The 9-euro ticket has a catch: for many people it is of no use at all
Created: 05/20/2022, 05:01
By: Yasina Hipp
With the 9-euro ticket, the federal government wants to get more people excited about bus and train and encourage them to change over the long term.
But in many regions that will probably not happen.
Munich – There has been a lot of excitement about the 9-euro ticket in recent weeks.
Because of the financing, there is a lot of simmering between the federal and state governments.
The discount campaign could even fail in the last few meters when voting in the Bundesrat.
Countries such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg are opposed to the 9-euro ticket.
And even if the federal ticket initially sounds like a good idea and the offer to gondola through the country for only nine euros a month, there is a huge catch that is difficult to fix.
9-euro ticker: country vs. metropolitan area - only 30 percent of residents want to buy a ticket
In view of the rising energy prices, the inexpensive 9-euro ticket has become a real beacon of hope for many people, at least for the short period of three months.
However, there is already a first setback when experts draw attention to the significant increase in the price of public transport tickets after the 9-euro phase, i.e. in September.
Transport companies such as Deutsche Bahn have also been hit by the high energy prices and are therefore forced to increase their prices with a delay.
In addition to this fact, the 9-euro ticket does not fit the reality of life of many Germans at all.
A survey by
Infratest Dimap
shows that just 30 percent of small town residents plan to buy cheap tickets.
In big cities, there are twice as many.
Especially in rural areas, public transport is not a real alternative to the car.
© picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild/Monika Skolimowska
9-euro ticket reveals the real problems in public transport
If you look for reasons for this huge difference, you immediately come across the design of public transport in rural areas and in metropolitan areas.
While a tram, subway or bus is available every few minutes in large cities, things are very different in rural areas.
With luck, the bus runs every half hour, and then even less frequently at night and on weekends.
If a few minutes' drive turns into a cumbersome and much more time-consuming journey by public transport, nobody really gets excited about public transport.
Christiane Leonard, Managing Director of the Federal Association of German Bus Operators, would have preferred that the planned 2.5 billion euros for the 9-euro ticket had been invested in the quality of public transport.
"2.5 billion euros is a lot of money," Leonard told Die
Welt
.
A lot of money that could have been used, for example, to increase the number of vehicles in rural areas - and thus make public transport really more attractive.
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