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Subway at Alexanderplatz station in Berlin: Local public transport covers 99 percent of regular services.

Photo: Sabine Gudath / IMAGO

Last year more people took buses and trains than before. One reason for this is the Deutschlandticket. The number of passengers on local and long-distance scheduled services rose by seven percent to almost 10.9 billion, as the Federal Statistical Office announced. Nevertheless, there were still almost eight percent fewer passengers on the road in 2023 than in 2019, i.e. before the start of the corona pandemic.

In addition to the Deutschlandticket introduced in May, the estimated increase in the population by 0.3 million to 84.7 million residents at the end of 2023 is likely to have contributed to the increase in passengers on all public transport, the office explained.

Growth particularly in local rail and tram transport

Local public transport (ÖPNV) covers 99 percent of regular services. The number of passengers there also increased by seven percent compared to 2022. This meant it remained almost eight percent below the pre-Corona level. In local rail transport in particular, there was an increase of nine percent to 2.6 billion passengers. In local tram transport there was an increase of the same amount to 3.7 billion passengers.

There is said to have been an increase of five percent in local bus transport with 5.0 billion passengers. However, according to the statistics office, the data currently reported may not fully reflect the actual increase. The regional transport companies lacked data on sales of the Deutschlandticket, some of which were sold via nationwide platforms.

Automatic passenger counting systems are used comparatively rarely, especially in buses. The number of bus riders may therefore be underestimated.

Around 40 percent more travelers on long-distance buses

In long-distance transport, passenger volume rose by nine percent to 159 million travelers in 2023. 148 million people traveled by train - seven percent more than in 2022 and five percent less than in 2019.

At 10.4 million, the number of travelers on long-distance buses was 39 percent higher than in the previous year, but only around half as high as in 2019.

alw/Reuters