Anyone needing proof that the IP system is horribly broken need look no further than here: the European Patent Office has invited me to a consultation in Munich in late April to bloviate on the strength of my piece in the Guardian last autumn denouncing software patents. I hope to learn something, too.
This being the EPO, they will fly me business class from the airport of my choice. So I thought I would be environmentally virtuous — and have a lot more fun — and take the train instead. I never have in fact travelled in Eurostar and good (ie non-British) trains are much more comfortable to work on than planes. They also stimulate more thought, becasue they pass through foreign countries rather than airports.
But when I look into it, the cheapest train tride I can get to Munich is £515 return, in second class; even Lufthansa is less than that (£453) and British Airways is £276. None of these air fares require that I share a couchette with strangers. If I want a first class train ride, it’s another couple of hundred pounds. I don’t feel I can stiff the Patent Office for more than a business class flight from Heathrow would cost. In the end I will probably end up flying coach from Stansted. It saves me about an hour’s travelling time each way, and the discomfort of a coach class seat is no greater than the discomfort of spending any time at all in Heathrow Airport. But I need to check that both flights would go to the same Munich airport (or Stockholm Munich, as Ryanair would call it).
The odd thing is that this has nothing much to do with deregulation, free markets, or anything like that. It is primarily a consequence of aviation fuel being tax-free, a purely political decision.
Have you tried looking for a train/hotel package? There’s one “here”:http://www.railbookers.com/breaks/germany/munich/5327
from £279/319 for 2/3 nights starting London.
Also do you have to travel overnight? You can get to Munich in the day from where you live. The journey along the Rhine is well worth it.
In the U.S., Amtrak is relatively heavily subsidized by the government. It is still equally expensive and often more expensive than air travel, and when you figure in the cost of dining, it is always more expensive than flying – and we haven’t started to figure in the cost of one’s time. A three hour flight from Los Angeles to San Antonio is a thirty hour train ride.
I don’t know what the tax structure on fuels is here, but I don’t believe there is any differentiation other than the federal and state taxes paid at the pump for vehicles – about 18 cents each here in California. There was a huge storm of controversy when the Clinton Administration proposed a European style fuel tax system with different uses being taxed differently, and the Clintons lost that fight in a hurry. An amusing political argument being made at the time was that “BTU” stood for “Buy Thermal Underwear” .
It seems to me that the higher cost of rail transportation has to do with higher labor costs. The cost per hour of operation may be lower on trains than on airlines, but with a trip time ratio of 1:10, the airlines are simply much, much more efficient per trip. Labor costs in the U.S. are, from my experience in construction, usually two-thirds to three quarters of the cost of any endeavor, and I am certain that labor costs form the majority of costs to any operation in the industrialized world.
The train just takes too damn long to get anywhere, and you have to pay the operators the entire time. Heh, perhaps if you paid the train workers on a per trip basis, they’d speed things up a bit . I know the Amtrak guys aren’t in a big hurry.
Peter, it turns out that they want me there by mid-afternoon, which a train won’t do without an overnight stay. I didn’t look into rail/hotel holidays, since my hotel is already organised. It would not be surprising if they were not cheaper than the rail travel on its own.
Xoebe — how long the train takes depends to some extent on how long it takes to get to and from an airport — the train will deliver you to the centre of the city. Heathrow airport is about two hours from here; the train station is five minutes. I know this matters less in the USA. Even there, though, I would rather take the train from Philadelphia to NYC than fly, because the journey into Manhattan from the airports is slow and ugly and fairly expensive.
I happen to have spent a lot of time on those trains and planes to Munich (lived there for two years and go there regularly) and unreservedly recommend for you to fly. It’s a ve-e-e-e-ery long train ride and you will arrive exhausted. The Munich airport is a long way north of town but there are excellent fast trains into town. Don’t know where your hotel is but the patent office is in the heart of the city on the river, so I suppose the hotel will be near there. Take a train from the airport to the Ostbahnhof and then a short taxi ride.
if you’re going to its destinations, eurostar rocks. faster than plane, door-to-door. plus lots more comfortable. plus you get to see (relativistic) 300 km/hr cows flash by your window! woo!
but once you start trying to connect with the various euro TGV networks it all gets messy.
good approach: get quote for business flight on BA stanstead (GREAT airport, much better than heathrow), pass quote on to client. they forward you money. then book business on Austrian air. better quality, much cheaper, more-flexible Star Alliance frequent flier points (multiple airlines not just BA), and you get the £ difference as pocket money.
oh, and re Ethics/Virtue:
a/ intra-europe flights fly low. much less atmospheric damage than normal. and yes, the low cost is regulatorily driven not natural.
b/ be aware that there is nothing “Clean” about electric power. the power has to come from somewhere: the overwhelming majority of it (even in france) comes from burning fossil fuels. utilities are a/ poorly regulated as regards emissions b/ APPALLINGLY audited: huge breaches even of the loose regulations can go on for years.
electric power is speciously clean: it simply separates the points of delivery of power and of generation of power. the USER thinks it’s clean. but the environment can very easily see no real difference. or even worse if you factor in the ionisation coming off the electrics. (ditto decaying laser printers)
the power has to come from somewhere: the overwhelming majority of it (even in france) comes from burning fossil fuels
“France is the third-greatest electricity generator and consumer in Europe (behind Russia and Germany), ranking eighth worldwide in electricity generation (accounting for about 3.4% of the world total) and eighth worldwide in electricity consumption (accounting for about 2.9% of the world total). More than three-quarters of France’s electricity is now generated by nuclear power;”
– “http://www.cslforum.org/france.htm”:http://www.cslforum.org/france.htm
Fish in a barrel.