In Germany, for the first time, there is to be a permanent nationwide local transport ticket for the price of 49 euros per month.

The transport ministers of the federal states agreed on this on Thursday together with Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) after a two-day transport ministers' conference in Bremerhaven.

Corinna Budras

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Unlike the 9-euro ticket last summer, the ticket will only be available digitally by subscription and will apply to all local and regional transport in Germany.

The offer is intended to lure more customers from their cars to buses and trains in order to reduce emissions of climate-damaging carbon dioxide.

The ticket should be introduced "as soon as possible", said Maike Schaefer, Bremen Senator for Mobility and Chair of the Transport Ministers' Conference.

However, the introduction is still subject to the proviso that the Prime Ministers' Conference agrees.

This must first decide on an additional increase in regionalization funds in order to ensure the financing of local public transport (ÖPNV) in the long term.

Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP) believes that, despite the repeated delay, it is possible that the ticket could be offered as early as January.

"We are thus launching one of the biggest reforms in local public transport," emphasized the FDP politician.

No final decision yet

However, Wissing conceded that, contrary to expectations, no final decision could be made by the transport ministers because the billions of additional funds required could not be released without the finance ministers and the prime minister.

In the Prime Ministers' Conference, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) will also decide on an increase in regionalization funds.

Public transport in Germany is financed jointly by the federal and state governments, although it is the responsibility of the states.  

With the agreement on Thursday, a successor model for the 9-euro ticket has now been found, which in the summer allowed citizens in Germany to use buses and trains throughout Germany for three months.

Although the new "climate ticket" is significantly more expensive than the original model, it is still cheaper than the usual subscription offers, especially in the large metropolitan regions.

In Berlin, for example, an environmental card costs 86 euros and in Frankfurt 78 euros per month.

Many monthly tickets are therefore becoming obsolete.

"That will blow up the complicated tariff system," said Wissing.

The new subscription can be canceled at any time, said Wissing.

"We want to remove hurdles." But you choose a subscription model to bind people to public transport in the long term.

The 9 euro ticket is considered a success

In the summer, the 9-euro ticket, together with the tank discount, was part of the first relief package that the federal government launched shortly after the start of the Russian war of aggression and was limited to three months.

This discount campaign was generally considered a great success: More than 52 million people bought the ticket during this period, and around a fifth of the users were new customers, according to a study by the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV).

In addition, there were another ten million subscribers.

In around 10 percent of the cases, public transport actually replaced trips that people would otherwise have made by car, emphasized the VDV.

Three months of a 9-euro ticket would have saved about as much carbon dioxide as a year would bring speed limits on motorways.

However, the ticket was mainly used in cities where there is already an intact public transport system.

For this reason alone, a permanent solution was desired by both the traffic light parties at federal level and by the states.

However, the agreement was preceded by tough negotiations for additional financial support worth billions, which went far beyond the questions of pure ticket financing.

The federal states have long been demanding that the federal government increase the so-called regionalization funds, which the federal states support every year in financing public transport.

This year, the federal government has already paid more than 10 billion euros, but the states wanted 3.165 billion euros more each for 2022 and 2023 in order to be able to settle the rising energy and personnel costs and also to handle the urgently needed expansion.

Accordingly, no agreement has yet been reached here, and the MPK must now decide.

Federal Transport Minister Wissing had not fundamentally blocked this, but insisted that the federal states also disclose the contributions they make to the financing of public transport.

This transparency has now been established.