9 Euro Ticket: Reimagining Transportation
The 9-Euro-Ticket was a recent German program that allowed users to travel on local and regional transportation for 9 euros each 2022 summer month throughout Germany. The offer was made in response to the impending global energy crisis in 2021–2022. The impact of this policy translated into direct traffic effects, but it also ended with insight into a potentially reimagined future of German transportation.
According to preliminary findings from June to mid-July, 35% of participants used buses and trains more frequently, while 3% used their automobiles less regularly. According to a city of Munich traffic study, the city’s car traffic declined by 3% from May to June instead of growing by 3% seasonally.
Moreover, Over 38 million passengers had purchased the 9-Euro-Ticket in Germany, according to Deutsche Bahn (DB), the country’s leading railroad. Ridership returned to several locations to pre-Covid-19 levels. The impact of the 9 euro ticket incentivized folks to use more sustainable transportation options, which successfully resulted in one-fifth of the 52 million tickets sold being bought by people who did not ordinarily use public transport. This highlights the growing interest in public transport and the ability of the policy to engage with a persuadable target demographic. Many riders found this initiative to be a success because of the cheapness of the scheme. They often praised its simplicity, as it cut through swathes of complications ranging from various transport zones to ticket categories that differ significantly from region to region.
However, the 9 euro ticket policy came with its flaws. Critics have cited overcrowded trains and passengers often needing to be able to bring bikes on board as reasons not to repeat the scheme. There are also concerns that if cheap tickets continue, there will be less money available to boost transport networks, particularly poor in rural areas, with interconnectivity between independent services sometimes nonexistent. Ticket sales in rural areas were the lowest due to the poor availability of public transport there.
There isn’t an easy answer to how to perfect this program, nor what the next price should be if the program were to be reimagined. But I do think there is a path forward to continue making transportation more appealing and accessible. I think Die Linke (the left party) would support an overarching goal to find a price tag that feels accessible and worthwhile, no matter the income level or location. And above all else, keeping things simple and lowering the obstacles to access was the most important lesson of the experiment. This could be supporting a recent proposal from the Greens. The Greens have put forward their plan for a 29 euro regional monthly ticket, which they argue makes up most trips anyway, and a 49 euro monthly country-wide ticket.
