The Green Party Chairman Anton Hofreiter suggests nationwide one-euro day tickets for buses and trains. Each transport association in Germany should introduce such a ticket, Hofreiter said the "Bild am Sonntag". Then public transport costs each user only 365 euros per year. "Students and apprentices should travel for free," added Hofreiter.
Hofreiter said traffic was "among the biggest climate killers in our country". He therefore wants to ensure with a three-point plan that the citizens drive more train or bus and less car.
In addition to the one-euro ticket, the Greens want a "Mobilpass Germany", with which citizens can use all public transport, car and bike sharing offers. "End the ticket jumble," said Hofreiter. "I urge the federal government to negotiate with the transport companies and sharing providers."
As a third point, the group leader calls for the VAT on long-distance train tickets to be reduced from 19% to 7%. This would make rail travel on long distances significantly cheaper, said Hofreiter.
The Federal Government has been thinking about the introduction of a free public transport for some time now. Most recently, Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze had called for appropriate tests. "I want Germany to be a pioneer in climate protection," said Schulze in April in Berlin on the occasion of an environmental conference. Buses and trains in the big cities could, at least for a while, be free of charge for passengers, at least temporarily, in order to push for new mobility concepts. Everything that uses the public transport and forms an alternative to the car, must be promoted, said the SPD politician. These are:
- at least phased free public transport
- easier ways to buy tickets
- cheaper ticket prices
(An evaluation of how much public transport currently costs in 39 German cities with more than 200,000 inhabitants, can be found here: Not all cities with a large network are expensive, not all small cities cheap.)
In the neighboring country of France, the traffic politicians are already further: In Dunkerque, the use of local transport since September is in vain. In weekend weekends, bus usage increased by as much as 60 percent, the Mayor of the 200,000-inhabitant city had said in introducing free local transport.
More than a dozen French municipalities are already experimenting with similar models. In the capital Paris, the metro is usually free in times of smog.
