There is currently a heated discussion as to whether and how the 9-euro ticket will continue. From June to August, bus and train drivers could and can use local and regional transport nationwide for nine euros per month. The federal government wants to use this to support commuters because energy prices have risen sharply. The ticket is bought quickly. But does the special offer in Lower Franconia have the desired effect? A search for clues.
If people travel more by bus or train and less by car because of the 9-euro ticket, there will be less traffic on the streets. So far, there have been no meaningful studies on how traffic has changed since the introduction of the 9-euro ticket. But analysts from the traffic data specialist TomTom, together with this editorial team, evaluated traffic data for selected cities in Lower Franconia for the first time. However, the data should be interpreted with caution.
How did the experts determine the data?
TomTom experts evaluated data from drivers’ navigation devices and mobile phones. The GPS device from which the data came does not have to use active navigation for this. For example, it is sufficient if the GPS function is activated on a smartphone and the user has actively consented to the transfer of his anonymized data. From this, experts have created so-called start-destination analyzes between Würzburg and Schweinfurt, Kitzingen and Lohr (district Main-Spessart). From May to mid-July, they determined on a weekly basis how the number of vehicles that drove off and arrived there changed.
The data can be evaluated separately according to working days (Monday to Friday) and weekends (Saturday and Sunday). It is also possible to analyze whether the journey took place in the morning (between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.) or in the evening (between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.).
Why were some weeks not considered?
Holidays and school vacations have a major impact on traffic, and data experts say skew the results. Therefore, the periods from May 23rd to 29th (due to Ascension Day) and June 6th to 19th (due to Pentecost holidays in Bavaria) were not included in the analysis. The week from May 30th to June 5th was also not included in the analysis, since the 9-euro ticket was introduced in the course of this week and TomTom cannot differentiate between journeys on individual days due to the method used.
What conclusions do the data allow?
Even before the introduction of the 9-euro ticket, analysts were seeing “sometimes significant fluctuations in the number of trips from Kitzingen and Schweinfurt to Würzburg,” they said when asked by the editors. One central result can nevertheless be stated: “In the third week after the introduction of the 9-euro ticket, the data from TomTom show a sometimes significant decrease in the number of car journeys during the morning rush hour to Würzburg.”
The week from July 4th to 10th in Kitzingen is an exception: Here the number of trips recorded in the morning was significantly higher than the value from the comparison week from May 16th to 22nd. A possible cause: In the night of July 8th there was rain and squalls. The thermometer showed only 8.6 degrees Celsius that morning in Kitzingen.
“For car traffic to Würzburg over the entire day, the trend from rush hour traffic in the morning is not apparent,” say the experts. The data for Lohr also do not show the same trend as the data for Kitzingen and Schweinfurt show. Overall, the number of samples for Lohr am Main is too small to make reliable statements.
“Even on the weekends, after the introduction of the 9-euro ticket, the trend was initially towards fewer car trips to Würzburg,” say the experts. However, over time this trend has weakened and finally came to a complete halt in the week of July 11-17.
Why is the interpretation of the data difficult?
There are many factors that affect how many people are out on the streets in Lower Franconia. To name just a few examples: development of fuel prices, construction sites, weather, vacation time and, last but not least, events such as the Würzburg Volksfest Kiliani, which took place in the first half of July. In addition, the selection of the cities examined naturally only represents a very small part of the commuter flows in Lower Franconia.
What other studies are there on the effects of the 9-euro ticket?
The demand for buses and trains has increased. “The ticket leads to a higher use of public transport, but above all selectively on certain routes,” says Christian Böttger, rail expert at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (HTW). The Association of German Transport Companies determined that around a quarter of the journeys made in public transport would not have been made at all without the ticket. These are often “leisure trips”, i.e. additional trips and not replacement trips that would otherwise have been made by car. “From the previous studies, only a slight shift from the road to public transport of at best two to three percent can be seen,” says HTW researcher Böttger.
This coincides with the first results of a study from the greater Munich area, which, among other things, evaluates the movement data of hundreds of participants. She came to the conclusion that 35 percent of the test persons traveled more frequently by bus and train – but only three percent used their own vehicle less often. However, the researchers found a certain dampening effect on traffic in Munich. Instead of rising slightly in June – as usual – it fell by three percent.
–
