Austria introduced the climate ticket about a year ago. It is similar to the Swiss general subscription, but cheaper. Austria thus becomes a test laboratory. Do low prices encourage people to switch to public transport or just frequent travel, which is ecologically dubious?
Austria’s Defense Minister Klaudia Tanner (ÖVP), Agriculture Minister Elisabeth Koestinger (ÖVP) and Infrastructure Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) are committed to the climate ticket.
For some time now, Austria has no longer been the railway country of Switzerland, but the paradise for hard-working train drivers. Frequent train journeys are probably nowhere else in Europe as easy and cheap as in this country. The reason is the “climate ticket”, a passe-partout for all public transport, which has been around for about a year.
It costs 1,095 euros a year for the second class and just under 2,500 euros for the first class. In Switzerland, the corresponding general subscriptions (GA) are sold for CHF 3,860 and CHF 6,300.
The introduction of the climate ticket was preceded by long and heated discussions; the state railway company ÖBB, for example, feared a loss of income because the ticket replaced the Österreichcard, which was around twice as expensive.
A triumph for the Green Environment Minister
In the end, the Green Environment and Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler was largely able to get her project through – also because the federal government gives the frightened transport companies 150 million euros every year as compensation for the loss of income.
For the politician, who some consider assertive and others stubborn, “a heart’s desire” came true, as she said a year ago.
But the climate ticket is also a prestige success for the Greens as a party. The government expected around 110,000 buyers in the first year when it launched the offer on the national holiday on October 26, 2021; 180,000 tickets are now in circulation.
The transport sector is also proud. Its representatives see the high sales figures as further confirmation that Austria is the number one railway nation in the EU. On average, residents travel around 1,500 kilometers by train each year; in Europe, only the Swiss are more loyal rail customers with 2500 kilometers.
Above all, however, Austria is currently a kind of test laboratory for the question of whether as many commuters and travelers as possible can be persuaded to use the relatively environmentally friendly train instead of the car with low prices.
Germany has just had mixed experiences with a similar experiment. In summer there was the so-called 9-euro monthly ticket for regional transport in the neighboring country.
Demand was sometimes overwhelming. That’s why the railways came to the limit in terms of capacity, and there are still no water-proof evaluations as to whether there was a significant transfer effect. What is clear, however, is that the low price has fueled demand for the good “transport” overall, which is actually undesirable for ecological reasons.
Economists consider the ticket too cheap
Transfer effect or merely state-subsidized additional traffic – that is the key question in Austria as well. The government’s “Mobility Plan 2030” envisages increasing the share of “public transport” in total traffic from 23 to 40 percent by 2040. If the government achieves this goal, the country would probably be “European champion” again in this area.
However, certain economists are critical of the climate ticket. Sebastian Kummer, logistics specialist at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, thinks it’s too cheap – and that has undesirable effects, he says in an interview.
The economic reasoning for this is as follows: With the climate ticket, users only have fixed costs, but no variable expenses. That’s why they use the climate ticket not only for necessary journeys, but also for “unnecessary” excursions that they wouldn’t make without a climate ticket. After all, the marginal costs of such trips are zero. As a result, the volume of traffic increases – just as it has at times exploded in Germany as a result of the 9-euro tickets.
Kummer’s second point of criticism relates to the deadweight effect. According to this, those Austrians who have previously purchased the more expensive Österreichcard or who use public transport anyway buy the climate ticket in the first place. In this way, taxpayers would financially support the transport needs of a clientele who generally swear by public transport, such as those living in urban centers.
Austria’s Ministry of Transport and Energy wants to use data to investigate the effects that the climate ticket has on traffic volume. However, the climate ticket has not been on the market long enough to provide precise information.
An offer for city dwellers
However, the One-Mobility company has already gained certain assumptions. The company, which belongs to the ministry, is responsible for marketing the card. “Austrians with good rail connections are overrepresented among climate ticket buyers,” says Jakob Lambert, Managing Director of One-Mobility. And he believes that the vast majority of climate ticket buyers have already used public transport before. However, before the introduction of the climate ticket, 110,000 users would have spent more than 1095 euros on public transport, while 70,000 users would have spent less than this amount. A small part of the population was therefore willing to spend more.
But Lambert is also aware that, depending on the region, a great deal of effort will still be needed to trigger a switchover effect in Austria. Many Viennese use public transport as a matter of course – be it for commuting, for a holiday trip or to visit friends.
However, the habits of those who live in peripheral regions are different. A close-meshed timetable is illusory in such areas: the number of passengers is too low and the advantage of the car is too great.
This leads to a vicious circle: the expansion of public transport is not worthwhile, which in turn discourages residents from using it. The climate ticket will not do much there. “On the other hand, the regions between town and country are exciting,” says Lambert: ie the agglomerations around the medium-sized centers. According to the One-Mobility managing director, Austria must win climate ticket users there in order to achieve a relocation effect.
For this, the ÖBB continue to expand the infrastructure for a lot of money. They will invest 18.2 billion euros by 2027. Austrian economists and experts just shake their heads about the situation in Germany. In the neighboring country, there is a “crazy investment backlog,” says a transport expert. Fixing it will take at least ten years.
Vienna scares car commuters away
Economists agree that price is not the only criterion when it comes to rail or car. “Quality improvements, such as tightly scheduled connections, and higher speeds are at least as important,” says Kummer from the Vienna University of Economics and Business.
These are so-called pull factors. In the conversation, however, Lambert also emphasized the push factors. “Scientists consider them to be more important than the pull factors,” he says. In other words, commuters must also be discouraged from using their vehicles excessively.
Vienna demonstrates how to drive drivers away. For about a year and a half, the entire city has been designated as a short-term parking zone, so you can no longer leave your vehicle on public land for hours.
Lambert sees such tightening, which makes life difficult for drivers, as necessary. “I’m becoming increasingly uncompromising on this issue,” he says.