Transport ministers are negotiating the 49-euro ticket on Monday. New proposals are on the table, and not just for the future of the ticket.
Robert Habeck (left) will meet the IG Metall union again on Monday to lift the automotive industry out of the crisis Photo: Fabian Bimmer/reuters
Berlin taz | Before the meeting of the state transport ministers on Monday, associations and unions are campaigning for a secure future for the Deutschlandticket. The Alliance for a Socially Acceptable Mobility Transition is demanding that the ticket continue to exist beyond 2026, even after a possible change of government. The federal and state governments must ensure a stable price, introduce a nationwide social ticket and invest money in local transport.
Part of the alliance are the German Federation for Environmental and Nature Conservation and the social association VdK. To prevent the 49-euro ticket from disappearing in the long term, the associations propose anchoring it in the Regionalization Act. The law regulates the financing of public transport.
Customers can buy the Deutschlandticket, valid for local public transport nationwide, for 49 euros a month until the end of 2024. The federal and state transport ministers want to negotiate what happens after that at a special conference on Monday. Price increases have been discussed again and again. Most recently, Ingo Wortmann, the president of the Association of German Transport Companies, advocated a “moderate price increase”. The states could not afford the 49 euros in the long term with their current budgets.
Stefan Gelbhaar, the Greens’ spokesman on transport policy in the Bundestag, sees things differently. If prices rise, more money might be raised, but customers would be lost. Instead, the federal and state governments could try to attract more customers. One possibility: family-friendly ticket offers, for example with free travel for children. “This way, more revenue can be generated because it leads to more attractive and more subscriptions,” Gelbhaar told taz. He also suggests offering the 49-euro ticket as an annual subscription to secure income in the long term.
Habeck invites to the car summit
“In view of climate change, it is urgently necessary to encourage more people to switch from cars to trains and public transport,” said Verena Bentele, President of the VdK. The federal government wants to make car traffic itself more climate-friendly with more electric cars. But German car manufacturers, especially Volkswagen, are in crisis – they started the switch to electric drives too late and are complaining about low demand for electric cars.
In order to explore ways out of the crisis, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) is inviting industry associations, manufacturers and IG Metall to an auto summit on Monday. The Climate Alliance Germany had already called for state support for e-car leasing, especially for people with low incomes. The SPD parliamentary group brought up the idea of a scrappage bonus. Anyone who gives up their combustion engine and buys a new e-car could receive a subsidy of 6,000 euros. Anyone who switches to a used e-vehicle would receive 3,000 euros.
