Germany faces calls to extend €9-a-month public transport ticket

theguardian.com:

The German government is under pressure to extend the heavily subsidised monthly public transport pass it launched in June.

The “€9 ticket” project, which grants everyone living in or visiting Germany unlimited travel across the country on regional transport at a cost of just €9 (£7.60) a month, is due to expire at the end of August. It has two aims: to lure people out of their cars and help ease the cost of living crisis.

In June alone about 31 million people bought the pass, which can be used on regional trains, buses, trams and underground rail networks. Rail lobbyists and environmentalists have hailed it as a huge success and there is widespread agreement that it has triggered a welcome buzz around public transport – seizing a valuable opportunity at a time when people have been keen to make up for two summers lost to the Covid pandemic.

Public transport and pressure groups say now is the time for the government to grasp the moment and extend the pass.

Oliver Wolff, the managing director of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), said the ticket’s popularity and the joint success of politicians and the transport industry “increases the pressure as to what to do once the scheme has finished”. Last week his organisation proposed a €69-a-month pass, which by its calculations would be financially sustainable. One proposal is to rename it the “climate ticket”.

Anecdotally at least, Germans have used the pass to travel to parties and weddings that were postponed during the pandemic, as well as to lakeside resorts and the popular coasts and islands of the North and Baltic seas.

Austria introduced a heavily discounted ‘Klimaticket’ or ‘climate ticket’, valid on all modes of public transport and costing €1,095 a year