Latest Posts

Analysis, European Union, Ticketing

“We can’t transport more passengers because our planes are already full” – said Michael O’Leary. Never. So why are rail companies saying essentially that?

It’s a pretty obvious point if you think about it. If all of Ryanair’s planes were all running full, all the time, what would Michael O’Leary (CEO of Ryanair) do? He’d order more planes. And yes, that’d mean more maintenance facilities and more staff and more costs. But it would […]

Austria, Belgium, Czechia, European Union, France, Germany, Newsletter, Poland, Switzerland

VDV on cross border re-activation of lines – nice idea, details more sketchy

The Verband Deutscher Verkehrsunternehmen (VDV) (Association of German Transport Companies) has a detailed new website about reactivation of railway lines, and a PDF report with more detail. And one aspect of their proposals are cross-border reactivations that they have been publicising with the little infographic that I reproduce here. So […]

European Union, France, Germany, Newsletter

A partial #CrossBorderRail success – Deutsche Bahn Sparpreis cheap tickets now work to Strasbourg and to some other destination in Eastern France

Credit to one of my students at TU Braunschweig, Roland Sivonen, for discovering this one – Deutsche Bahn’s cheap Sparpreis train tickets now work correctly from Germany to Strasbourg, and some other new destinations in France as well. In this blog post I am going to explain how this change can […]

Germany, Quick takes

Berlin’s problem with dumped cars

It is a pernicious combination. Parking on the street is free in most of Berlin, and the city’s administration deficient – there is even a lack of clarity as to who is supposed to clear such wrecks. So that means Berlin is extremely slow to deal with cars dumped and […]