8 ms·

I visited Berlin this summer and Germany has a 9 euro ticket that gives you unlimited travel on local/regional transport services during until the end of the ca

I visited Berlin this summer and Germany has a 9 euro ticket that gives you unlimited travel on local/regional transport services during until the end of the calendar month. The ticket can be bought only throughout the summer months. For a tourist that was in town only for a few days, it was just amazing, no worries when taking any public transport for ticket zones, right tickets or time of availability. I imagine it was great for commuters too, price-wise at the very least. To me it seems like a great idea, honestly, I'm just not sure what the _real_ costs were and how financially viable such a measure would be over the long term.

ratww 4y ago
I'm also a big fan! > The ticket can be bought only throughout the summer months. The ticket is a new thing, by the way. The reason it's only available in "summer months" is because they haven't finished thinking about how it's gonna be after that. However the transport companies already manifested interest in continuing with the ticket for €69 [1]. Sure, not €9 but still progress. Some parties recently suggested €365 per year. Both are still a great price IMO considering I used to pay €40 a month (€63 in total, my company pays the rest), for a ticket that only covered Berlin! [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/69-euro-ticket-103.html https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/69-euro-tic... [2] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/left-calls-nationwide-365-euro-ticket-follow-9-euro-ticket-2023 https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/left-ca...
- solarkraft 4y ago
  I'm not sure I'd pay 70€ a month, but 30€/month would be attractive. 70€ or more would totally be attractive if the service was actually of good quality.
  - ratww 4y ago
    Makes total sense to me. I personally would probably pay the €69 if my employer paid a part, since I already pay €40 / €63 for Berlin, which I consider a good deal. But for people that have a car and tourists €70 is indeed a bit steep.
- djvdq 4y ago
  €69 is still a great price. Before I started to work fully remotely I was driving by train to work I found that our local train carrier here in Poland (Koleje Dolnoslaskie) have something like this in offer. For 320 zł (~€67 back then, I’m not sure about current price) you can go wherever you want by their train. So basically covers entire Lower Silesian Voivodeship. What’s also great about them is that they are buying all railroads possible to put trains there and their goal is to: (1) all cities have train connection available and (2) they want it to be free somewhere in future. It’s already great and there are way more people travelling by train than it was about e.g. 10 years ago.
pjmlp 4y ago
Traveling by train in Germany is great, but it also an endless pandora box of adventures, specially during weekends. The 9 euro ticket is a nice idea, how well it holds on, even on long period depends on improving the infrastructure. Just today I took almost 3h to what I usually do in 30m with the car over the motorway. Yep 2h 30m extra by taking the 2x bus + train + subway + waiting times instead of the car.
stop50 4y ago
It costed the state 2.5 billion euro for three months. The ministry tasked with evironment protection, nuclear safety and consumer protection has an similar budget in 2021.
morsch 4y ago
Well, on it's own it's not viable at all, the federal government paid for it to the tune of about 2.5 billion EUR. Money well spent, if you ask me.
- dplesca 4y ago
  Imo viability should be considered if the price that the government pays is worth it, the 2022 budget seems to be around €457.6 billion. 2.5 billion seems to be totally worth it, as you agree. If the measure would be kept year-round, it would cost around 10 billion, which seems a tad high. Are these costs offset somehow by the symbolic price of the ticket? Until 15 of July they sold around 30 million tickets so overall over the 3 months, maybe 40-45 million tickets would be sold. That makes 360-405 million, so around 14-16% of the cost. I'm not sure if this money goes to the transport companies or is used to offset the government's costs. If the ticket stays, but the price increases 2x or 3x (that would still be an enormous bargain IMO), costs would be offset even more, probably. It's debatable of the economical effect that this measure already had, taking in consideration higher efficiency of public transport, more disposable money for the population, freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. Except the flat cost for the government and the long-term cost of infrastructure (which might be huge) I really can't see many negatives for this measure.
  - Fissionary 4y ago
    > freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/07/PD22_284_12.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/07... Statistics show a huge increase in rail traffic, but only a small reduction in road traffic between cities. People just started taking extra train journeys for pleasure.
    - asymmetric 4y ago
      This could absolutely be due to novelty.
  - matkoniecz 4y ago
tomputer 4y ago
I did the same, visted Berlin a few weeks ago. It was indeed nice that I could take any S-Bahn or U-Bahn without checking the times or zones. I hope they’ll continue with this type of ‘unlimited’ tickes. If only during peak summer/winter months. I guess a lot of people would gladly pay more for such unlimited (no worry) tickets.
pcrh 4y ago
I believe part of the motivation for this €9 ticket is to reduce demand for Russian-sourced petrol/gas used by private vehicles.
- ratww 4y ago
  Exactly. According to German Wikipedia: "The ticket is part of a relief package decided by the Scholz cabinet due to the increased energy costs due to the Russian attack on Ukraine" [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket
ThePadawan 4y ago
As a German: It is amazing, but not just because of the price, also because of the unbelievable simplicity that it makes possible. You pay 9€ and you get 1 ticket. The transport company then charges the government back based on usage. Why is this a big deal? Well, try finding out how to get anywhere in Germany not using the national railroad. Here's the map [0]. Not only is there hundreds of local transport companies, they are also all part of different, partially overlapping, partially non-boundary-aligned conglomerates for which your ticket might or might not be valid. It's insanity. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_der_Verkehrsverb%C3%BCnde_und_Tarifverb%C3%BCnde_in_Deutschland.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...
- ntauthority 4y ago
  The 'normal' system being complex is a bit exaggerated here - if you have to travel one-off via local multi-mode transportation you'd usually just get a regional Deutsche Bahn day ticket which will generally by accepted by local transport companies as well, and I believe various variants of these would also exist for longer-timespan tickets. Still, that would not be as handy as the mostly unified billing system using NFC cards we have in the Netherlands since the late 2000s, where if you do not have any entitlement valid on a particular mode of transportation, it uses a charge card balance as such. While this isn't as innovative nowadays as it used to be, it's still notable as it works in the entire country, which, while small, is still not a city-state.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    But then you lose a lot of flexibility and pay insane prices. Where I live regional travel (what's being called complicated here and what the 9€ ticket is valid for) can reasonably cover distances of 50-100km where I live, which covers quite a lot of cities.
  - ThePadawan 4y ago
    > if you have to travel one-off via local multi-mode transportation you'd usually just get a regional Deutsche Bahn day ticket which will generally by accepted by local transport companies as well I believe that applies in the areas on the map marked in yellow (that are not shaded yellow+gray). So I agree that this applies widely but certainly not everywhere. I must admit I come from an area of Germany where this doesn't apply.
peoplefromibiza 4y ago
I'm in Rome and the full year pass for all public transports (including trains but only for transits between train stations in Rome) costed me 125 euros.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
I've been staying in the Torbay area in the UK where the local bus company has a 5 GBP ticket for unlimited local travel in one day, or 18 GBP for a week. I think that the point is that once you reach the point that all the locals who will take the bus are already taking the bus then you have to consider how to attract people who don't normally take the bus (train, etc.). At this point the marginal cost of carrying an extra passenger is almost zero so any extra sale is almost pure profit. So you can drop the price quite low, just make it competitive with the cost of parking a car and away you go.

ratww 4y ago

I'm also a big fan! > The ticket can be bought only throughout the summer months. The ticket is a new thing, by the way. The reason it's only available in "summer months" is because they haven't finished thinking about how it's gonna be after that. However the transport companies already manifested interest in continuing with the ticket for €69 [1]. Sure, not €9 but still progress. Some parties recently suggested €365 per year. Both are still a great price IMO considering I used to pay €40 a month (€63 in total, my company pays the rest), for a ticket that only covered Berlin! [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/69-euro-ticket-103.html https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/69-euro-tic... [2] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/left-calls-nationwide-365-euro-ticket-follow-9-euro-ticket-2023 https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/left-ca...

solarkraft 4y ago
I'm not sure I'd pay 70€ a month, but 30€/month would be attractive. 70€ or more would totally be attractive if the service was actually of good quality.
- ratww 4y ago
  Makes total sense to me. I personally would probably pay the €69 if my employer paid a part, since I already pay €40 / €63 for Berlin, which I consider a good deal. But for people that have a car and tourists €70 is indeed a bit steep.
djvdq 4y ago
€69 is still a great price. Before I started to work fully remotely I was driving by train to work I found that our local train carrier here in Poland (Koleje Dolnoslaskie) have something like this in offer. For 320 zł (~€67 back then, I’m not sure about current price) you can go wherever you want by their train. So basically covers entire Lower Silesian Voivodeship. What’s also great about them is that they are buying all railroads possible to put trains there and their goal is to: (1) all cities have train connection available and (2) they want it to be free somewhere in future. It’s already great and there are way more people travelling by train than it was about e.g. 10 years ago.

pjmlp 4y ago

Traveling by train in Germany is great, but it also an endless pandora box of adventures, specially during weekends. The 9 euro ticket is a nice idea, how well it holds on, even on long period depends on improving the infrastructure. Just today I took almost 3h to what I usually do in 30m with the car over the motorway. Yep 2h 30m extra by taking the 2x bus + train + subway + waiting times instead of the car.

stop50 4y ago

It costed the state 2.5 billion euro for three months. The ministry tasked with evironment protection, nuclear safety and consumer protection has an similar budget in 2021.

morsch 4y ago

Well, on it's own it's not viable at all, the federal government paid for it to the tune of about 2.5 billion EUR. Money well spent, if you ask me.

dplesca 4y ago
Imo viability should be considered if the price that the government pays is worth it, the 2022 budget seems to be around €457.6 billion. 2.5 billion seems to be totally worth it, as you agree. If the measure would be kept year-round, it would cost around 10 billion, which seems a tad high. Are these costs offset somehow by the symbolic price of the ticket? Until 15 of July they sold around 30 million tickets so overall over the 3 months, maybe 40-45 million tickets would be sold. That makes 360-405 million, so around 14-16% of the cost. I'm not sure if this money goes to the transport companies or is used to offset the government's costs. If the ticket stays, but the price increases 2x or 3x (that would still be an enormous bargain IMO), costs would be offset even more, probably. It's debatable of the economical effect that this measure already had, taking in consideration higher efficiency of public transport, more disposable money for the population, freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. Except the flat cost for the government and the long-term cost of infrastructure (which might be huge) I really can't see many negatives for this measure.
- Fissionary 4y ago
  > freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/07/PD22_284_12.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/07... Statistics show a huge increase in rail traffic, but only a small reduction in road traffic between cities. People just started taking extra train journeys for pleasure.
  - asymmetric 4y ago
    This could absolutely be due to novelty.
- matkoniecz 4y ago

tomputer 4y ago

I did the same, visted Berlin a few weeks ago. It was indeed nice that I could take any S-Bahn or U-Bahn without checking the times or zones. I hope they’ll continue with this type of ‘unlimited’ tickes. If only during peak summer/winter months. I guess a lot of people would gladly pay more for such unlimited (no worry) tickets.

pcrh 4y ago

I believe part of the motivation for this €9 ticket is to reduce demand for Russian-sourced petrol/gas used by private vehicles.

ratww 4y ago
Exactly. According to German Wikipedia: "The ticket is part of a relief package decided by the Scholz cabinet due to the increased energy costs due to the Russian attack on Ukraine" [1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket

ThePadawan 4y ago

As a German: It is amazing, but not just because of the price, also because of the unbelievable simplicity that it makes possible. You pay 9€ and you get 1 ticket. The transport company then charges the government back based on usage. Why is this a big deal? Well, try finding out how to get anywhere in Germany not using the national railroad. Here's the map [0]. Not only is there hundreds of local transport companies, they are also all part of different, partially overlapping, partially non-boundary-aligned conglomerates for which your ticket might or might not be valid. It's insanity. [0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_der_Verkehrsverb%C3%BCnde_und_Tarifverb%C3%BCnde_in_Deutschland.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...

ntauthority 4y ago
The 'normal' system being complex is a bit exaggerated here - if you have to travel one-off via local multi-mode transportation you'd usually just get a regional Deutsche Bahn day ticket which will generally by accepted by local transport companies as well, and I believe various variants of these would also exist for longer-timespan tickets. Still, that would not be as handy as the mostly unified billing system using NFC cards we have in the Netherlands since the late 2000s, where if you do not have any entitlement valid on a particular mode of transportation, it uses a charge card balance as such. While this isn't as innovative nowadays as it used to be, it's still notable as it works in the entire country, which, while small, is still not a city-state.
- solarkraft 4y ago
  But then you lose a lot of flexibility and pay insane prices. Where I live regional travel (what's being called complicated here and what the 9€ ticket is valid for) can reasonably cover distances of 50-100km where I live, which covers quite a lot of cities.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  > if you have to travel one-off via local multi-mode transportation you'd usually just get a regional Deutsche Bahn day ticket which will generally by accepted by local transport companies as well I believe that applies in the areas on the map marked in yellow (that are not shaded yellow+gray). So I agree that this applies widely but certainly not everywhere. I must admit I come from an area of Germany where this doesn't apply.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago

I'm in Rome and the full year pass for all public transports (including trains but only for transits between train stations in Rome) costed me 125 euros.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

I've been staying in the Torbay area in the UK where the local bus company has a 5 GBP ticket for unlimited local travel in one day, or 18 GBP for a week. I think that the point is that once you reach the point that all the locals who will take the bus are already taking the bus then you have to consider how to attract people who don't normally take the bus (train, etc.). At this point the marginal cost of carrying an extra passenger is almost zero so any extra sale is almost pure profit. So you can drop the price quite low, just make it competitive with the cost of parking a car and away you go.