Bahn board member Evelyn Palla
“Deutschland-Ticket will make our trains fuller”
04/14/2023, 2:08 p.m
The local transport flat rate for Germany will start at the beginning of May – an experiment in the country of the tariff jungle. Bahn board member Evelyn Palla says for whom the ticket should be worthwhile – and for whom not.
It is tantamount to a small revolution: From May there will be a flat rate for local and regional transport for 49 euros – the so-called Germany ticket. A ticket that can be used on buses, trams or trains throughout the country, regardless of the jungle of tariffs. But what good does that do for a transport company like Deutsche Bahn, which wants to divert more traffic onto the rails? “The Germany ticket will make our trains full again,” says Evelyn Palla, head of regional transport at Deutsche Bahn, in the podcast “The Zero Hour”. The still existing post-corona gap could be filled with it.
Precise forecasts are difficult, but initial estimates assume that there are at least five to six million new subscribers, i.e. people who have not yet had a season ticket. There are also users who already had a subscription and are now converting it to a new ticket. However, there are likely to be large regional differences. “The ticket becomes attractive when there is a corresponding public transport offer. Otherwise it makes no sense,” says Palla. There is therefore a great advantage for residents of urban areas – and so far bring less to rural areas. “If I don’t have an offer, the ticket is of no use to me,” says Palla.
The Deutsche Bahn board member considers the idea of numerous companies to offer the Deutschland-Ticket as a job ticket to be particularly promising – a model in which the employer partially subsidizes the ticket and a discount from the tariff provider is added. “That would really push the Germany ticket,” says Palla. 300 companies in Germany have already shown interest in such a solution.
Listen in the new episode of “The Zero Hour“
- What Deutsche Bahn has learned from the 9-euro ticket
- Why certain tariffs will disappear in local transport
- What distinguishes rail traffic in Germany from that in Austria
All episodes can be found directly at RTL+, Apple or Spotify or via Google.