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Comment by rcMgD2BwE72F | Hacker News Reader

Do you know that TGV tickets are very expensive? It's easy to say "faster and larger" when you can afford it. But fitting more people on a train make transportation cheaper for the mass.

I'm French and many friends and family would love to take TGV on holidays but have to ride by bus (search "cars Macron") or by ridesharing (Blablacar) due to the TGV prices.

SNCF recently re-launched some quite old trains under the low-cost "Ouigo Intercités" brand, because demand for cheap-but-slow transportation is more and more popular. I took one from Nantes to Paris this summer (many hours longer than by TGV) and will prefer it next time too. I could fit my bike for free there (vs 10€ in TGV, where I also usually have to disassemble beforehand).

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Compared to UK trains the TGV is half the price, twice the speed and double the legroom and cleaner. TGV standard class seats are as good as the First class seats on the West Coast main line.

The problem is that they’re competing against even cheaper air fares.

I thought short haul domestic flights were banned in France?

You should consider the SNCF Carte Avantage, which is only €49 at full price but goes on sale half off twice a year or so. It saves quite a bit of money on rail tickets, and not just within France.

I haven't taken the TGV in 10 years, but I don't remember it being "very expensive". It was somewhat expensive, but there were also plenty of ways to travel cheaply on the TGV, to the point of being competitive with low-cost air travel, when you account for the fact that getting to/from airports is not free and is time-consuming.

But maybe things have changed in the last 10 years?

Very expensive would be the bullet train in Japan.

The article didn’t mention it will get cheaper. To me it is a bit of a sugarcoating.

Making faster - too hard More seats - more profit Less energy - more profit AND better company image

Good MBA student.

The bus is a much better travel option anyway. Trying to make travel plans with SNCF is a nightmare with their constant strikes.

In which world is the bus not a nightmare?! Waiting for it at a random bus parking where nobody knows where it arrives, almost no ability to walk around nor go to the bathroom, less space than train, no access to your big luggage.. I'm not even talking about speed or efficiency.

Most buses on Europe have gps tracking and updated timetable available online, they are also fairly comfortable.

Most? Can I see the data? I'm imagining you and I exist in parallel Europes.

https://www.flixbus.com/track/

That's not really an answer to my question, but I did my best to dig out the data on this.

As far as I can tell, FlixBus indirectly employs ~7,000[0] drivers, which includes train drivers. There are around 692,000[1] buses in circulation in Europe today.

So I'm struggling to see how your comment supports the idea that most buses in Europe can be monitored with GPS.

[0]: https://www.iru.org/membership/members-directory/flixbus

[1]: https://www.acea.auto/fact/fact-sheet-buses/#:~:text=692%2C2....

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