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Jever (dpa / lni) - The district of Friesland wants to make local transport more attractive for young people between 12 and 20 years in the region with a free leisure ticket.
With the planned offer, young people who have their place of residence in the district should in future be able to use public transport free of charge all year round on workdays from 2 p.m. and on weekends, public holidays and during the holidays.
As District Administrator Sven Ambrosy (SPD) announced, around 8,000 young people in the district could benefit from the new offer.
The ticket should also be able to use bus lines to neighboring districts and cities such as Wittmund, Wilhelmshaven, Westerstede (Ammerland district) and Jaderberg (Wesermarsch district).
The district wants to finance the offer through a fundamental reform of the existing local transport network.
There should be savings, for example, by merging the 62 tariff zones that have existed to date.
In future, they are to be combined into seven zones - that corresponds to one zone per city or municipality in the Friesland district.
According to the district, general fares remained the same for almost all passengers or would become cheaper, despite the reform.
In addition, bus connections in the afternoons, evenings, weekends and during the holidays should be better timed and coordinated with local rail transport.
The district council had already approved the corresponding plans in the context of its budget discussions in mid-December.
There is not yet an exact start date for the reform.
The introduction of the youth leisure card is planned for the first quarter of 2021.
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Youth leisure tickets with similar conditions are also available in other regions of Lower Saxony, for example in the area of the Bremen / Lower Saxony transport association (VBN) or in the southern Lower Saxony transport association.
So far, however, these are only heavily discounted and not completely free.
For young adults there is also the U21 leisure card for regional traffic nationwide.
With this discounted ticket you can also travel to Bremen, Hamburg, Hengelo and some neighboring stations in North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse.
Communication from the district of Friesland
Information about youth leisure tickets at VBN
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Information on the tariff reform in southern Lower Saxony
Information on the Lower Saxony U21 leisure card