Tuesday, September 24
Deutschlandticket to cost €58 from next year
The initial offer represented by Germany’s low-cost ticket for public transport was a simple, popular and radical policy: a ticket which covered all public transport across the country, for just €9 a month. That experiment – lasting for three months over the summer of 2022 – ended up being so popular that politicians felt the pressure to bring in a permanent successor, the Deutschlandticket. Less radical, but not bad; this was available as a subscription costing €49 per month.
But now they can’t stop tinkering with it. First Berlin felt the need to introduce their own version (the €29 ticket, which covers the BVG fare area) – and now transport ministers across Germany have put their heads together once again to decide that, actually, they need to up the price of the national subscription to €58 per month. This will come into effect from January 1, 2025.
Apparently, this hike will prove beneficial in the long term, putting the financing of the offer on “more solid footing”, according to the Chairperson of the Transport Minister’s Conference. Talking to rbb, Berlin’s transport senator commented that: “We would all have liked to keep the Deutschlandticket at the level of 49 euros. But that is not possible because the federal and state coffers are empty.”
The Deutschlandticket was officially introduced in May 2023, and it is currently used by around 13 million people across the country. It will likely remain popular despite the price increase, although it should be pointed out that mobility researchers have commented that the price is already too high to achieve a significant shift from cars to journeys via public transport. Under the €9 ticket, 10 percent of trips replaced a journey which would have been taken with a car. with the higher price, that has dropped to 5 percent. Another price hike and this may drop further – and that cannot help but feel like a step in the wrong direction.
