18% price increase is pretty steep.
That said, 60 euro for a month is roughly 3e/day for commuting. That sounds reasonable to me as a tourist who is used to paying $5-10/day for a subway pass in Europe. In Munich, a daily pass is 9 euro, so this is a bargain.
That’s unfortunately the exact wrong way to look at it.
The entire point of this ticket was to be cheap enough so a lot of new people get it, but don’t use it that often - a bit like a voluntary tax, that subsidizes the ticket for those who actually need it.
There’s a reason the regular monthly tickets are much more expensive - they cover the actual costs. If only commuters buy the ticket, public transit providers will make massive losses - and opt out of the ticket.
I’m 80% sure, this is a move to effectively kill the Deutschlandticket. The one good thing our current government managed to get done.
They should just tax every citizen the extra and make it free. it is still cheaper than all the road maintenance.
That’s politically almost impossible.
Interesting background info. I hadn’t thought of it that way.
To add on to what the other person said, this is very likely a targeted move to kill the ticket and mock the people that want it. Before it got renamed, it was called the 49€-Ticket, which followed in the footsteps of Corona-time 9€-Ticket, which allowed people to use all regional transport for nine bucks a month. It was hugely successful. When Corona stimuli were cut, it got replaced with what we have now. Since then, a lot of people have demanded to bring back a permanent 9€-Ticket.
The transportation minister, Volker Wissing from the right-wing, corrupt, neoliberal FDP instead announces he’s going to raise the price, by… 9€. This is just a spit in the face of everyone wishing for affordable transit
It’s also significantly cheaper than owning a vehicle, (though obviously, a vehicle will take you door-to-door anywhere, doesn’t expose you to inclement weather, and can haul cargo, so it’s not an exact comparison).
In the US, a person averages about 42 miles of travel a day:
And the average aggregate cost per mile in the US of a (new) vehicle is 54.56¢/mile for a small sedan to 86.21¢/mile for a large pickup.
Figure 30 days to a month, and that’s ~$687/month for the small sedan to $1086/month for the large pickup.
At current exchange rates, 58 EUR is ~$64.50; less than a tenth as much, if you can get around just via transit covered by said ticket.
In the Boston area, a T (metro) pass is $90, and commuter rail (regional, with access to some metro areas in surrounding states) ranges from $214-426/month. So this looks like a steal to me.
I’m still doing hybrid work, going to the office 3 times a week in Sydney. I pay the equivalent of €66 a month. If I was doing full time in the office it would be €110 a month. I would also love a €58 euro monthly ticket.
And the 58€ ticket is valid nationwide. In theory, you could cover distances of 1000 km with it from North to South. It’s still a pretty good deal, but if people only use it occasionally and own a car anyway, the math is probably not in favour of it.
Not great, but it was bound to happen and I can afford it. I hope that those in need can still get it cheaper without a price hike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-Euro-Ticket
The 9-Euro-Ticket (German pronunciation: [ˌnɔʏ̯n ˈɔʏ̯ʁo ˈtɪkət]) was a German scheme through which passengers could travel for 9 euros (€) per month on local and regional transport in all of Germany. The tickets were valid for June, July, or August 2022. The offer aimed at reducing energy use amid the 2021–2022 global energy crisis.[
49 euro monthly ticket
Main article: Deutschlandticket
On 13 October 2022, the transport ministers of the federal states and Federal Transport Minister Wissing announced that they had agreed on a successor ticket dubbed Deutschlandticket, which is expected to be available from January 2023 and cost 49 euros per month. At this time, the financing scheme remained unclear, as the states demanded the federal government to contribute more money.[27][28]
Sounds like it’s seen a lot of variability in price over the past couple years.
Not really. The 9€ ticket was an emergency measure for 3 months. It’s the soft version of car free sundays.
But since it was so successful, it got turned into a more permanent scheme. 9€ for a whole month of basically free travel was not sustainable, so 49€ was the compromise.
Of course it would’ve been sustainable public transport is getting financed via taxes one way or the other. We could make public transit free at the point of use, no issue finance-wise we’d probably save money overall due to secondary effects, up to fewer respiratory issues.
The political will not being there to pump taxes into it the next best thing would be “X days out of a month” type options. I don’t need a monthly ticket, I don’t need a weekly ticket, wouldn’t use either enough to justify them, what I want is a ticket that lets me travel what 5-10 days in a month, freely chosen.
Not great, but it was bound to happen and I can afford it. I hope that those in need can still get it cheaper without a price hike.
DW News - News Source Context (Click to view Full Report)
Information for DW News:
MBFC: Left-Center - Credibility: High - Factual Reporting: High - Germany
Wikipedia about this sourceSearch topics on Ground.News
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-increases-deutschlandticket-price-to-58/a-70300975
