49-euro ticket: Every tenth person has already bought the Germany ticket

The Deutschlandticket will start on May 1st, but according to a survey, one in ten people in Germany has already taken out the discounted subscription.

Ascending trend.

Syke - The Deutschlandticket is valid from May 1st, but pre-orders and pre-sales are already underway.

The discounted monthly ticket for public transport is intended to be easy on consumers' wallets, but also to promote the turnaround in transport in Germany.

A current survey by the opinion research institute Yougov on behalf of the German Press Agency (dpa) * now gives indications of how successful the 49-euro ticket could be.

Every tenth person has already bought the Germany ticket for local and regional transport

According to a Yougov survey published on Saturday, eleven percent of those surveyed bought the Germany ticket for local and regional transport even before the official start – and thus more than one in ten.

According to Deutsche Bahn, 500,000 tickets have already been sold since the start of sales.

"And there are more every day.

This is a great success," said Evelyn Palla, responsible for regional transport on the Deutsche Bahn board of directors, to the dpa.

44 percent of those surveyed want to use the subscription as a mobile phone ticket, 31 percent opt ​​for the chip card.

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One in ten people in Germany has already bought the Deutschlandticket for local and regional transport, according to a survey (as of April 22, 2023).

© IMAGO/Christian Ohde

According to the survey, around 15 percent still want to take out the subscription in the future, while 14 percent are still unsure.

57 percent of those surveyed were clearly against a purchase.

Around one in three (28 percent) of people who do not want to buy the Deutschlandticket gave poorly developed local transport in their region as the reason.

About two-thirds (72 percent), on the other hand, say they do not use local public transport at all.

This is how the 49-euro ticket works – and this is how consumers get it even cheaper

The Germany ticket is valid from May 1st, but people in Germany have been able to pre-order or buy it for weeks.

To do this, they have to take out a subscription, which can be canceled on a monthly basis.

Employees get the ticket cheaper if their employer contributes part of the purchase price.

If it is at least 25 percent of the price, there is a discount of five percent.

Consumers then only pay 34.30 euros – or even less if the employer takes on a larger share.

Will the Deutschlandticket bring about a turnaround in traffic?

The climate protectionists of the "last generation" are calling for a permanent nine-euro ticket as a measure by the federal government.

Environmentalists and politicians seem to agree on one point: A discounted ticket for local public transport in Germany can promote the switch from cars to public transport and thus save CO₂.

But according to traffic experts, an affordable price for the ticket alone is not enough.

The public transport offer must also be attractive enough.

"The nicest ticket is of no use if the bus no longer comes," says the Hessian Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) in a nutshell.

If there are too few buses and trains or certain places are not connected to the public transport network, many consumers often have no alternative to the car.

The local transport network in rural areas therefore still needs to be expanded in many places.

Mobility experts such as Jürgen Follmann, professor at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, believe that urban cable cars, for example, can complement public transport in Germany in an environmentally friendly and cost-efficient manner.

In addition, a multi-level system is required, since even the 49-euro ticket is still too expensive for some people.

Local public transport is also only one side of the traffic turnaround, Follmann told the

.

You also have to get consumers to walk or cycle more overall.

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List of rubrics: © IMAGO/Christian Ohde