“One of the best ideas we had”

At the end of March, the federal government decided to introduce a uniform low-cost ticket for local transport and thus relieve people of their mobility costs. From June to the end of August, local transport throughout Germany costs only nine euros a month. Since things had to be done quickly, the government asked the VDV to accompany the experiment with market research. The association commissioned the market researchers of Deutsche Bahn AG. But gaining clear insights is anything but easy.

How many went on a short vacation with the nine-euro ticket?

Since the commissioning there has been a dispute about the question design, the selection of the respondents and thus about the results. For example, VDV Managing Director Oliver Wolff explains the lower sales in July with a “finding from our market research: the majority of passengers do not use the nine-euro ticket for excursions or vacation trips, but in everyday life”.

A local demand in transport associations, however, shows a more differentiated picture. In the Munich transport association, for example, a spokeswoman explained that people use local transport more often than usual, especially “to destinations in a different area of ​​validity as well as to tourist destinations and leisure purposes”.

In June, the VDV stated: “More than half of those surveyed named not driving as the main reason, slightly less than half said ‘environmental protection’ as the main reason for buying.” In July, the association then determined: Three percent of users would leave the car at home thanks to the nine-euro ticket.

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For the managing director of the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund, the results of the VDV are not correct. They would “not correctly reflect the actual shift in journeys”. Newly created mobility is greatly overestimated, while the switch from cars to buses and trains has been underestimated. “The high proportion of induced traffic is largely determined by the query in the interview,” sums up Korbutt.

The association determined for the Hanseatic city: Twelve percent of users would normally have driven by car, four percent by bike, and one percent saved walking. In the Rhein-Neckar transport association, on the other hand, it was said that the previous occasional customers in particular had used the offer to drive even cheaper and more frequently, explained managing director Volkhard Malik on Thursday.

Advantages of the nine-euro ticket: does it make more sense to make the tariffs simpler?

His association would therefore prefer to simplify its tariffs and make them more flexible instead of continuing to rely on cheap offers. In fact, one of the great advantages of the nine-euro ticket is that it is easy and valid nationwide. This is also emphasized by Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).

The VDV has now modified the question design twice. The managing director responsible, Jan Schilling, was only recently bothered by the claim that the campaign had no effect on climate protection. There are signs that people are changing their mobility behavior.

Who will pay for public transport in the future?

“In order to gain even more insights here, we have changed the design of the market research again,” he explained. What then constitutes a “success” is something everyone has to judge for themselves. He was impressed “that changes can be measured after such a short time”. The VDV has now pushed ahead without consulting the members and is advertising a 69-euro ticket as a “climate ticket”, as Managing Director Wolff calls it.

The interpretation of the collected data will be decisive: since the spring, the federal and state governments have been advising – regardless of the question of the nine-euro ticket – how local transport can be improved and more people transported. But the central question is: Who pays?

The federal government is already transferring more than ten billion euros to the states, more than half of the almost 20 billion euros that flow into the system every year. The ticket income is far from sufficient.

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For the federal states and the VDV it is clear: the federal government should pay more. The FDP in the federal government, however, rejects it, even though Transport Minister Wissing had already identified “a huge contribution to climate protection and relief on the road” in July with data from the VDV and the navigation service provider Tomtom. He insists that the coalition explain how to proceed. The federal states would also have to contribute financially. VDV Managing Director Schilling then considers a new edition to be possible on January 1, 2023 “as part of the relief package”.

Before that, a number of local transport companies and associations will raise prices back to the old level – and beyond. Due to the rise in energy and personnel costs, they are increasing significantly in some cases. “The award will not only get people to travel more by bus and train,” said Holger Klein from the Rhein-Sieg transport association.

Rather, the system needs more money for a “high-performance offer”. This is the only way to achieve the political climate goals. “Without financial support, cuts in supply will unfortunately become a realistic nightmare scenario.”

HVV boss Korbutt wants to use the boost one way or another: She is currently giving away 100 nine-euro tickets for a whole year and offers employers a job ticket for four times nine euros, i.e. 36 euros a month. “For me, the ticket is already a complete success,” she says.

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