I wish we had a unified ticketing system so I could get a monthly pass to cover both train, and bus.
It’s not just the ticketing system.
Anecdotally, I needed to commute around 130 km from the Netherlands to Belgium for like half a year 3-4 days a week. The cheapest option (over buses, train, everything) was to rent a car each week from Avis. Eurostar, NS and SCNB should go to hell, how is me renting a car and fueling it less expensive than a train seat for the literal same route? In the Benelux?
And adding on top of that, the first train of the day has had a non-connection where the connecting train left 3 minutes earlier than the one taking me there, so that also limited how early could I get to where I needed to be.
On the other hand, I’ve reached the highest tier Booking discount tier in like 2 months so that’s nice.
Railways are often considered a typical example of a natural monopoly. The very high costs of laying track and building a network, as well as the costs of buying or leasing the trains, would prohibit, or deter, the entry of a competitor.
To society, the costs associated with building and running a rival network would be wasteful.
It’s not just the ticketing system.
Anecdotally, I needed to commute around 130 km from the Netherlands to Belgium for like half a year 3-4 days a week. The cheapest option (over buses, train, everything) was to rent a car each week from Avis. Eurostar, NS and SCNB should go to hell, how is me renting a car and fueling it less expensive than a train seat for the literal same route? In the Benelux?
And adding on top of that, the first train of the day has had a non-connection where the connecting train left 3 minutes earlier than the one taking me there, so that also limited how early could I get to where I needed to be.
On the other hand, I’ve reached the highest tier Booking discount tier in like 2 months so that’s nice.
Car rental companies operate in a competitive market, as do gas stations. Competitive markets are pretty good at driving prices down.
Trains tend not to.
https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/business_economics/natural_monopolies.html/