Link via @HRCH - The Guardian reports on T&E’s research about rail booking problems https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/21/almost-half-of-eus-busiest-flight-routes-are-hard-or-impossible-to-book-on-trains-report
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@q This comes back to a kind of bundler idea I was musing about with @stefanlindbohm but in there will be a business liability component too. Given SDBTR should now be out on 13 May, how this plays with the signing issue you raise here, Q, is going to be *very interesting*. @bovine3dom
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@q that seems very messy to me, fundamentally lots of these railways hate each other and they're supposed to trust each other to sign their tickets?
is there a very good reason for it? what are the limitations of "the barcode is a dumb container" approach?
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@q Perhaps. Let's see what SDBTR says about bundling first indeed. I hope there is no bundling *obligation*, but if there is (and I fear there will be) then we're going to need as pain-free a way as possible to do it! @stefanlindbohm @bovine3dom
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@q that seems very messy to me, fundamentally lots of these railways hate each other and they're supposed to trust each other to sign their tickets?
is there a very good reason for it? what are the limitations of "the barcode is a dumb container" approach?
@bovine3dom Really? I think they trust each other, technically, enough. They don't trust each other's motivations or business practices. @q @stefanlindbohm @HRCH
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@bovine3dom Really? I think they trust each other, technically, enough. They don't trust each other's motivations or business practices. @q @stefanlindbohm @HRCH
@jon maybe i have spent too long reading SNCF cheminots' thoughts about how only french (SNCF) trains and french (SNCF) railways and french (SNCF) working practices are safe and assumed that that applies to their digital teams too
i would love to be wrong
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Why would they need to buy that data? Isn't it just here: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/database
`avia_par` contains what you would need, no? It seems to only go up to 2024, but surely that is good enough.
@redjives i haven't looked at it but "concatenate and filter 30 CSVs" may well be beyond T&E's competences
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@q i guess that's sort of fair but surely one could squeeze in 3-4 signatures and that would mean 3-4 retailers which would be enough for 99% of nerds
or they could trust Zügli
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@q Not even a sole barcode but a full HTML frame with mandatory text in it as well
This thread is super interesting. I’ll have to re-read, catch up on the project and think about this.
It would be interesting if the bundling solution was executed through the barcode, but my hunch would be that a signed barcode, if a formal process is necessary, would not be enough and a separate process would also be introduced. Approval to bundle could also get interesting.
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@q Not even a sole barcode but a full HTML frame with mandatory text in it as well
This thread is super interesting. I’ll have to re-read, catch up on the project and think about this.
It would be interesting if the bundling solution was executed through the barcode, but my hunch would be that a signed barcode, if a formal process is necessary, would not be enough and a separate process would also be introduced. Approval to bundle could also get interesting.
@stefanlindbohm
@q the html needs to include a `<move>` tag as a security feature to prevent screenshots -
@redjives i haven't looked at it but "concatenate and filter 30 CSVs" may well be beyond T&E's competences
@bovine3dom @redjives Do these by-country CSVs include international routes btw?
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@bovine3dom @redjives Do these by-country CSVs include international routes btw?
yes
it took me like an hour to wrangle and grok it so i don't think i was being too rude when i said it was probably beyond T&E
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@bovine3dom @redjives Do these by-country CSVs include international routes btw?
@cycling_on_rails @bovine3dom Yes, they do. And it's well within my competency so I might just do it in a bit as an excuse to learning how to use eurostat data in r.
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@cycling_on_rails @bovine3dom Yes, they do. And it's well within my competency so I might just do it in a bit as an excuse to learning how to use eurostat data in r.
@redjives @cycling_on_rails https://github.com/bovine3dom/biggest_aviation/blob/master/undirected_passengers_per_day.csv
maybe the eurostat package makes it nicer but for me the worst bit was downloading the data
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@redjives @cycling_on_rails https://github.com/bovine3dom/biggest_aviation/blob/master/undirected_passengers_per_day.csv
maybe the eurostat package makes it nicer but for me the worst bit was downloading the data
@bovine3dom I think it should, or at least this will be a nice excuse to find out. I'll let you know when I get around to it. What do you mostly use if not R?
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yes
it took me like an hour to wrangle and grok it so i don't think i was being too rude when i said it was probably beyond T&E
@bovine3dom @cycling_on_rails @redjives This looks weird. Departure and arrival country look flipped from departure and arrival airport.
And if you have them, IATA codes would be nicer than ICAO codes.
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@bovine3dom I think it should, or at least this will be a nice excuse to find out. I'll let you know when I get around to it. What do you mostly use if not R?
i started with duckdb because people always tell me it is good and i want to understand why. then as usual i went back to clickhouse-local when basic features like `limit by` were missing
biggest_aviation/readme.md at master · bovine3dom/biggest_aviation
wrangle eurostat data to get biggest cross-border aviation routes - biggest_aviation/readme.md at master · bovine3dom/biggest_aviation
GitHub (github.com)
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@bovine3dom @cycling_on_rails @redjives This looks weird. Departure and arrival country look flipped from departure and arrival airport.
And if you have them, IATA codes would be nicer than ICAO codes.
@partim sorry, yeah, it's undirected and i knew that could happen but i decided i didn't care. i didn't want to group by them because god knows how basel is listed
i only have the codes i was given but a join would be trivial (i was considering making a map before my stomach reminded me that i hadn't had lunch yet)
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@redjives @cycling_on_rails https://github.com/bovine3dom/biggest_aviation/blob/master/undirected_passengers_per_day.csv
maybe the eurostat package makes it nicer but for me the worst bit was downloading the data
@bovine3dom @redjives Hum looks like cn_dep and cn_arr have been swapped.
Interesting that Madrid-Rome is top 1 (of international routes). When high-speed rail tunnel through the Mediterranean?
A good one for @jon 's #BullshitMeter 
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i started with duckdb because people always tell me it is good and i want to understand why. then as usual i went back to clickhouse-local when basic features like `limit by` were missing
biggest_aviation/readme.md at master · bovine3dom/biggest_aviation
wrangle eurostat data to get biggest cross-border aviation routes - biggest_aviation/readme.md at master · bovine3dom/biggest_aviation
GitHub (github.com)
@bovine3dom @redjives For the license I guess https://commission.europa.eu/legal-notice_en applies (linked as "Legal Notice" from the Eurostat website)?
"Unless otherwise indicated (e.g. in individual copyright notices), content owned by the EU on this website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. This means that reuse is allowed, provided appropriate credit is given and changes are indicated."
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@partim sorry, yeah, it's undirected and i knew that could happen but i decided i didn't care. i didn't want to group by them because god knows how basel is listed
i only have the codes i was given but a join would be trivial (i was considering making a map before my stomach reminded me that i hadn't had lunch yet)
@bovine3dom @cycling_on_rails @redjives Might be worth doing the code mapping – everyone remotely involved with aviation will know the IATA codes for these airports by heart and basically noone outside a cockpit will know any of the ICAO codes.
