Transport ministers seal plans for Deutschlandticket – upgrade planned for students
Dusseldorf, Berlin The 49-euro ticket for all local transport in Germany is to be finally introduced. “We have cleared the final hurdles with the Deutschlandticket,” announced NRW Minister Oliver Krischer (Greens) as Chairman of the Transport Ministers’ Conference on Thursday in Aachen.
As announced, the ticket will come in May, and sales will begin on April 3rd. It will “revolutionize local transport and make it cheap and easy”. The federal and state governments shared the costs, said Hessian Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir. The ticket is the biggest reform in local public transport to date, said Susanne Henckel, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Transport.
The Germany ticket is to be the successor to the 9-euro ticket from the summer, which was sold over 50 million times. It was valid from June to August and you could travel nationwide by bus and train for nine euros a month. This principle should also apply to the new Deutschlandticket for 49 euros.
With the 49-euro ticket, there should also be an offer for students. Krischer said that an “upgrade solution” should first be offered for the introduction of the ticket on May 1st. This means that students only have to pay the difference up to the price of 49 euros for the Germany ticket, based on the amount of their semester ticket.
Krischer explained that a work process had been agreed for the permanent and uniform nationwide inclusion of tickets for students in the 49-euro ticket. There are still legal issues to be resolved. He emphasized that students are “a very important customer group” that should also be retained. In general, the ticket should make public transport cheap and easy and encourage a lot of people to use it.
