The Deutschlandticket has been around for a few weeks. In the future, it will also be used in school transport. In the end, the district and school committees opted for a generous solution that costs the district nothing extra.
District – A total of 3219 pupils in the district of Weilheim-Schongau use school transport. In the case of 2677 of them, the matter is clear: they will receive – probably at the beginning of the new school year – a 49-euro ticket. Because the previous transport costs were significantly higher than the amount of 49 euros.
The district and school committees now had to decide how to proceed with the remaining 542 students. The students whose tickets were previously cheaper than 49 euros. Certainly, the district office could have made it easy for itself and provided the students with the cheapest ticket as before. However, that would have been quite unfair. This is because all students who have a Deutschland-Ticket can use all local transport nationwide free of charge. The 542 other students, however, would have received a ticket with which they can use exactly one specific train or bus connection.
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Parents of students have already been able to make a co-payment to make their child's way to school more pleasant. "So far, it has been the case that only the cheapest connection has been offered free of charge," explained Deputy District Treasurer Matthias Brugger at the committee meeting. As a rule, this was the rail connection. "Now, the stations are not always so centrally located, while a bus stop would often have been closer to the students' home," says Brugger. For this reason, parents have so far been offered to pay the difference between train and bus tickets out of their own pockets.
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Thanks to the state subsidy, only administrative expenses remain
This should now also apply to the 49-euro ticket, as the two committees unanimously decided. After the Free State made a U-turn on the subject of subsidies, this decision does not mean any additional burden on the district budget. Until now, the Free State of Bavaria only subsidized the cheapest ticket with 60 percent.
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As soon as the parents paid for the "more convenient" ticket, there was no subsidy from the Free State. Now, however, the state government has announced that the amount, which would correspond to 60 percent of the cheapest ticket, will always be made available as a subsidy – no matter which ticket is actually bought and spent in the end, Brugger continued. The only thing left with the district is "a considerably higher administrative burden". You have to ask the parents of the 542 students whether they want to pay the surcharge for the Deutschlandticket or not. And whether or not they are ready to pay in full for August, when there is no school transportation. On the basis of these queries, appropriate Deutschlandtickets would then have to be applied for for each pupil whose parents are willing to pay co-payments.
Order over 500 personalized tickets
"If you look at what a bitter effort it is to buy just such a Deutschlandticket for yourself, you can imagine how time-consuming it will be when you have to apply for over 500 personalized tickets," warned Karl-Heinz Grehl (Greens/Weilheim). Personnel costs "of around 30 minutes per case" are expected, according to Deputy District Treasurer Matthias Brugger.
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This was worth the effort, said Peter Ostenrieder (CSU/Peiting): "The promotion of public transport is a matter of concern to us. We want the students to use public transport and get used to it at an early age." This view was then shared by the other committee members.
