The €9 Ticket
During the summer of 2022, Germany implemented a 3-month experiment of affordable public transportation ticketing. From June to August, individuals could travel throughout Germany on local and regional buses and trains (excluding long-distance trains) with a single ticket. The price of this ticket was only €9 a month.
Most German cities including Munich, Berlin, and Hamburg have an efficient public transportation system that encompasses the S-Bahn (the city rapid rail), linking the suburb and commuter regions to the city, and the U-Bahn that travels underground. The state of German public transportation before the €9 ticket involved a zone system to determine the price (tariff) of your ticket. For example, Berlin has three zones: A, B, and C — with A being in the center, B further out, and C on the outskirts. Tickets are priced (in euros) based on the zones you are traveling from and to: AB (€3.00), BC (€3.50), or ABC (€3.80). If you are traveling into or out of a zone that is not distinguished on your ticket, it is considered invalid. There are also five different types of tickets: short trip, single ticket, day ticket, week ticket, and group day tickets.
The implementation of the €9 ticket was part of a relief package to help consumers deal with record-high inflation in Germany. It resulted in the ease of financial burden on citizens and successful public transportation marketing. In fact, 15% of the 52 million €9 ticket users were new passengers on public transit taking advantage of the discounted rate. Demand for public transit rose across Germany as some routes in Berlin and Brandenburg even recorded a 25% increase in transit passengers compared to prior traveling periods. Although the €9 ticket surpassed the expectations for public transit accessibility, it created a new issue: overcrowded trains.
The same transportation infrastructure coupled with excess passenger demand for a €9 ticket had resulted in a shortage of space on public transit. Without infrastructure that could adapt to this increase in demand, the €9 ticket experiment proved that it could not be sustained. Public transportation became so crowded that passengers had to be turned away, defeating the initially achieved goal of accessibility. In addition, inexperienced passenger confusion and delay-causing disorientation of the transit system occurred, especially due to the lack of service staff to help passengers during their travels. Finally, the drastically low price of €9 tickets resulted in a loss of revenue that had to be compensated with a €2.5 billion relief package from the Transport Ministry. Yet as the subsequent events of overcrowded public transit played out, the financial support for the necessary additional personnel, buses, and trains was nowhere to be found, whether it existed or not. Evidently, the existence of the €9 ticket with the current German infrastructure created a conundrum and should not be reintroduced until the observed infrastructure and logistical personnel issues are solved.
In an attempt to reform the 3-month experiment, Germany’s federal government and 16 states have formally agreed to introduce a new €49 monthly travel pass. The purpose of the ticket’s higher price is to stabilize its high demand. Interestingly, this €49 ticket will still be expected to cost about €3 billion in taxpayer subsidies to be shared equally between the federal government and the state. Immediately I am skeptical because the €2.5 billion compensation for the €9 ticket did not solve the subsequent problems of an overcrowded transit system. So how would this €3 billion be any different if it is only being allocated toward ticket revenue loss again? It is important to note other arguments against the €49 ticket as well. For instance, Finance Minister Christian Lindner highlighted that the €49 ticket opportunity is unequal as those in rural communities who have limited access to trains and buses are essentially financing urban populations to have more frequent and cheaper transit opportunities. Once again, we are back to the current issue of insufficient transit infrastructure that has not adapted to meet the demands of all demographics.
Now, the topic that instinctively comes to mind (at least as an environmentalist) when discussing public transportation: sustainability. Did the demand for the €9 ticket reduce Germany’s CO₂ emissions? If so, will the €49 ticket continue to reduce them? The results are actually a mixed bag (resulting in sadness as an environmentalist). According to surveys administered in August 2022 by the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), 35% of people used public transport more often, but only 3% used their own vehicles less often. In other words, the increase in demand for public transit was a result of additional journeys, not substitute journeys. This would have led to an increase in CO₂ emissions. It was noted to take this preliminary data with a grain of salt, but nonetheless, it is important to keep this in mind. On the other hand, the World Economic Forum highlighted research done by researchers at the University of Potsdam who found that air pollution levels declined up to 7% in response to the €9 ticket. While more analysis of the €9 ticket’s environmental impact is needed to holistically understand its influence on CO₂ emissions, it may be beneficial to shift the focus onto optimizing public transportation infrastructure. Rather than increasing the demand for tickets to an insufficient system, federal and state investments may be better spent on developing said infrastructure.
The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) is in favor of a successor to the €9 ticket as it created more mobility opportunities for individuals. More specifically in August 2022, the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia was pushing for a quick solution to succeed the 3-month experiment. According to the SPD parliamentary group leader, Thomas Kutschaty, inflation would have also been one percentage point higher without the €9 ticket. If the SPD was also taking into account their rural and union constituencies, they would be facing pushback at the same time due to the unequal access to public transit in those regions. Although the €9 ticket experiment posed some benefits, the now exposed transit system flaws need to be addressed rather than strained with a new ticket program that may not benefit everyone and also may not be as sustainable as one thinks.
