviliged leisure priviliged people take the seats of working people. It is unjust.
Working people had before a better chance toget a seat every morning. Now with spoiled leisure travellers who do not think about others they are frustrated in every morning and evening.
Stop this anti social ticket!
@@hassanalihusseini1717 You are literally asking for working people to have less money. Listen to yourself!
It doesn't take 3 weeks. The deadline's sole purpose is to stop short term users from buying it. Germany's commuters had a rough couple of months with the 9€ Ticket that wasn't subscription based. Everyone went on the bus and train for their holidays and weekend trips and so on. So much that regular users of this mode of transport were pushed away from it. Now I think it's good to have these tourists and vacationers on the train without forcing them into a long term commitment. However, the current system of transit is nowhere near able to support that ridership. And this won't change in the near future as public transit, in the traffic ministers eyes, is still only the second best option next to cars. So at the moment it is what it is and this forced long term commitment (it's only two months, after all) is necessary I believe
A simple solution to this would be to leave the subscription service as it is but offer an identical ticket at a slightly higher price, say 55 or 60 euro, as a non recurring ticket. This could be sold on the spot by ticket vending machines and could (should) be valid for a full month from the day of purchase (say the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next. I believe the subscription service only operates on calendar months (i.e. 1st to 31st) so for any length of subscription you will probably not get full value in the first and last months.
The Deutschland-Ticket is so highly subsidized that the non-recurring ticket should cost 400€
@@DanCojocaru2000 all public transport tickets are highly subsidized
The Deutschland ticket sounds amazing for residents - for comparison, a ticket from Redhill to Colchester by train in the uk (a journey of around 80 miles) is £46 on the day - give or take the same price as this ticket for a whole month!
If I was travelling around Germany, even as a visitor, I’d be looking at this ticket!
That seems similar to a journey from Frankfurt to Würzburg. If you want to use the Deutschland-Ticket the journey takes nearly two hours; you can't use that ticket on the faster ICE trains, which takes a little over one hour but costs between about €50 and €90 on the day.
@@rewboss - that’s true - I certainly wouldn’t be able to use the express from Liverpool Street to Colchester on a similar sort of ticket!
Actually the Deutschlandticket made me to use public transport in order to get to work, especially that my company pays 25% of it (so I pay just 36 €, it's cheaper than I used to pay for gasoline). The trip may take longer but I have time to read books, learn languages or listen to podcast.
Because I read that argument several times here now: Yes, the Deutschlandticket is very subsidized, however it is still saving the tax payer money, because necessary expenses for car traffic by the municipalities are still three times as high in Germany than those for public transit. Public transit is always more efficient and will always be cheaper for the tax payer. It would be stupid stopping those investments, because in the end, with even more people going by car, the system would be even more expensive.
That‘s not true. Yes, roads are more expensive, but also needed. You need a road for emergency services anyway and as long as you don’t need to add more lanes this road won’t be more expensive if more people use it. Trains are by far more cost efficient, so the 3:1 ratio makes a lot of sense, not to mention the fact that private investment isn’t added up even though Deutsche Bahn is a state owned company
@@piekay7285 You forget more cars means more maintenance, healthcare costs from people getting into road accidents, plus the money "spent" by the government effectively goes back into people's pockets, whose spending drives the economy
@@oisinnh That is not my argument. OG said that the system would be more expensive, because people would use the car more if it didn’t exist. He specifically focused on infrastructure expenses, which I focused on in my first comment.
Yes there are other effects, but you can also use them on the other side. It’s not like there isn’t a car industry that employs far more people. Yes, there are far more and deadly accidents on the road, but the Deutschlandticket didn’t curb demand away from the road. So this argument also isn’t valid.
It is very successful for Germans, especially those with low income though. I am not against it, but we shouldn’t subsidize something for tourists.
@@piekay7285 But you claimed that "a road won't be more expensive if more people use it". That just isn't true, of course it's more expensive to keep a heavily-used road in good shape, and to design it in a way that's safe for drowsy early-morning commuters rather than just wired-up emergency services drivers. Plus emergency vehicles can drive through areas that are closed to regular traffic. So if those areas are to be accessible to other drivers as well, you need to build extra car infrastructure.
@@piekay7285 "He specifically focused on infrastructure expenses, which I focused on in my first comment."
Infrastructure expenses in dense urban areas especially also means parking infrastructure and also a lot of related expenses (more investments into police and emergency services). No, it is certainly not just "streets" (and bridges and tunnels of which you'd need far less without so many cars in any scenario) and just because you need some kind of streets for emergency services and busses doesn't mean that the extreme amount of car traffic doesn't dramatically increase the costs of this infrastructure.
But to shorten this discussion: There's a comprehensive study about this topic from the University of Kassel. And their result is already considering all the factors you have brought up. Factor 3 is not about road investments, but is already broken down to every passenger kilometer of transport performance, meaning overall every kilometer driven by car is three times as expensive for society as every kilometer a person went by public transit. More car use will always cause more costs for the society.
With the different carriers in Germany, it is also rather idiotic at times.
Lets say, Hamm/Westfalen. A single ticket that has you head from the main station to near the Oberlandesgericht, puts you back 2.80 Euro, one way. Same with Herringen to Werries, nearly the longest distance (only stop further out than Werries is Uentrop, which is fully detached from the city proper).
Now, Bochum, from Dahlhausen to the near last stop in Bochum-Werne (nearly in Dortmund), same logic applied. 3 times the distance, all by bus. 3.40 Euro.
Basically, either the Stadtwerke Hamm (who run Hamm's transit) are making fat bank, or Bochum/Gelsenkirchen (they collaborate for their public transit and also have tram and underground tram lines) are running themselves into bancruptcy.
And this has been the case for nearly 2 decades now.
To be completely honest, the D Ticket is probably one of the best German initiative in recent years. I might say it is probably one of the only good thing DB has. It has become so familiar and convenient that when I travel out of Germany and have to change city during my trip, it feels so bad.
Once i needed some help from a DB Travel Center, took a number and waited, and waited... and waited, when I asked how I could wait past the number I have (it's not like it can count backwards) but no, that number was never in the system and I'd have to take a new number and wait 30 min. more
Is it valid for U-Bahns?
Yes it is
I subscriber via our local Verkehrsverbund because the student unions negotiated an upgrade scheme for our mandatory semester tickets. Now that the semester ticket itself gets turned into a Deutschlandticket, I too have to cancel my subscription - and it’s somewhat finicky to cancel. I believe this is by design, to not encourage single month bookings so more people keep it renewing even if they won’t particularly use it that month. To a degree I don’t begrudge them, as this may even out some financial losses for thethe Verkehrsverbund.
But all in all - for residents - this is the biggest and most influential public transit reform in Germany for the last few decades, maybe ever.. nkt so much because of the possibility to travel through the entire country on regional trains but especially because one can take local transport literally everywhere.. this comes in so handy for people who are often in different cities..
*Although I believe that we must fight for its future existence and long-term low prices!*
Car infrastructure costs many times the amount necessary to build and maintain railways.
So it's only logical to reduce spending on roads to keep the Deutschlandticket at its relatively affordable price.
Given that the collapse of the bridge in Dresden has seriously disrupted the public transport system, now is not a good time to talk about reducing spending on the roads.
@@rewboss I may not done a great job laying out my point trying to keep it a short read.
Reducing spending on roads as I would advocate for isn't "hey let's just let it all rot and collapse". It's a forward-looking approach to reduce car usage by making sure that newly built infrastructure promotes alternatives to driving.
The idea is that car infrastructure is incredibly expensive and inefficient. A country would do well not to spend as much money on that and instead channel the budget towards more efficient means of transportation such as trains and that includes maintaining the bridges they traverse.
It also includes subsidies for train tickets, keeping the Deutschlandticket at its relatively affordable price.
And if anything, the time to start advocating for a change in infrastructure spending was decades ago.
But of course I sympathise with the people affected by the bridge collapse. I am genuinely relieved that nobody was injured or killed.
Lets hope the D-ticket stays the way it is!
Operators need to be compensated but especially with expensive zoning in some cities this was very popular instead of using the car.
Best example is from Rosenheim.
The RE5 takes 27min and doesn't make any stops until Munich east or another 15 minutes from Bad Endorf.
From Rosenheim a monthly ticket would cost 272€ per month!!!!
Especially from these regions the D-Ticket is a great deal for 49€ per month.
Moreover if it stays permanent it is easier and cheaper for people to live outside the city so the housing shortage will be mitigated.
it takes 3 weeks because some pigeons may get lost during the mail transport, and a big enough safety timeframe is necessary
Well, the ticket is heavily subsidised from the Federal Budget so that's kind of the point behind it... it's supposed to the for residents that pay their taxes in Germany.
Well, it’s a popular hobby to complain about stuff, innit? As someone who relies on public transportation when going abroad, I wish things were always as easy and affordable as the Deutschlandticket. If people were staying with us, it would cost them 10 euros a day to go downtown and back. The DT would pay for itself in less than a week! Also, the cancellation link comes in the purchase confirmation, so it’s not like it’s complicated to cancel. Plus, nobody is preventing you from purchasing any other ticket options!
As somebody already pointed out, the idea behind the DT is to get local people to use public trans more often. Nice if tourists benefit, as well, but not the primary target group.
So if you buy the ticket for example on the 11th of November will you be automatically obliged to pay for the full December to be able to cancel the ticket from January on?
yes - you need to cancel before 10th of December and you will be charged with November (or at least the 20 days left - see above with HVV) and December.
mopla works well, they accept CC and Paypal (most companies require at least an EU/SEPA bank account) Protip: HVV charges the 1st month per day and the 2nd month full (at once), so if you need a ticket over the monthly rollover, you can get this and just cancel before the 10th of the following month, saves some money. And you forgot to mention that it's a personalized ticket, people need to show an ID/passport to the conductor
And you can instantly cancel it
travelling to a foreign country without an ID or passport is usually not a good idea...
Pro tip: you can cancel your ticket months in advance. So if you're only staying a few months, cancel it right after buying it. They will ask you which date you want to cancel it for.
I have a D-ticket - it's great as far as I'm concerned but then I live in Frankfurt.
As for German administration, that's how it works. I'm afraid. Mopla - sounds great. Might look into that. Then I could go home to England and suspend the ticket for a month.
The price is supposed to be increasing by E10 I think this year. It's a great scheme for the consumer but needs more support I guess.
I bought the D Ticket on 14th of the month, which eventually meant that It will auto renew the next month even though I cancelled the subscription immediately after buying it.
Very hard to understand 😕
It's meant for commuters not for tourists. It's meant to bring daily traffic from the road to the track. 😊. And one disadvantage it's not family friendly. Every family member has to buy its own. 😮
It's great for residents.
The truth about Kündigungsfristen in the digital age is that they can, but they don’t want to make it easy. Ideally, all digital subscriptions should be able to be canceled until the moment they renew. Exceptions are obviously when you subscribe to something unique made or provided just for you.
The only gripe there is, is the odd 3-weeks notice cancellation.
But the price is fantastic and cancelation is 5 clicks and typing your name. Thats basically the absolute minimum of bureaucracy you can even achive - nevermind that happening in Germany of all places and for a heavily tax subsidised service.
Im gladly paying for tourists to use that service (which is meant to combat increased Cost of living, not cost of holiday), but them turning around and saying "tourist trap" for their lack of dilligence is almost impudent.
Its was never a problem for Netflix free trials to active the service and immediately cancel it.
In my opinion should we fight for it that the price isn't getting increased.
50€ is a lot of money for many people which rely on public transport and which are really happy that for the first in a long time it got less instead of more complicated.
The fact that tourists are trying to buy it too despite it never being intended for them, shows what a riddle of a madman the "normal" ticketing service is. Maybe it would be a better idea to create a different (but simple) tarrif just for tourists.
Making the ticket price even more expensive would break the neck of people which got used to rely on public transport and would reset progress which was made so far in actually moving away from our car centric transportation system.
Then you'll have to explain how the ticket is to be financed. It's ultimately going to be tax revenue that goes to subsidize it, so we're going to be paying for it one way or another; but something has to be done, because some transport operators have already had to cut services to avoid going bankrupt.
@@rewboss i know that the money to subsidize it has to come from other sources, if the german government wants to keep the Schuldenbremse (i won't go into it wether or not that is a smart idea to currently keep it)
But as i see it, is there an opposition sitting in the government to cutting, shrinking and/or changing other subsidies in the transport sector which are currently contradictory f.e. to the CO2 taxation and the plan to decarbonise the transport sector and which could contribute money for further subsidizing the Deutschland Ticket.
Instead it seems tho that this opposition is betting on making public transportation less attractive again by making the Deutschlandticket too expensive for financially weaker parts of society.
This allegation do i make in face of the weird election promises this party has made for the regional elections this fall. (Like opening pedestrian zones for cars)
@@rewboss Tax the Rich!
They have recently upped a single ticket in Magdeburg to 2,90€. That means that I have to pay 5,80€ each time I want to go to my therapy and back.
And when I want to leave my city, I need to throw in 30€ at least. Usually much more.
The monthly budget for a Bürgergeld receiver for transportation is 50€. But you usually need parts of that money somewhere else.
Mobility is so expensive that I can usually only go by Flixbus, even though it's less comfortable than train. Last year and this year I had the luxury of being able to once visit my parents in a town in Thuringia (no Flixbus goes to that town anyway) and to go to a festival in Selb (instead of, say, making vacations abroad) by train. It's so much more convenient than Flixbus.
But next year I will probably have to take the bus again, because it's not worth anymore to use the ticket.
It fucking sucks!
@@johannageisel5390the rich are already taxed enough. Who do you think is paying for Bürgergeld.
@@ag4444 ROFL, definitely not the rich!
Because any money that you receive from "investing" and any money that you receive as rent for real estate you posses is taxed at a far, far lower rate than any money you earn from working.
The rich are not the people who get a salary of 100,000 a year. The rich are the people who own the company and pay that salary to their employees.
And in turn keep all the profits.
What’s the 3rd party service charge this start up requires for purchase?
I believe not 100% true - around Berlin there are (used to be) some RE trains run by DB Fernverkehr and therefore not included in the Deutschlandticket scheme.
Did you know that in germany you can exchange your labor for payment? They call it Arbeit. But beware - there are a lot of pitfalls if you want to do Arbeit short term! Your contract will be upheld INDEFINITELY until you cancel it! If you want to do Arbeit there, they make you fill out a bunch of tax forms, it's not tourist friendly at all!
Jokes aside, the Deutschlandticket is so brand new, they have hardly figured out the process for native germans yet, I got mine (free of charge) as a digital code linked to my student ID only a couple of months ago. Like as in, the process for that didn't exist before, the uni just mailed me with how to set that up literally at the start of this semester. Calling it a tourist trap is kind of hilarious, like I'm sitting here feeling a touch of national pride to learn that it's usable in any capacity for tourists at all. Like damn it's *that* easy? Tourist can do it? You don't need an adress here or a tax id code or anything? That's amazing, we're living in the future. Yeah yeah boohoo gotta cancel it within the tenth of the month, dude if I need something from my Bürgeramt, I've gotta book an appointment two months in advance
As a German, I fully agree.
As a student that got a Deutschlandticket instead of the normal buscard for my local area it is awesome that i can just go on any public transit vehicle up to Regional express and do a daytrip or weekend trip as a resident, finaly we have the transit tech of the netherlands :D
5:25 naja das zeigt dass bezahlbahre öffis halt einfach nicht mit dem privatmarkt vereinbar sind....
Probably because it's reasonably priced, to help residents and make up the difference on tourism...
Getting out of a gym contract.... or a Handy contract.... German nightmares :D
I recognize that people might get caught paying for a second or even third month before they figure things out, but as the video says: it's standard German practice. Just cancel immediately, no need to wait for the tenth day of the month. Tourists should be clued in because it is a subscription. it is going to need to be cancelled. just act proactively. by the way, while it is a good price, it has made traveling on regional trains (as opposed to city mass transit) a nightmare.
To be fair the terms are probably so bad on purpose to deter tourists from getting it since it's heavily subsidized meant for residents. As a Swiss I find it very weird though that it's sold by all kinds of regional transport companies instead of just one central company like for example DB.
How much is the transitional ticket ? I want to know how pricey it is in comparison : O
Cancellation takes seconds. When I buy the Ticket and cancel it immediatly ( this is how you buy the Ticket for one month only) I often get the cancellation confirmed, before i get confirmation for the opening of the subscription.
To announce a cancellation is very very short, it's only 20 days and a commitment.
Usually you have to quit 3 months in advance, like for your appartement, or 1 month in advance for most insurances.
So reducing it to 20 days makes a one month subscription possible. That's an advantage!
The only arbitrary thing is, to decide to sell the Ticket as subscription only.
But it's a monthly Ticket, no matter how you sell it.
So the tourist have to know buy and cancel the Ticket before the 11th of the month.
If they arrive on the 12th they need to buy it at home in advance!
Ich vermisse das 9€-Ticket.😢
ich auch aber die überfüllten Züge vermisse ich überhaupt nicht
D-Tickets are not meant for tourists and never will be. Even subscribing requires you to put your address of residency in Germany (even though people can put anything they want in the registration form).
The transport association I subscribed with was quite happy to accept an address of residence outside Germany. But yes, I agree the ticket isn't meant for tourists.
I think it’s terrible that it’s pushed as a digital subscription.
I would think that this could be much easier if it would be available as a one off payment and also available at ticket offices / ticket machines?
Then it would cost 400€
@@DanCojocaru2000 Slightly more expensive perhaps, but as much as €400? I doubt that it would get anywhere near that!
You make it sound like the name of a city, Andrew: the city of ForExampleFrankfurt, Germany. 😆😉
That's the less famous third Frankfurt: there's Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt an der Oder, Frankfurt for Example...
@@JuhanaSiren 😆
@@JuhanaSiren officially written as Frankfurt (Example), to really single out the main Frankfurt
@@kokowakou and also to distinguish from the oder Frankfurt
Don't remind me of that hell of a system 😢 Coming from Darmstadt, I always had to pay 3,25 € for just two stations going from Babenhausen to Aschaffenburg. And It always has to be paid in cash while riding the train because you can't buy it with a RMV ticket machine... In some cases, when I got a grumpy RMV seller in the train, he started to accuse me of not coming to him at the start of the journey so he now "loses worthy time" by selling me the ticket and can't control other people 😂
I used the Deutschlandticket when I was visiting Germany for a month but I didn't understand what the cancellation meant so paid twice. Still fairly good but surely failing to pay means an immediate cancellation rather than legal action?
Why should it mean an immediate cancellation? You promised that company that you'll pay for the next month, the company is losing money until they get your money, so why shouldn't they sue you for you to keep your promise?
@@DanCojocaru2000 It's not a bill, it's a subscription. I haven't signed any contract that promises that I'll pay for the next month, only that I have money to pay for this month. Netflix doesn't sue me because my credit card expired and I never updated it, they'll just cancel my subscription until I resubscribe. T&Cs also don't count as agreeing to pay for next month because that would be deemed to be unreasonable here and thrown out.
You don't immediately get sued. First you're sent a reminder -- perhaps, as you say, your credit card expired or a bank transfer failed, so they don't just cancel the service, they first assume something went wrong with the payment. If you don't pay within two weeks of receiving the reminder (by which time the next month's ticket is already running), they send at least one reminder with the warning of possible legal action to be taken. If you still don't respond it usually goes to a debt collection agency; if you still don't pay you can be sent a formal demand for payment; and after that, _then_ they can sue.
In Germany it is perfectly legal to write T&Cs in which you, the customer, agree to continue paying the subscription fee until you cancel the subscription. The terms of a cancellation are also set out, and if the deadline is "by the 10th day of the calendar month", then that's the deadline, and if you miss it you are committed to paying the next month's fee as well. As long as those terms are made clear and not hidden away in the fine print or written in legalese that an average person would have difficulty in understanding, then they can be enforced.
If you buy it after the tenth, does that mean even if you cancel immediately you'll still be charged for the following month?
4:03 It's a fare question!
yes
It's not only cancelling the ticket which can be a confusing and unneccesary pain, signing up in the first place can be a bewildering hassle as well.
I tried to buy my Deutschlandticket through VBB, but the VBB only allows you to buy a ticket up to the 20th of the previous month in order for it to come into usage the next month. On the advice of some random commenter on the Internet, I wound up purchasing my ticket through the Stuttgart app, which allows you to purchase a Deutschlandticket up to four or five days into the current month. This random commenter told me to cancel immediately and then order a new ticket from VBB for the following month.
I have not done this, partly out of my own laziness but partly out of protest that I am expected to do this. I even had my method of payment expire and had to renew it a few months ago, and it was even before the end of the month but beyond the 20th, so VBB didn't let me buy my ticket; I simply re-upped it on the Stuttgart app. So I've been riding Berlin transit multiple times a week with a valid ticket, but the actual Berlin carrier has not gotten a cent from me for several years now; instead, Stuttgart's more sensible policies have resulted in a tiny windfall each month, as I've only been to Stuttgart once several years ago and have no intention of returning. Occasionally I get a niggling that I should indeed do my civic duty and make sure the VBB gets my tariff instead of Stuttgart, but I also don't want to reward Berlin bureacrats for having made my life slightly more annoying than it needed to be. (They do enough of that in so many other ways, anyway).
now the DB struggles with a huge scam. they withdrew the costs for the D-Ticket multie times from many customers. And totally fail to handle the problem. The whole DB has become a huge failure
3:20 Are they clearly laid out if a large subset of the purchasers don’t know it exists?
I had the opposite problem; the bank transfer never went through and after an email in German so formal I didn’t even register it as a threat, my case ended up going to inkasso before I even noticed the money hadn’t been withdrawn. It only ended up costing me an extra 30€, but it sure would have been nice if there was some other way to pay. Say, some kind of card? Maybe one for credit?
I very much hope, that they change terms and conditions so that you could book it on whatever day of the month and then use it for 30 or 31 days of course not as a subscription model, I’m already paying so much for my creative cloud, and my heated seats and steering wheel in my Bimmer. Not to forget the subscriptions, that I forgot about which I will pay for until the end of planet earth.
Obviously, the other companies can do that, but they don't _want_ to do that. They make much more on selling regular tickets to occasional customers, so they want it to be bothersome to cancel and they want people to pay for more than they wanted to. So in a sense, it is a scam, just a legally accepted one.
There should be an option of not having an automatic renewal, perfect for tourists but also for locals who want to try it out first for a few weeks and then decide
The price should be 400€ if the ticket doesn't have auto-renew. The whole point is that the ticket is very heavily subsidised for residents.
There are many comments saying ‘the ticket is not for tourists because they don’t pay taxes.’ This makes it sound as if it is reprehensible for tourists to buy the ticket, so extra high hurdles must be put in their way.
Foreign tourists spent a good €47 billion in Germany in 2019, about €1,175 per person. This results in additional revenue for the German state of about €8 billion. In total, about 40 million foreign tourists came to Germany. The figures come from Destatis. Even if tourists don’t pay income taxes, the economy, municipalities, states, and the federal government benefit from them.
I just don’t get it. Everyone complains about too much bureaucracy in Germany. But where does it come from? Because, at any cost, we want to prevent someone from receiving a service they supposedly don’t deserve. In the end, we all harm ourselves with this.
Also, in 2024 there are still less visitors in Germany than pre-corona. Shouldn't we embrace the D-Ticket as simple, non bureaucratic way to support the tourism industry? But then it has to be developped to something that can be acquired more easily, such as a monthly ticket with a flexible start date.
What‘s your issue though? Tourists can still get the Deutschlandticket just like anyone else. In other countries like Spain tourists are always treated worse than locals. Higher taxi prices from airports, local only prices etc. In Germany you get free autobahn, deutschlandticket and still people like you complain. Lol. Where is the 49€ spain, france, italy ticket?
@@rudimussrodeln I don't complain. But if you don't see that, it's worthless to explain to you...
Tourists are mostly a negative for Germany. The housing crisis, overcrowded cities and public transport are fueled by tourism. It doesn't make sense to spend tax payer money to incentivise even more tourists to crowd into already overburdened trains. That's why the D-Ticket was designed to discourage use by tourists.
Koblenz is stressed on the first syllable.
"and most of them have the kind of cancellation policy that Germans find pretty normal"
No we don't! In my circle of friends and acquaintances, nobody thinks this cancellation period is normal. Not ugly normal nor pretty normal. This is what happens when 16 politicians sit around a table and discuss the terms and conditions for something that they have no idea of.
Aren't there rules in place in the EU that cancelling a subscription has to be as easy as setting it up ?
It is easy. It just takes time for the vendor to process it.
So the TLDR is that you should immediately cancel the moment after you have subscribed as it will take like 3 weeks and you probably only need a months travel.
Das Problem ist die Mentalität "Das haben wir schon immer so gemacht."/ "Das haben wir noch nie so gemacht."
Yeah but which Frankfurt are you in?
My 2 Cents, have the ticket be valid for 4 weeks / 28 days from the date of the purchase.
(Edit: Optional, if you have bought 12 tickets, you get the 13th for free.)
Since it is digital auto-renewing ticket, you should have no problems whit there being more than 28 days in a month, other having to pay twice in two months of the year (e.g. for 2024 January and September)
Keep it at 1 month and you can simply select what day of the month your pass starts. Moving it to 28 days would just cause unncessary confusion.
There, of course, should be a week long tourist version of the D-ticket. It could even be a bit more expensive than the equivalent period for a full monthly ticket. It's obvious.