There are various discount membership plans available that sometimes pay for themselves after just one round-trip or even one-way ride, and on the most popular connections there's now a private operator competing with the state-owned railway.

A yearly flat-rate ticket for intercity trains is also relatively affordable for EUR 1400 per year.

Not always true. The Graz-Vienna(Airport) trip is often quicker by flixbus than by OBB train.

Trains in Austria are quite slow , often travelling at the same speed as cars on the highway or often times even slower.

Graz–Vienna is admittedly a bit of a special case, since the railway tunnel there isn't finished yet, so I could see cars/buses being faster. (The train makes up for that in views, though ;)

And the train is still slower than that.

>Graz–Vienna is admittedly a bit of a special case

And yet flights from London, Paris or Berlin are cheaper than trains from Graz to Vienna.

Special case at being ripped off.

A large part of Austria is the Alps, that poses special challenges for trains. That's why these base tunnels are so important. Funny you ignored the comment about the Semmering tunnel being built, and how it will help with the travel time on that section.

Flights are so cheap because they are subsidized (primarily the fuel), and their CO2 emissions are just swept under the rug. There is also this problem of not having enough high speed cross-country trains, and even if they exist, you usually have to change trains and book tickets separately for each country. The EU has a plan to improve on this in the next 20 years.

> trains on that route are typically full of loud obnoxious people talking on their phone on speaker mode, who don't have courtesy for others so it ruins any enjoyment of sightseeing unless you have good noise cancelling headphones.

Yes, because Ryanair or Wizzair flights never have loud obnoxious people...

A "Sparschiene" ticket from Vienna to Graz typically costs between 10€ and 25€. With the Vorteilscard, a regular ticket costs 22€. (I believe the full regular price only exists to rip off tourists :)

I've never seen it below 19 Euros.

Are Austrian residents excempt from the "full regular price"?

Then it's ripping me off too not just tourists.

Actually the entire country is a ripoff.

I randomly picked next Wednesday (December 17). There several offers for 9,90€

> Are Austrian residents excempt from the "full regular price"?

No, and that would be against EU laws.

"Reverse discrimination" is generally legal under EU law.

For example, EU law grants the non-EU spouses of EU citizens living in an EU country other than the EU citizen's home country much broader right than the EU citizen's home country otherwise might.

Vienna-Graz is mainly slow because it has to cross the Semmering mountains and the tracks date back to the K&K days. This will change with the Semmering tunnel.

Thank you for the info!

Small county with small market monopolized by few politically connected local players in every major sector of the economy who sometimes enjoy regulatory protectionism from the government to keep foreign competitors out and turn a blind eye on racketeering practices.

That's how everything, including stuff made in Austria is more expensive than the same stuff sold in Germany even though wages are lower.

Same issues like in other small markets like New Zeeland except Austria being an EU member should have more pressure from free trade competition but that doesn't always work in favor of the consumers.

And talking about apples/oranges, let me add apples/bananas: Vienna to Budapest by train cost a lot when booking via öbb. And not a lot when booking via Regiojet.

The problem is the offers are all scattered around imho.

Prices are good only if you use it regularly as a commuter via a yearly subscription (Klimaticket), but for one off trips, prices are more expensive than flying.

Sparschiene tickets are very cheap. For example, Graz-Vienna (200 km) is between 10€ and 25€. How is that more expensive than flying!?

No voter in Austria would want it any other way.

can be cheap when you book early. Vienna -> Graz -> Vienna: ~20€

Rail service is funded at the federal level, so there's less arguing about who pays for what. Bus service, however, is managed by regional transport associations funded by the provinces. This creates disincentives for cross-province bus routes because no single province wants to pay more than its 'fair' share for a service that primarily benefits voters in another province.

Similar dynamics play out at the city/province level. Take Linz, the provincial capital of Upper Austria: the city has had a social democratic (SPÖ) mayor continuously since 1945, while the province has had a conservative (ÖVP) governor for exactly the same period of 80 years. This disincentivizes the province government from helping to fund public transport within or into the city, because it's a win for social democratic city voters, while the more conservative rural voters would rather take the car anyway since they often can't do the whole trip by public transport.

Arguably the reason for the excellent public transport in the city of Vienna is that they are also their own province. Their mayor/governor, who has been a social democrat as well for the last 80 years, always controls both levels of funding.