digitalization
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Anni Eckert is angry. She has been a WVV customer for 35 years. And the 78-year-old travels a lot with public transport. Since the death of her husband, she has lived alone in Margetshöchheim, traveling to Würzburg every day and often to Esselbach to visit her son, Pastor Alexander Eckert.
Now she wanted to exchange her permanent premium subscription for a Germany ticket. She finally got it. But the hurdles were great. What Anni Eckert experienced shocked her “really”.
Since May 1st, bus and train drivers have been able to use the 49-euro ticket nationwide. The ticket is basically intended as a digital variant, i.e. via smartphone app. By the end of 2023, the subscription will also be available as a paper ticket in some places. The 49-euro ticket can also be purchased in the form of a chip card, but not all transport companies offer this option. And the order is also mostly digital. This can become a problem for seniors like Anni Eckert.
“I have a cell phone now, but I only use it to make calls. That’s all I can do with it,” says the 78-year-old. If she had to use an app, she fears that she would be far too excited when she was checked on the bus and would then not be able to cope with “wiping”. She does not use computers or the internet. And she’s not alone in that. According to the Federal Working Group of Senior Citizens’ Organizations, there are around seven million elderly people in Germany who do not use the Internet. The federal working group of senior citizens’ organizations urgently demands a variant of the Germany ticket that can also be purchased and used without internet and smartphones.
Wanted by politics
“We older people are actually the bus drivers and we are not taken into account,” says Anni Eckert. She was particularly shocked by her visit to the WVV customer center in Würzburg, where, among other things, all tickets for the Verkehrsverbund Mainfranken can be bought. There she wanted to buy the Germany ticket in person, and she had her old premium subscription with all the stamps that she could stick on. »Then I was told very flippantly that this was only possible with a mobile phone. And if I can’t do that, I’ll just have to find someone to do it for me,” reports the 78-year-old.
“We are all not happy with this solution and point out that politicians want it to be a purely digital ticket,” says Cornelia Wagner, press spokeswoman for the WVV. At the WVV there is currently no other digital ticket solution without a mobile phone and app. However, the employees in the Würzburg customer center should be made aware again of showing customers the possibility of purchasing the ticket at other locations.
Finally, Anni Eckert was helped by her sons Alexander and Thomas Eckert. After researching the Internet, they found what they were looking for at the RMV. Unlike the WVV, you can also order the Deutschlandticket as a chip card here – on the Internet, of course. Shortly thereafter, the card came to Anni Eckert in the mailbox by old post.
Missed digitization
The next problem followed. Because the buses in our region do not have chip readers, a chip card that cannot be clearly identified as a Deutschlandticket cannot be recognized as such by the bus drivers here. The patchwork quilt in the digitization of Germany brings chaos. Some transport associations issue chip cards as general cards on which the Deutschlandticket is stored but not visually recognizable. In some regions these cards can be read on the buses, in others they are not. Some regions, such as Schweinfurt, also sell chip cards with the Deutschlandticket logo.
Pastor Alexander Eckert observed this problem himself on a bus ride from Würzburg to Marktheidenfeld. »A young man got on in front of me, who came from Essen and had a Germany ticket from VRR Essen. The conductor was able to read the card on the train, but the bus driver couldn’t and wanted the young man to pay,” reports Eckert. His mother Anni had a similar experience on the return journey from Esselbach to Würzburg. Your ticket also simply bears the inscription »E-Ticket« – it is impossible for the bus driver to read it. But with the 78-year-old, the driver was accommodating.
“The drivers are instructed to be accommodating. Some don’t even have a chip card because there are no more chips on the market. Then only the order confirmation counts,” says Sibylle Holste, deputy operations manager at APG, the municipal company for the Würzburg district. And she confirms that the bus drivers in the districts are currently still working on “visual inspection”. Digitization has actually been missed in this area. Now, at least for the district of Würzburg, new “on-board units” have been ordered for the buses, which also include printers for tickets and chip readers. The transition will happen over the next six to nine months. However, it could be years before all buses in the Würzburg district actually get new units. Goodwill is one side during this time. Reinforced controls the other, announces Holste.
There is another way
Digitization has also been missed in the Main-Spessart district. It will take even longer for the buses to change over here. »The installation of various technical reading devices is currently being examined. It is currently planned to procure and set up the devices at the beginning of 2024,” the district office announced on request. However, no concrete statements could be made about the exact procurement costs and delivery times. The demand for chip readers is very high.
The Rhein-Main-Verkehrsverbund, from which Anni Eckert bought her chip card for the Deutschlandticket, shows that there is another way. In Frankfurt, every bus is equipped with readers. »We already focused on digitization more than ten years ago. The customer simply holds their card up to the device. Basically, the bus driver no longer has to check anything visually and simply receives a short OK that the card is valid for the journey,” explains Maximilian Meyer, spokesman for the RMV. This applies to all buses in the RMV area.
»Probably everything will eventually be digital. But that’s not it now. And that’s why you can’t force a 90-year-old who would like to travel with the Deutschlandticket to live digitally,” says Aurica Gruber, district manager of the VdK Main-Spessart. You usually need the internet to order a chip card. For a large group of seniors, this is discriminatory. One cannot assume that every senior who wants to use the ticket but does not have internet has children to help them. The complaints from senior citizens also increased at the VdK Main-Spessart. The social association therefore urgently demands easy and barrier-free access to the Deutschlandticket for everyone.
BIANCA LÖBBERT
Background: Demands on the federal government
Since May 1st, public transport can be used throughout the country with a subscription to the Deutschlandticket for EUR 49 per month. The Deutschlandticket can be purchased via the sales channels of Deutsche Bahn and its customer centers, directly via the Deutschlandticket app or via the websites of the transport companies or via their apps. The ticket is planned by the federal government as a purely digital version. The ticket can also be bought as a chip card, which can also be bought online. There should be a version in paper form as an interim solution until the beginning of 2024. This triggers criticism from various associations. The social association VdK and the federal working group of senior citizens’ organizations (Bagso) demand that the ticket must also be accessible to older people without a smartphone and Internet access, for example also available at ticket offices and ticket machines – without a surcharge. The Federal Government Commissioner for Disabled Persons, Jürgen Dusel, also calls for barrier-free access to the Deutschlandticket. ()
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