Minister: Countries should save
Wissing does not want to finance the Deutschlandticket any higher
8/29/2023 3:17 am
The extent to which the popular Germany ticket will continue to be financed in the future is controversial. Federal Transport Minister Wissing no longer wants to loosen money and instead calls for austerity measures from the federal states. They have previously warned of the end of the ticket.
Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing has rejected a higher cost sharing by the federal government for the Deutschlandticket and has called on the federal states to save. “The federal government has spent a lot of money on the Germany ticket and we have also increased the regionalization funds,” Wissing told the editorial network Germany. He demanded that the federal states first have to save on the transport associations and distribution costs.
“I recommend the federal states to move forward courageously and to effectively reorganize the patchwork of transport associations,” said Wissing. “There must be savings now, so that public transport is better on offer and at the same time unnecessary costs are saved. We alone have two billion euros in sales costs for public transport tickets. That has to change,” said the minister.
Wissing called the “digitization of local public transport” decisive. The Deutschlandticket has been valid since May and entitles you to travel on local and regional transport nationwide for 49 euros per month. So far, the federal and state governments have shared the costs for the Deutschlandticket until 2025 at 1.5 billion euros each year. However, the assumption of the additional costs for the ticket is only secured until the end of this year. States and municipalities regularly demand more money from the federal government to secure the ticket in the long term.
Federal states see the continuation of the ticket at risk
Several federal states had recently appealed to Transport Minister Wissing in a fire letter. Without an agreement on open financial issues for the period after 2023, they see “the continuation of the Deutschlandticket or at least its widespread application in serious jeopardy,” quoted the SZ from the letter.
“The future of the Germany ticket is uncertain because the transport companies and associations do not know whether its financing will continue next year,” warned the Vice President of the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), Werner Overkamp. The ball is now in the hands of the federal and state governments, they are required to “ensure financing beyond 2023,” Overkamp told the newspaper.
Local public transport buses and trains will probably cost taxpayers significantly more money in the next few years than they have in the past. This is the conclusion reached by an investigation commissioned by the Federal Ministry of Transport, the preliminary version of which was recently reported by the “Spiegel”. Should the Germany ticket continue to exist, there could be a price increase.