Cheap public transport experience in Germany comes to an end

At a public event last weekend, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner was asked why he was scrapping one of the government’s most popular policies – the €9-per-month ticket for trains and other local public transport which was a big hit with voters.

A young man who said he used it to travel more than 11,500 kilometers across Germany asked why Lindner’s liberals were preventing an expansion of the three-month scheme. “You traveled 11,000 km for 27 euros?” Lindner replied. “That’s just not sustainable.”

The cheap airfare scheme was part of a €30 billion package of relief measures put forward by Chancellor Olaf Scholz after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It was designed to kill two birds with one stone — soften the blow of rising inflation and a looming cost-of-living crisis, while also fighting climate change by encouraging people to use fewer automobiles.

Other countries have made similar moves. In Spain, travel on parts of the state-owned Renfe rail network will be free from September 1 until the end of the year. Austria has been operating a “climate ticket” since November that costs €1,095 a year and covers rail, metro and bus networks in cities and elsewhere.

Some 30 million people took advantage of the German offer, more than a third of the population, and Scholz described it as “one of the best ideas we’ve ever had”.

Marion Jungbluth, travel expert at the VZBV consumer association, said “the enthusiasm people have shown for this is absolutely unprecedented.”

Germany was known for the diabolical complexity of its ticket vending machines and pricing structures, which vary greatly from region to region, she explained, but the €9 ticket ended that. “A lot of people took the offer because it was so easy to buy,” she said.

However, its success put the Scholz government in a dilemma. The scheme, which cost Berlin €2.5 billion, was only supposed to run from June 1 to the end of August, but it has proved so popular that Germans may be reluctant to revert to normal ticket prices when it expires. Many are now demanding a delay.

Lindner, leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, which are part of Scholz’s three-party coalition, is strictly opposed. He told the man at the public event last week that it would cost €14 billion to operate the scheme for a full year — money that would be far better spent “on modernizing the crumbling German rail network and expanding capacity.” “.

Pascal Meiser, a lawmaker for the far-left Linke party, said that view ignored poll data indicating strong support for the policy. “It’s remarkable how reliably Lindner can misjudge the climate in the country,” he told Der Spiegel magazine.

Others question whether it was as successful as some claim. Lars Feld, an economics professor at the University of Freiburg who advises Lindner, said the result was “overcrowded trains, which caused delays and impacted the long-distance rail network.”

Indeed, for at least the first few weeks, Germany’s transport system was under enormous pressure. Images on social media showed crowded platforms, trains with only standing room and passengers in a bad mood.

Feld said it was clear that more people were using public transport, “but it was almost exclusively an additional demand – there was no change in traffic from road to rail.”
“So the environmental goals were not met,” he said.

Others dispute this. “Initial data showed that in some cities there were fewer traffic jams while the scheme was in place,” said Stefan Gelbhaar, a transport spokesman for the Green Party. “When the supply and price are right, people really switch to public transport.”

Indeed, a survey cited by Deutsche Bahn, the German state railway operator, showed that a fifth of those who bought the cheap ticket had never used buses, trains and trams before.

The scheme also helped to fight inflation, which according to the Bundesbank could reach 10% in the coming months. “Our calculations show that this reduced the inflation rate by 0.7 percentage point,” said Sebastian Dullien, research director at the Macroeconomic Policy Institute at the Hans Böckler Foundation.

It also gave relief to pressured families. “A family of four in Hamburg, where parents take the subway to work and the kids take the bus to school, is saving a lot of money,” Dullien said. So, she argued, it should be extended “until next summer, or at least until energy prices start to come down.”

Others agree. The Association of German Transport Companies proposed to replace it with a ticket of 69 euros (R$ 359) per month, again valid for the whole country. The Greens, who are also part of Scholz’s coalition, advocate a two-tier model, with a €29 ticket for regional travel and a €49 version for domestic travel.

Politicians are coming up with creative solutions to fund an extension. Lars Klingbeil, leader of Scholz’s Social Democrats, told ZDF TV that he wanted to see a windfall tax to pay for a successor to the €9 ticket – “same as Spain”. Lindner rejected the idea.

Demands for a continuation are partly fueled by fears that ticket prices will rise once the €9 scheme ends.

“Some transport companies have announced that they will have to raise prices before the end of the year,” said Jungbluth. “If that happens, everything that was achieved with the €9 ticket will be destroyed.”