Mastodawn

Moritz Krähe Mar 23

With legislation on rail ticketing due from the European Commission this spring, how can policymakers - who never normally see the problem - be shown it in a fun way?

The idea: the European Railway Ticketing Championship
https://jonworth.eu/a-silly-idea-to-prove-a-point-the-european-railway-ticketing-championship/

Have a read and let me know what you think!

A silly idea to prove a point? The European Railway Ticketing Championship

With Regulations to finally sort the problems with purchasing tickets for trains, Europe-wide, due to be presented by the European Commission this spring, there remains a crucial problem: do the people who are drafting this legislation (in the Commission), deciding on it (in the Council of the EU and the

Jon Worth

Bruno Girin Mar 23

@jon Would you have special bonus points for finding a solution when you don't speak the language of the country you're going from or to?

Jon Worth Mar 23

@brunogirin We can add that as a criterion as well, yes. Albeit with quite a low weighting.

Tristram Gräbener Mar 23

@jon could be fun to watch.

But wouldn’t it take a too technical aspect?

“we need a better trainline/protocol/norm for ticket distribution” and it would undermine the need to force all the operators to transport passenger no matter what company was delayed, where you bought the ticket and of how many parts it’s made of.

(maybe I’m pushing a specific vision of passenger rights)

Jon Worth Mar 23

@tristramg the general point I want to underline: this is a total mess now, even for SIMPLE cross border journeys. That point is disputed by Community of European Railways, and some Member States. I just want that message hammered home.

Tristram Gräbener Mar 23

@jon ok, fair enough :) I’ll still worry that they’ll come up with a technical solution that will never work, but at least if they acknowledge the current situation it will be a progress

Tristram Gräbener Mar 23

@jon by the way, I’m trying to find out if the Barcelona>Corodova the 02/08/26 at 15:16 will ever run (it disappears if you look on a shorter horizon) and whether I should buy a SpainPass.
Can you hold the competition soon? ;)

Nico Huurman Mar 23

@jon
That's a great and fun idea :). The winning team should of course get an interrail ticket each. I'd be happy to contribute to croud fund the costs of setting this up.

210561 ✨ [Q]Mar 23

@jon I’d like to think I’d be pretty good at that, but in reality I’m probably hopelessly useless once Bahn.de no longer works

Jon Worth Mar 23

@q You're not going to be alone in that 🙂 And one of the things I am going to have to include is things where bahn(dot)de cannot plan you a route!

@jon @q just add "bahn.de got deleted by an intern who pushed test content again it is down, find a way through germany"

210561 ✨ [Q]Mar 23

@jon @maartje through Germany that’s fine, the Germans published NeTeX is in enough places. the bigger problem comes from other countries where the only sensible access to their data is via the Bahn

Martin Hoffmann Mar 23

@jon @q Easy: Make them use a Linux laptop without the ability to change the browser ID string.

(I don’t actually know if the fixed that one yet.)

Moritz Krähe Mar 23

@partim @jon @q What do you mean? I'm (often) on Linux and I've never had any issues with bahn.de?

Martin Hoffmann Mar 23

@moritzkraehe For a while, either searching or booking a ticket lead to an error claiming you are a bot, even if you were logged in and everything. Looks like at least right now this isn’t the case.

Andi Barth Mar 23

@moritzkraehe @partim @jon @q I said the same, and since then I regularly run into issues when searching for connections. As in "you clicked too fast, and now we're not showing you anything anymore".

SamuelJohnson Mar 23

@jon I laughed. Cute idea. FWIW

(To make playing easy, fast and to maximize participation)

Collect actual experiences in a database. Number them. Allocate points according to criteria you decide.

Assign routes to participants randomly.

Press play = reveal results.

Repeat with player with worst score being eliminated.

@jon do you need volunteers? i am in!

Jon Worth Mar 23

@maartje You were one of the people I had in mind as a participant, yes 🙂

Moof! 🔜 #JetLagTheGame NL Mar 23

@jon Put me down for helping out or participating…

Martin Hoffmann Mar 23

@jon Excellent idea. You’d have to hold it in Inari, though.

(Yes, that was a timetabling championship. I guess ticketing is the new timetabling.)

@partim @jon Had to think of Inari as well

neodog_mask_train_steam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trains%27n%27Roses

Trains'n'Roses - Wikipedia

@jon next level should be "here are a bunch of ticket machines you have 30 seconds to book a journey"

Jon Worth Mar 23

@maartje Like that old TV show "supermarket sweep" - ticket machine sweep. Platinum level: Paris terminals 🤣

@jon you need a ticket from TER station to TGV over RER to TGV to TER in other region, you hold 1 local 1 national discount card you have 1 minute

pglux.bsky.social Mar 23

There should be a super platinum level: a station in a typical 🇫🇷 rural sous-préfecture, where there's only 1 ticket vending machine, no staff whatsoever and driver-only operated trains.

Jon Worth Mar 23

@pglux.bsky.social And that ticket machine is one with the click wheel, does not accept your card, and there is no mobile signal for an online ticket. And then Securité Ferroviare suddenly appears when you board the train!

pglux.bsky.social Mar 23

Oh yes, the whole works 😬😬😬 "Œuf, jambon, fromage" 😋 And those TVMs have a very limited choice of destinations.

@pglux.bsky.social @jon staff is always out of scope in the contest

Braid in trains

- solidarity with

@maartje @jon No, no, no ! It involves an Eurostar ticket and you have an SNCF G30 discount code ! Take this !!!

@lewd @jon with a Eurostar discount card and SNCB Train+

Jon Worth Mar 23

@maartje @lewd is there any return in Belgium where that one trip alone justifies buying a Train+?

@jon @lewd youth and 120km+

@jon @lewd just an anytime 120km tarrif gets capped at 11 euro while 25,60 regular km tarrif. Price 1 month Train+ is 4 euro. Profit is 10,60

@jon @lewd the more fun case I was trying to unlock here was Eurostar + SNCB Intl connection ticket (EBS) with Train+ applied

Jon Worth Mar 23

@maartje @lewd all right. A version of that goes in 🙂

Eat This Podcast Mar 23

@jon I'd watch, especially if there were expert commentary.

plactagonic Mar 23

@jon I searched tickets for trip to France and I think it would be really funny to do that. I even struggled to find where to switch language on SNFC website so I don't have to use machine translation.

I would gladly be part of this if I will have time to do that.

cc @marketkag.bsky.social

Jon Worth Mar 23

@plactagonic @marketkag.bsky.social Can you please send me an email from the contact form linked in the article, so then I can email you re. follow up?

plactagonic Mar 23

@jon I just sent it.

Deine #LieblingsÆBahn

bahnland_bayern

@jon This sounds really fun – I guess the hardest problem would be to find enough people for the policy and industry teams

Jon Worth Mar 23

@aebahn Right. I am working on that! That will determine it it happens or not.

Tor Lillqvist Mar 23

@jon @aebahn I fear such a competition, if intended to cheekily show how hard it is to book cross-border rail journeys, will just lead to the guilty shrugging it off with No true Scotsman argumentation. ”You are coming up with intentionally hard irrelevant cases, no true customer will want to travel between X and Y by train. But let us show you how easy it is to buy a ticket between Paris and Frankfurt!”

Jon Worth Mar 23

@tml @aebahn I don't want to include fiendish things in there. Just even trips with 1 change are often hard enough!

Jon Worth Mar 23

@tml @aebahn And Paris-Frankfurt is not as easy as you think actually, as taking reduction cards into account is a mess, AND DB and SNCF operate different price regimes.

@jon maybe also with teams from booking platforms? I could see for example https://simpletrain.app/ competing to show off their tool.

SimpleTrain Ticketshop

Jon Worth Mar 23

@mondoman712 Yes, I have a few of them on my list to invite 🙂

Braid in trains

- solidarity with

@jon Oh, we somehow need a journey where the only correct answer is a Buchfahrkarte 🤓 !

@jon Great idea. How about a tie-breaker whete participants have to sing or identify railway company jingles?