Talk:BahnCard/Comments

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[edit] Discussion copied from User_talk:Cambrasa for future reference

Thanks for assessing the BahnCard article. I was wondering why you assessed it as "low-importance". A railcard owned by 4 million passengers and offered by Deutsche Bahn (itself rated "high-importance"), the biggest railway company in Europe [1] is surely not unimportant, I'd say. The Bahncard is highly notable in Germany. Most Germans have at least heard of it and it was often a topic of political debate. For comparison, the article Young Persons Railcard is rated as "mid importance" and this is a smaller scheme than the BahnCard. Likewise the Oyster card (mid-importance) is used by fewer passengers than the BahnCard. Would you mind if I changed the status to "mid importance"? --Cambrasa confab 21:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The first point I'd like to mention here is that I am not the sole arbiter of WikiProject Trains assessments; I do a lot of them, but I'm not the only one doing them. As such, my word is not final on any assessment that I place on an article.

When I assign importance assessments, I gauge the article against the Criteria column of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Assessment#Importance scale, keeping in mind that this rating is for the topic's importance to rail transport history and technology on a worldwide scale. I thought this article best met the criteria for low importance. A case could be made for mid importance, but this topic is not vital to a broad understanding of rail transport history and technology on a worldwide scale, so it is definitely not a high importance article to WikiProject Trains. A case could also be made that the other fare cards you mention should be rated as low importance within WikiProject Trains as they can each be used only on a few rail systems worldwide. 4 million BahnCard holders is a lot, but with a worldwide population of 6 billion, it is a relatively small percent.

The most important thing to remember here is that the importance rating is simply a way for members of WikiProject Trains to prioritize which articles should be worked on when looking for suggestions of where to focus editorial efforts. Slambo (Speak) 10:57, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

The BahnCard isn't the only rail card in Europe. Other countries such as Austria, Switzerland, France, Czech Republic, Netherlands and Norway have introduced rail cards. BahnCard is just the biggest and best known one, and the article serves to illustrate the concept of rail cards in general.

I would argue that rail cards have a "strong, but not vital" importance in the history of passenger trains, qualifying them for "mid-importance". Rail cards were a key strategic component of European rail operators' drive in the 1990s to win back passengers from the automobile (along with high speed rail and station refurbishment). To some extent, they are vital to the survival and growth of passenger railways. More than half of Deutsche Bahn's revenue comes from BahnCard holders.

Also, I don't think that your comparison with the world's population is valid. The majority of the world's population has never set a foot on a train. The whole of Africa, South America and North America doesn't even have a significant passenger train network (except in a handful of isolated areas). Yes, rail cards may be unimportant in the world, but not in the world of trains. It would be more meaningful to compare the number of BahnCard holders to the number of rail passengers in the world, not the the world population.

Let me put German passenger railways in context: In India and China trains are the most popular form of long distance transport. In India, where 1/6 of the world's population lives, there are 5 billion passenger journeys a year [2]. In China, where another 1/5 lives, there are 1.4 billion passenger journeys a year [3]. In Germany there are 2 billion passenger journeys a year. So what happens to Deutsche Bahn is not unimportant even on a world-wide scale. --Cambrasa confab 12:06, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no strong preference for a low importance rating or against mid importance on the article. My permission is not needed to make such a change on the article's talk page (so please feel free to update it accordingly), but thank you for taking the time to discuss this. Slambo [[User talk:Slambo|(Speak)