Read This !!! FREE BUSES * Germany - A little history of Fuddenheim
A group of private citizens, decided some 15 years ago to introduce free public transport in order to combat air pollution and congestion
Fuddenheim,Prussia,Germany -The Beez/vnunetblogs.com - May 2007: -- The last decades a little war has been fought in the small town of Fuddenheim, located near the border between the Principality of Liechtenwald and South Prussia. A group of private citizens, led by Rinus Poortvliet and Rik de Knegt from Belgium, decided some 15 years ago to introduce free public transport in order to combat air pollution and congestion. Donations allowed them to buy a few buses which were operated by volunteers... At first, the commercial public transport company Omnifast GmbH hardly reacted. The schedules of the new service, called Linexx eV, weren't very attractive to the general public, they said, and on top of that they operated just a few lines. Commercial transport was much more professional and offered more choice... However, the free transport slowly became a hit and Omnifast couldn't ignore it anymore. So they hired a performance testing company called Artibus to compare both offerings. It published the report a little later, showing that a comparable ride with the free service took a lot longer and required more transfers. Careful investigation showed that the research was rigged. Measurements of Omnifast were excluding the waiting time required and were restricted to the lines were Omnifast offered a direct service... But dedicated to offer the best possible service, Linexx quickly improved their shortcomings. Now Omnifast was really in trouble. "Once you start using this service, you can never transfer to our professional services again." the chairman of Omnifast raged "This is a thing the General Conditions of Use (GCU) of Linexx explicitly prohibit." Which was not true. Omnifast was just not allowed to charge passengers for that part of the trip which was traveled with Linexx coaches. "Communism, that's what it is!" the chairman cried "They want us all to work for free!"... The end of the story is that the chairman of Omnifast yelled "Linexx is using our dedicated bus lanes, but we won't tell which ones."... When asked, he grumbled again: "We may go to court one day. But not now." Linexx reacted quickly, saying "We're sure Omnifast is using some of our lanes too. If they sue, we sue. But maybe it is better to refrain from having dedicated bus lanes altogether. Life is much easier that way."... Which may prove to be true, because later 'Die Woche' found out that lines downtown were not covered by the Omnifast agreement... The small war rages on in the streets of Fuddenheim. It just illustrates once more time how ridiculous people can get. We'll keep you informed...
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