Germany VS UK travel costs

[cactustwirly]

If you look at Hamburg to Berlin, and Birmingham to London, very similar journeys, there's a surprising price difference.

Travelling on the 12th March, at around 1200.

The ICE train from Hamburg to Berlin (1235 - 1420) is 29,90 Euros for a Super Sparpreis (Advance)
Or 83 Euros for a Flexpreis, basically Anytime Day Single (no off peak tickets)

The Virgin train from Birmingham to London at 1250, is £8.50 for an Advance, £35 for a flexible single (Super Off-peak) or £55 (Off-peak), and the Anytime single is £89.

Ok it's difficult to compare directly, but still interesting.

 

[Spoorslag '70]

London-Birmingham is so cheap because of real competition between different franchised operators! That's just something we don't get in Germany. The various TOCs operating regional trains usually have to follow the Verbunds-/Landestarif and the only respectable player for long-distance trains is DB Fernverkehr, wholly owned by DB AG, wholly owned by our "competent" nation.

A slightly more intresting route might be Köln-Hamburg, about 355km (as the corw flies):
Flixtrain offers Advance singles from 9.99€, looking for 12th March (11.01 ex Köln), I get a price of 14,99€.
DB offers tickets from 19.90€, looking for 12th March, I get a price of 29.90€ for the 11.09 IC or 19.90€ when using ICEs via Hannover, Flexpreis at 93€ or 103€ respectively.

Now consider that you can get 25% off with a Bahncard (staring at 19.90€ for 3 months or 10€ for five years for anyone under 18 - dirt cheap!) but also - quite importantly - realise, that Flix only offers one or two trains per day on it's routes, in this case meaning that you will have to travel on the 11.01 ex Köln whilst DB offers loads of trains all day long. If the Flix is cancelled, you will need to get yourself a ticket for DB and get it paid back, which (rather unsuprisingly) is quite complicated.

Let's look at London-Birmingham again: There are three TOCs offering very frequent services, with slightly different journey times and stations (Chiltern). Due to this, they have to offer either a better service (I think of Chiltern's Mk3 sets with their very decent legroom) or very cheap prices: Virgin starts at £5, Chiltern at £5.50 and WMR at £7. I can not comment on the aviabillity of these fares, but that is very cheap. If your train is cancelled, you still have enough other options your ticket will be valid on (even obeying operator restrictions). It's pretty much the same on flexible tickets, but the WMR ones are slightly cheaper.

The big plus is that the British network has off-peak walkup tickets, so that you can still take any train you want for a smaller price and a slight restriciton in valdility. In Germany (on Fernverkehr tickets), this only exists by weekday (Monday and Friday should be the most expensive days and Tuesday and Wednesday the cheapest), makin off-peak flexible travel quite expensive. I can only remember travelling on a Flexpreis once and that was for Köln-Duisburg, where it was cheaper than a Sparpreis (at short notice for the goods line from Köln to Duisburg).

 

[radamfi]

Or 83 Euros for a Flexpreis, basically Anytime Day Single (no off peak tickets)

So the maximum fare with a BahnCard 50 is 41.50.

Also the example here compares the 200 km/h WCML with a proper high speed line.

 

[swt class 450]

The regional trains are a lot cheaper though. You can get anywhere in Germany using entirely regional trains (although it will take longer than the intercity and high speed trains of course) for quite cheap prices. They also have a very good value Day Rover ticket (i can't remember the name off the top of my head) giving unlimited travel on all regional trains in Germany for one day.

 

[Spoorslag '70]

The regional trains are a lot cheaper though. You can get anywhere in Germany using entirely regional trains (although it will take longer than the intercity and high speed trains of course) for quite cheap prices. They also have a very good value Day Rover ticket (i can't remember the name off the top of my head) giving unlimited travel on all regional trains in Germany for one day.

Going back to my previous Köln-Hamburg example: Roughly twice as long journey times for 44€ (Quer-Durchs-Land-Ticket, the rover you were thinking of) after 09.00, the regular price is a whopping 69.70€.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Also bear in mind the present exchange rate is quite poor. For the cost of living to be the same you’d need a rate of about 1.5, and that makes DB much better value.

 

[30907]

So the maximum fare with a BahnCard 50 is 41.50.

Also the example here compares the 200 km/h WCML with a proper high speed line.

Hambur-Berlin is IIRC max 230km/h.

 

[Ianno87]

Hambur-Berlin is IIRC max 230km/h.

Correct.

 

[cactustwirly]

London-Birmingham is so cheap because of real competition between different franchised operators! That's just something we don't get in Germany. The various TOCs operating regional trains usually have to follow the Verbunds-/Landestarif and the only respectable player for long-distance trains is DB Fernverkehr, wholly owned by DB AG, wholly owned by our "competent" nation.

A slightly more intresting route might be Köln-Hamburg, about 355km (as the corw flies):
Flixtrain offers Advance singles from 9.99€, looking for 12th March (11.01 ex Köln), I get a price of 14,99€.
DB offers tickets from 19.90€, looking for 12th March, I get a price of 29.90€ for the 11.09 IC or 19.90€ when using ICEs via Hannover, Flexpreis at 93€ or 103€ respectively.

Now consider that you can get 25% off with a Bahncard (staring at 19.90€ for 3 months or 10€ for five years for anyone under 18 - dirt cheap!) but also - quite importantly - realise, that Flix only offers one or two trains per day on it's routes, in this case meaning that you will have to travel on the 11.01 ex Köln whilst DB offers loads of trains all day long. If the Flix is cancelled, you will need to get yourself a ticket for DB and get it paid back, which (rather unsuprisingly) is quite complicated.

Let's look at London-Birmingham again: There are three TOCs offering very frequent services, with slightly different journey times and stations (Chiltern). Due to this, they have to offer either a better service (I think of Chiltern's Mk3 sets with their very decent legroom) or very cheap prices: Virgin starts at £5, Chiltern at £5.50 and WMR at £7. I can not comment on the aviabillity of these fares, but that is very cheap. If your train is cancelled, you still have enough other options your ticket will be valid on (even obeying operator restrictions). It's pretty much the same on flexible tickets, but the WMR ones are slightly cheaper.

The big plus is that the British network has off-peak walkup tickets, so that you can still take any train you want for a smaller price and a slight restriciton in valdility. In Germany (on Fernverkehr tickets), this only exists by weekday (Monday and Friday should be the most expensive days and Tuesday and Wednesday the cheapest), makin off-peak flexible travel quite expensive. I can only remember travelling on a Flexpreis once and that was for Köln-Duisburg, where it was cheaper than a Sparpreis (at short notice for the goods line from Köln to Duisburg).

I get your point about competition, I was trying to find a routes in both countries that were similar.

What about Berlin - Leipzig/London - Leicester?
Both classic lines with 200kph linespeed, and similar journey times.

The 1230 - 1342 ICE, is 19,90 Sparpreis and 50 Euros Flexpreis.

The 1234 London - Leicester HST (not a ICE I know) 1234 - 1342, is £23 for an advance, or £63 for a Super Of peak single, £89.50 for an Anytime Day Single.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Hambur-Berlin is IIRC max 230km/h.

A bit more like the WCML upgrade, really (or what PUG2 might have taken us to), rather than a new-build LGV.

 

[swt class 450]

How exactly does Germany decide what train fares to charge? Is it done based on the amount of kilometres like some other countries or is done more randomly like we do here in the UK?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It used to be kilometric (and I think the regional fares still may be in some form) but for ICE it's market priced like here.

 

[Fireless]

How exactly does Germany decide what train fares to charge? Is it done based on the amount of kilometres like some other countries or is done more randomly like we do here in the UK?

The DB fare system is based on fixed prices for each journey (the so-called "Relationspreise"), which are not only based on distance but also on factors such as "comfort" and speed (Cologne to Frankfurt via the shorter high-speed line is more expensive than via the significantly slower but longer "Rheintal" line), and train class (ICE, IC, "Nahrverkehr").

Yet, most of the "Nahrverkehr" fare system is done by either the "Bundesland" or the "Verkehrsverbund" using their own distance-based (usually a zonal system) system and the DB's yield management has a habit of flooding the market with various more-or-less cheap tickets at random.