The 9-euro ticket is valid for one calendar month (June, July or August) and allows free travel throughout Germany on local public transport, including almost all regional trains. The Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), in which most German local transport companies are organized, named the number of 16 million 9-euro tickets sold so far on Tuesday and added: “In addition, there are at least ten million tickets from subscribers who buy for the three months of June, July and August are valid as a 9-euro ticket.” This means that the company is well on the way to reaching the forecast number of up to 30 million users per month. The subscriber tickets mentioned also include the annual tickets for the Rhein-Neckar transport association (VRN), which are widely used in the Palatinate, such as the job ticket, card from 60 and the Rhein-Neckar ticket.
Particularly large increase in passengers at Pentecost
Nationwide data on the effects of tickets on passenger numbers are not yet available. An overall impression is best provided by figures from Deutsche Bahn (DB), according to which around 10 percent more passengers were traveling in regional transport on June 1 and 2 than on average working days in 2021. The same applies to June 7 and 8, the two days after the Pentecost weekend.
In the peak periods over the long Pentecost weekend, however, the increase was apparently much stronger. According to DB data, from which the “Spiegel” quotes, the number of transports was around 30 percent above the pre-corona level. The DB expressed its satisfaction: “The 9-euro ticket leads to more traffic, as desired by the federal government,” said a DB spokesman. During the peak utilization periods, there were only a few partial evictions and evictions. The internal statistics show a value of 0.1 percent of all journeys where the trains were so overcrowded that people had to get off.
Big problems in North Rhine-Westphalia
A message from the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) paints a different picture. It says: “While there were no major problems on the platforms or in the trains on the first two days of validity of the 9-euro ticket, the number of passengers increased significantly in the afternoon of Whit Friday. Many thousands of people no longer fit on the trains and had to switch to later train services. Especially on Friday afternoon, Saturday morning and late Saturday afternoon, the main axis from Cologne via Düsseldorf through the Ruhr area to Hamm with the lines RE1, RE2, RE5, RE6 and RE11 was so overloaded that practically all trains had to leave numerous passengers behind for hours. “
S-Bahn often more pleasant than regional express
In the Palatinate, the problems on the Pentecost weekend were not so serious, but here, too, Regional Express trains, which are interesting for journeys over longer distances, were most likely to be overloaded. This includes above all the RE1 of the Süwex network from Mannheim via Kaiserslautern and Saarbrücken to Trier (and on to Koblenz).
At weekends in particular, it can be advisable to avoid the heavily frequented RE lines if possible and to switch to the S-Bahn for journeys from Mannheim to Neustadt and Kaiserslautern, for example. The S-Bahn trains on the Mannheim-Neustadt section are usually doubled up at weekends and are less exposed to the onslaught of travelers who travel long distances almost free of charge with the 9-euro ticket.
More space is needed on trains
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