That's nonsense. Most public transport is digital by now.
SNCF, SNCB and EuroStar let me manage my tickets digitally in my digital wallet. That is super convenient if you have more complicated itineraries because you have all the tickets handy in a single app, when you need them.
With Deutsche Bahn it is either their app or a PDF to print.
For local and inner city transport you usually don't need a ticket a all, just swipe your card or phone at the beginning and end of your trip.
You can forget about that anywhere in Germany. It is paper tickets everywhere or a gazillion of different apps, because every city and network has their own.
That is very much not my understanding of public transport being digital.
> With Deutsche Bahn it is either their app or a PDF to print.
They also have an extensive web-based ticket shop.
You don't need to print PDF tickets. One can also show a PDF ticket on an electronic device, without printing it. I used the DB ticket PDFs for several years, without printing it. Nowadays a load the long-distance train tickets onto the phone and have it in the DB app, I have also a PDF version via mail.
> For local and inner city transport you usually don't need a ticket a all, just swipe your card or phone at the beginning and end of your trip.
I have that here also in my city. The reality: most people have a subscription, that's the by far dominant model. Simpler and less tracking needed.
> It is paper tickets everywhere or a gazillion of different apps, because every city and network has their own.
Larger cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, ... are central for large traffic regions. For example the traffic region here in Hamburg serves roughly 3.7 million people.
> That is very much not my understanding of public transport being digital.
We now have a Germany-wide affordable subscription-based ticket for local®ional public transport. That's my understanding of public transport gone digital, nation-wide. The basics were operational after only a few months of planning.
SNCF, SNCB and EuroStar let me manage my tickets digitally in my digital wallet. That is super convenient if you have more complicated itineraries because you have all the tickets handy in a single app, when you need them.
With Deutsche Bahn it is either their app or a PDF to print.
For local and inner city transport you usually don't need a ticket a all, just swipe your card or phone at the beginning and end of your trip.
You can forget about that anywhere in Germany. It is paper tickets everywhere or a gazillion of different apps, because every city and network has their own.
That is very much not my understanding of public transport being digital.