Railways

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:56 am

It's only going to get more uneven and hard to predict - apparently the government wants TOCs to move to a pricing system similar to aeroplane tickets, where the pricing increases with demand. All this despite evidence that the elasticities on most of GB's rail lines are such that reducing ticket prices would increase overall revenue to most TOCs, through increased patronage. Sense, alas, fails to prevail.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:02 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:56 am
It's only going to get more uneven and hard to predict - apparently the government wants TOCs to move to a pricing system similar to aeroplane tickets, where the pricing increases with demand. All this despite evidence that the elasticities on most of GB's rail lines are such that reducing ticket prices would increase overall revenue to most TOCs, through increased patronage. Sense, alas, fails to prevail.
Why do you think that means increase fares? It may increase fares for the trains on Friday early evening or Monday morning that are proper rammed. But mostly, if you abolished the rule that the standard full fare is the only fare for peak-time trains, and made demand-related fares available for all trains, then it would reduce fares for the great majority of peak-time intercity trains that are currently relatively lightly occupied. Off peak, the great majority are paying some demand-related fare already.

In fact, it sounds pretty much like a recommendation I once made in a paper on the subject. My aim was to reduce fares and getting more bums on seats on those many lightly-filled peak-hour intercity trains, which are currently an under-utilised but valuable resource. But I think it will reduce revenue, not increase it. Because if it increased revenue, the train companies would probably have found a way to do it a long time ago.

As you imply, the highest fares have high elasticities, from which a over-simplified interpretation is that they should come down to make more money. But more broadly, overall fare elasticities are around unity, which is a reflection of the success of the largely demand-related fare system that we have, and implies revenue maximisation. The highest fares are focused on a lower elasticity sub-market, and other fares are available and mostly used by the rest of the market.

Clearly, TOCs already considerably charge like airlines. Most people are travelling on some kind of discount fare. The number of fare levels for any single journey is numerous. So I can only presume what they must mean is to make demand-related fares also available on those trips in the timetable where they aren't already available.

Plainly there is still a demand for fares with flexibility. We won't move to a model where every ticket is precisely timed, like airlines, as that would not be very clever. And there is still a demand for, and it is important to provide for, walk-up fares. An issue is making walk-up fares fairer. Your aged relative is taken ill, and you have to go to other end of the country now.

And I presume that this applies to longer distance, intercity, type fares. We don't want to be doing this on commuter lines, short trips, etc. In fact, we have demand-related fares too widely at the moment. We should have a clearer delineation between intercity type trips that are demand-related, and the rest that are on standard, but reasonable, fares.

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:36 am

IvanV wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 10:02 am
El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 8:56 am
It's only going to get more uneven and hard to predict - apparently the government wants TOCs to move to a pricing system similar to aeroplane tickets, where the pricing increases with demand. All this despite evidence that the elasticities on most of GB's rail lines are such that reducing ticket prices would increase overall revenue to most TOCs, through increased patronage. Sense, alas, fails to prevail.
Why do you think that means increase fares? It may increase fares for the trains on Friday early evening or Monday morning that are proper rammed. But mostly, if you abolished the rule that the standard full fare is the only fare for peak-time trains, and made demand-related fares available for all trains, then it would reduce fares for the great majority of peak-time intercity trains that are currently relatively lightly occupied. Off peak, the great majority are paying some demand-related fare already.

In fact, it sounds pretty much like a recommendation I once made in a paper on the subject. My aim was to reduce fares and getting more bums on seats on those many lightly-filled peak-hour intercity trains, which are currently an under-utilised but valuable resource. But I think it will reduce revenue, not increase it. Because if it increased revenue, the train companies would probably have found a way to do it a long time ago.

As you imply, the highest fares have high elasticities, from which a over-simplified interpretation is that they should come down to make more money. But more broadly, overall fare elasticities are around unity, which is a reflection of the success of the largely demand-related fare system that we have, and implies revenue maximisation. The highest fares are focused on a lower elasticity sub-market, and other fares are available and mostly used by the rest of the market.

Clearly, TOCs already considerably charge like airlines. Most people are travelling on some kind of discount fare. The number of fare levels for any single journey is numerous. So I can only presume what they must mean is to make demand-related fares also available on those trips in the timetable where they aren't already available.

Plainly there is still a demand for fares with flexibility. We won't move to a model where every ticket is precisely timed, like airlines, as that would not be very clever. And there is still a demand for, and it is important to provide for, walk-up fares. An issue is making walk-up fares fairer. Your aged relative is taken ill, and you have to go to other end of the country now.

And I presume that this applies to longer distance, intercity, type fares. We don't want to be doing this on commuter lines, short trips, etc. In fact, we have demand-related fares too widely at the moment. We should have a clearer delineation between intercity type trips that are demand-related, and the rest that are on standard, but reasonable, fares.
Fare elasticities on most GB lines are such that decreasing fares would increase revenues. Prior to the pandemic, that made little difference as many trains were full and getting more people on board wasn't a priority. We're in a different world now, one which the TOCs, whose franchises are being funded very differently than before, have got used to high fares and RPI+ fare increases in most years. The idea that reducing fares could benefit people isn't being thought about after such a long time of fares going only one way.

Economics flew out of the window a long time ago, especially with the DfT responded to the ironically economically-illiterate Treasury, who responded to record drops in passenger numbers during the pandemic by putting fares up in Jan 2021 and 2022, only for Shapps to backtrack and say, "oh sh.t, let's have a little sale". The DfT seems to have a very strong economic orthodoxy ruling its thinking (driven as it is by HMT), and they find it very hard to break out of that.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:07 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 11:36 am
Fare elasticities on most GB lines are such that decreasing fares would increase revenues.
...
The idea that reducing fares could benefit people isn't being thought about after such a long time of fares going only one way.
I would be interested to know what evidence you have for the first point, because I can't find any.

On the second point, certainly the idea that reducing fares could benefit people is something that has been very little thought about, and was very much a focus of my writing on the subject. DfT have been above all concerned to maximise income, rather than passenger benefit. And they tend to devise things in a way that means that passenger benefit can fail to be delivered, even when it is available. For example, they promote a capital scheme, whose appraisal shows passenger benefit. But then they fail to ensure that the fares consistent with that are charged, and instead the TOC takes best revenue advantage regardless of passenger benefit.

The rest of this post is about the evidence on elasticities.

While franchises were still on revenue risk, I'm pretty sure that TOCs would have been reducing fares if that was how they would increase income, because that is what franchised TOCs are good at. Now they are all off revenue risk and do what they are told and what's the point in arguing. So it is plausible that they are now being perverse on fares.

I only have sight of PDFH up to V5.1 (2013). For other readers, PDFH is the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook - Government's official method of rail demand forecasting. It's not a public document and I was no longer working for a subscribing organisation when V6 came out in 2018, nor had sufficient reason to have sight of it after that point. I do know quite well the contact mentioned on this page which talks about the PDFH, but I don't wish to abuse my relationship with him by asking him to slip me an illicit copy.

In PDFH 5.1, most fare elasticities are (ignoring the sign) less than unity, mostly quite a lot less than unity. The exception are the leisure and "other" which are at or above unity. The evidence underlying that is a 2004 study, Review of Fare Elasticities in Great Britain, by Mark Wardman and Jeremy Shires available at this link. That's almost 20 years old now. But since then there has been a lot more discounting fares to leisure passengers to make the more money out of them, as those elasticities imply was possible. And it doesn't imply that commuters, business travel, etc which is a lot of travel, would travel sufficiently more if fares were reduced to make money. But that is 20 years old and fares are in a different place now, so maybe they are now different. In particular, I would expect leisure elasticities reduced at actual fares charged since 2004.

I don't know what evidence on fares elasticities was used by PDFH 6, nor have I found any more recent papers on it. I see there is a 2016 report for DfT, Rail Demand Forecasting Estimation, by ITS, LeighFisher, Rand and SYSTRA, available at this link. I guess this is a major part of the evidence for PDFH 6. Annoyingly it was not the aim of that study to consider fare elasticities. Where they quote elasticities from PDFH, those figures are redacted. But they can't estimate the other elasticities without putting fare in the model, so we see quite a lot of estimations in Chapter 4 which spit out fare elasticities for various markets, using 5 different models. And nearly all those elasticities are quite a lot less than unity, in all 5 models. Then in Chapter 5, they do some backcasting, and all the elasticities in their preferred models are less than unity.

So even as late as 2016, there is some considerable evidence that elasticities in most markets - as aggregated to some level - are less than unity.

But you may be right that Covid changed everything, and now there are bits of market around with elasticities above unity, where reducing fares would increase demand more than proportionately and income would go up. I would be grateful to know what evidence you are able to quote of that.

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:13 pm

Unfortunately, all the evidence is internal, and likely to stay so for as long as the DfT prefer to keep their fingers in their ears and policy stays as it is. Which I'm aware makes what I'm saying sound like b.llsh.t as it's an easy excuse, but it's all I've got. But the chap who did the modelling, sat behind me today, is a strong advocate of fare reduction in many parts of the UK as a way to increase both revenue and ridership in an era where both could do with a boost.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by dyqik » Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:50 pm

Public transit - including airlines which have reduced prices - is definitely under used right now.

I'm sat on a rush hour commuter train that used to be standing room only, where only half the seats are occupied now, every day.

My recent domestic US flights have not been full

Fares are only one factor though. For my commuter trains, they've dropped the express service.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8241
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Wed Feb 22, 2023 4:38 pm

I don't know if it's related to me buying Freccarossa tickets or related googling or just a coincidence but I'm now seeing a few stories popping up about the Terzo Valico high-speed rail line between Tortona* and Genova and that most of it is in tunnels. Somehow it indicates 90 km of tunnels for 53 km of line.

It's projected to cut the Milano-Genova journey time from 1 h 39 mins to 50 minutes.

* - the wiki says, wrongly, that Tortona is near Milan. It's not. It's less than half of the way to Milan from Genova.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:03 pm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortona%E2%80%93Genoa_high-speed_railway wrote:The line will be 53 kilometres (33 mi) long, 36 kilometres (22.4 mi) of which being tunnels.[4] In addition to the line itself, a further 25 kilometres (16 mi) of branches connecting the railway to various existing lines are also planned.[2][5] The estimated cost for construction of the railway is €6.2 billion.
Just €6.2bn for 78km of new high speed railway, 36 km being in tunnel, through a mountain range, arriving in a densely populated city.

Even if the cost overrun is 100%, it's yet another indication that we don't build railways in a sensible way in this country.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: Railways

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:28 am

IvanV wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:03 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortona%E2%80%93Genoa_high-speed_railway wrote:The line will be 53 kilometres (33 mi) long, 36 kilometres (22.4 mi) of which being tunnels.[4] In addition to the line itself, a further 25 kilometres (16 mi) of branches connecting the railway to various existing lines are also planned.[2][5] The estimated cost for construction of the railway is €6.2 billion.
Just €6.2bn for 78km of new high speed railway, 36 km being in tunnel, through a mountain range, arriving in a densely populated city.

Even if the cost overrun is 100%, it's yet another indication that we don't build railways in a sensible way in this country.
There’s also two railway tunnels under construction which run under the Alps.

The Mont d'Ambin Base Tunnel, 57.5km with a budget of 8.6 billion Euro.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_d%27 ... ase_Tunnel
http://www.telt.eu/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 18_ENG.pdf

The Brenner Base Tunnel, 55km with a budget of 8.384 billion Euro.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenner_Base_Tunnel

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: Railways

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:58 am

dyqik wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:50 pm
Public transit - including airlines which have reduced prices - is definitely under used right now.

I'm sat on a rush hour commuter train that used to be standing room only, where only half the seats are occupied now, every day.

My recent domestic US flights have not been full

Fares are only one factor though. For my commuter trains, they've dropped the express service.
Could that be due to increased work from home offices and greater use of videoconferencing?

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:20 am

IvanV wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 5:03 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortona%E2%80%93Genoa_high-speed_railway wrote:The line will be 53 kilometres (33 mi) long, 36 kilometres (22.4 mi) of which being tunnels.[4] In addition to the line itself, a further 25 kilometres (16 mi) of branches connecting the railway to various existing lines are also planned.[2][5] The estimated cost for construction of the railway is €6.2 billion.
Just €6.2bn for 78km of new high speed railway, 36 km being in tunnel, through a mountain range, arriving in a densely populated city.

Even if the cost overrun is 100%, it's yet another indication that we don't build railways in a sensible way in this country.
Even worse than that, there isn't really much effort to systematically (perhaps even empirically) find out exactly why things cost so much here, where things could be made better, and how to make them cost less. Network Rail don't care, HS2 don't care, DfT don't care. Yes, there are ideas and areas of focus from time to time, and some things are known, but across the piece? Nah.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:31 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:20 am
Even worse than that, there isn't really much effort to systematically (perhaps even empirically) find out exactly why things cost so much here, where things could be made better, and how to make them cost less. Network Rail don't care, HS2 don't care, DfT don't care. Yes, there are ideas and areas of focus from time to time, and some things are known, but across the piece? Nah.
And the engineering contractors who carry out all the heavy work are quids in on a massive scale. I suspect that must be a major vested interest helping preserve this don't-care-about-how-much-it-costs problem.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by dyqik » Thu Feb 23, 2023 10:59 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 8:58 am
dyqik wrote:
Wed Feb 22, 2023 1:50 pm
Public transit - including airlines which have reduced prices - is definitely under used right now.

I'm sat on a rush hour commuter train that used to be standing room only, where only half the seats are occupied now, every day.

My recent domestic US flights have not been full

Fares are only one factor though. For my commuter trains, they've dropped the express service.
Could that be due to increased work from home offices and greater use of videoconferencing?
A chunk of it, yes. There's probably some CoVID averse element of avoiding public transit as well.

Road traffic is back to roughly where it was before, though (by my looking at journey times on Google maps estimate).

The lack of an express train does change the the balance between driving and using the train - it's now slightly slower for me to take the train than drive where it used to be 20 minutes faster.

But the fact that the station parking lots are less than half full now rather than completely full by 7am makes taking the train a bit easier, and it is cheaper (with my work paying for most of the train ticket) since work reinstated parking charges.

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8241
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Fri Feb 24, 2023 6:47 pm

shpalman wrote:
Tue Feb 21, 2023 6:04 pm
I'm going to Turin for the weekend, and while it's not that bad of a drive the hotel and the venues are actually in the city and I'm not sure if the hotel has parking or if it's free, so I looked at the trains...

And I booked the high-speed Freccia Rossa between Milan and Turin, roughly €30 each way. It takes an hour to do about 140 km (the normal train takes about two hours and would have been about €11 each way). Yes I have to add about €10 to get from Como to Milan and back (about 50 km). (The Freccia Rossa tickets specify a particular train but they can be changed. The Friday one is too soon to be able to book the even cheaper non-flexible one, but the Monday one wasn't, but I still went for the flexible option.)

It would otherwise cost me about €40 in petrol and a similar amount in motorway tolls to get there and back. Obviously for people who don't hate other people, sharing a car becomes economical. (Although some friends' ride to Brescia from Milan on Sunday decided he didn't feel like it so they needed another solution at the last minute and then left quite early, so that's what you get for relying on other people.)

Any comments on the costs/timings of a similar length of journey in the UK, booked in advance but not that far in advance?
I think we were about 10-15 minutes late... the train picked up a delay somewhere during the ~11 hours between literally the other end of Italy (Reggio Calabria) and Milano.

I noticed that the penultimate stop was closer to my hotel than the last stop but nobody sh.t the cock about getting off early.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
nekomatic
Dorkwood
Posts: 1376
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:04 pm

Re: Railways

Post by nekomatic » Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:37 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:20 am
Even worse than that, there isn't really much effort to systematically (perhaps even empirically) find out exactly why things cost so much here, where things could be made better, and how to make them cost less.
A recent opinion on the subject
Move-a… side, and let the mango through… let the mango through

User avatar
Sciolus
Dorkwood
Posts: 1313
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 6:42 pm

Re: Railways

Post by Sciolus » Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:27 pm

nekomatic wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:37 pm
El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:20 am
Even worse than that, there isn't really much effort to systematically (perhaps even empirically) find out exactly why things cost so much here, where things could be made better, and how to make them cost less.
A recent opinion on the subject
Someone upthread whined that the EIA for HS2 amounted to something like a quarter of the total cost; which of course turned out to be total bollocks, it was actually a minuscule fraction.

This is a much better article. And so is this.

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Wed Mar 01, 2023 10:29 am

Sciolus wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 9:27 pm
nekomatic wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:37 pm
El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:20 am
Even worse than that, there isn't really much effort to systematically (perhaps even empirically) find out exactly why things cost so much here, where things could be made better, and how to make them cost less.
A recent opinion on the subject
Someone upthread whined that the EIA for HS2 amounted to something like a quarter of the total cost; which of course turned out to be total bollocks, it was actually a minuscule fraction.

This is a much better article. And so is this.
Flyvbjerg (quoted in Sciolus's Harford links) is the world's leading expert on why megaprojects consistently overrun and are late in all jurisdictions. I'm not sure if he has written on why British projects can have pre-overrun projected costs higher than continental post-overrun out-turn costs. Dnes (nekomatic's link) at least explores an element of that.

Spending practically the whole reasonable budget for a project before even putting a spade in the ground is a pretty impressive trick we pull off rather too often in this country.

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:30 pm

Too early to know the causes of the Larissa train crash, but from the photos, the freight train (to me) appears to be on the right-hand track, which in Europe is the typical one trains travel on. That suggests the passenger train was travelling on the wrong track, though I'm not sure how that could have happened. Possible options include a signal passed at danger, a wrong route from the signaller, or a strike to the motorway bridge which knocked the passenger train into the path of the freight train. I don't think that last one is possible, the rear of the passenger train seems stable enough on the other track.

Apparently, a local station master has been arrested, but for the life of me I don't understand how he can be responsible, unless the signalling system is a token block system and he held the token.

Edit: Suggestion here that the signalling systems* were, in a word, shite:
"Nothing works. Everything happens manually throughout the Athens-Thessaloniki network. Neither the indicators, nor the traffic lights, nor the electronic traffic control work," train drivers' association president Kostas Genidounias told ERT.
Ahem. "Traffic lights". FFS.



*Helpfully described to the layperson as "electronic systems" - thanks, BBC.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:38 pm

Apparently the station master is in charge of signalling. WTF.
BBC wrote:Station master charged with manslaughter by negligence
We're just hearing now the station master of the city of Larissa has been charged with manslaughter by negligence.

Police say the 59-year-old has also been charged with grievous bodily harm by negligence.

The station master, who is in charge of signalling, denies any wrongdoing and has blamed the accident on a possible technical failure.

Investigators are trying to find out why the two trains were on the same track when they crashed near Larissa.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

IvanV
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2659
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 11:12 am

Re: Railways

Post by IvanV » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:55 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:38 pm
Apparently the station master is in charge of signalling. WTF.
Perhaps "Station Master of the City of Larissa" is in effect something like the regional operations director, rather than what station master would mean in English.

If the signalling equipment was unsafely defective, it makes more sense to arrest the manager in charge of it than the signaller in the signal box. On the other hand, nothing I have ever heard about the Greek justice system gives me much confidence in it.

Scrap that. I've just read this, which describes a 2008 incident near Larissa station with a manual signalling error. The station master is the signaller, it would appear.
Last edited by IvanV on Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
El Pollo Diablo
Stummy Beige
Posts: 3323
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:41 pm
Location: FBPE

Re: Railways

Post by El Pollo Diablo » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:56 pm

No idea about how Greek rail crashes are investigated, but I'd hope they'd have a system similar to RAIB.
If truth is many-sided, mendacity is many-tongued

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8241
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Wed Mar 01, 2023 4:12 pm

I think this is where the crash was: Google Maps; in case anyone wants to follow along the line looking for sets of points or something.
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

User avatar
nekomatic
Dorkwood
Posts: 1376
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 3:04 pm

Re: Railways

Post by nekomatic » Wed Mar 01, 2023 9:08 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:30 pm
Ahem. "Traffic lights". FFS.
Perhaps that’s ERT’s helpful translation into English for the benefit of foreign broadcasters, possibly machine-assisted.
Move-a… side, and let the mango through… let the mango through

User avatar
Fishnut
After Pie
Posts: 2447
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:15 pm
Location: UK

Re: Railways

Post by Fishnut » Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:28 pm

I'm sure this has been discussed before but I cba to read through all the previous pages on this thread.

Can someone explain to me the funding differences that means that UK passengers are seeing increases of 5.9% to their tickets while Germany can offer an unlimited ticket for all public transport for €49/month?
it's okay to say "I don't know"

User avatar
shpalman
Princess POW
Posts: 8241
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:53 pm
Location: One step beyond
Contact:

Re: Railways

Post by shpalman » Mon Mar 06, 2023 3:37 pm

Fishnut wrote:
Mon Mar 06, 2023 2:28 pm
I'm sure this has been discussed before but I cba to read through all the previous pages on this thread.

Can someone explain to me the funding differences that means that UK passengers are seeing increases of 5.9% to their tickets while Germany can offer an unlimited ticket for all public transport for €49/month?
If I want something equivalent but just for Lombardy it's €110 per month or €1059 for the whole year (although I'd get a discount via my job for the annual one).
having that swing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it meaning a thing
@shpalman@mastodon.me.uk

Post Reply