You pay 9€ and you get 1 ticket. The transport company then charges the government back based on usage.
Why is this a big deal? Well, try finding out how to get anywhere in Germany not using the national railroad. Here's the map [0].
Not only is there hundreds of local transport companies, they are also all part of different, partially overlapping, partially non-boundary-aligned conglomerates for which your ticket might or might not be valid.
It's insanity.
[0] https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Karte_de...
Still, that would not be as handy as the mostly unified billing system using NFC cards we have in the Netherlands since the late 2000s, where if you do not have any entitlement valid on a particular mode of transportation, it uses a charge card balance as such.
While this isn't as innovative nowadays as it used to be, it's still notable as it works in the entire country, which, while small, is still not a city-state.
I believe that applies in the areas on the map marked in yellow (that are not shaded yellow+gray). So I agree that this applies widely but certainly not everywhere. I must admit I come from an area of Germany where this doesn't apply.
> The ticket can be bought only throughout the summer months.
The ticket is a new thing, by the way. The reason it's only available in "summer months" is because they haven't finished thinking about how it's gonna be after that.
However the transport companies already manifested interest in continuing with the ticket for €69 [1]. Sure, not €9 but still progress. Some parties recently suggested €365 per year. Both are still a great price IMO considering I used to pay €40 a month (€63 in total, my company pays the rest), for a ticket that only covered Berlin!
[1] https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/verbraucher/69-euro-tic...
[2] https://www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/german-expat-news/left-ca...
I personally would probably pay the €69 if my employer paid a part, since I already pay €40 / €63 for Berlin, which I consider a good deal.
But for people that have a car and tourists €70 is indeed a bit steep.
"The ticket is part of a relief package decided by the Scholz cabinet due to the increased energy costs due to the Russian attack on Ukraine"
If the measure would be kept year-round, it would cost around 10 billion, which seems a tad high. Are these costs offset somehow by the symbolic price of the ticket? Until 15 of July they sold around 30 million tickets so overall over the 3 months, maybe 40-45 million tickets would be sold. That makes 360-405 million, so around 14-16% of the cost. I'm not sure if this money goes to the transport companies or is used to offset the government's costs. If the ticket stays, but the price increases 2x or 3x (that would still be an enormous bargain IMO), costs would be offset even more, probably.
It's debatable of the economical effect that this measure already had, taking in consideration higher efficiency of public transport, more disposable money for the population, freer roads that might lead to more efficient transport services etc. Except the flat cost for the government and the long-term cost of infrastructure (which might be huge) I really can't see many negatives for this measure.
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2022/07...
Statistics show a huge increase in rail traffic, but only a small reduction in road traffic between cities. People just started taking extra train journeys for pleasure.
It may be negative, as permanent change would allow to reduce road and parking funding.
Also, overall pollution would be lower.
Depends on how much can be saved on road construction and maintenance.
The 9 euro ticket is a nice idea, how well it holds on, even on long period depends on improving the infrastructure.
Just today I took almost 3h to what I usually do in 30m with the car over the motorway.
Yep 2h 30m extra by taking the 2x bus + train + subway + waiting times instead of the car.
I hope they’ll continue with this type of ‘unlimited’ tickes. If only during peak summer/winter months. I guess a lot of people would gladly pay more for such unlimited (no worry) tickets.
I think that the point is that once you reach the point that all the locals who will take the bus are already taking the bus then you have to consider how to attract people who don't normally take the bus (train, etc.). At this point the marginal cost of carrying an extra passenger is almost zero so any extra sale is almost pure profit. So you can drop the price quite low, just make it competitive with the cost of parking a car and away you go.
For a tourist that was in town only for a few days, it was just amazing, no worries when taking any public transport for ticket zones, right tickets or time of availability. I imagine it was great for commuters too, price-wise at the very least. To me it seems like a great idea, honestly, I'm just not sure what the _real_ costs were and how financially viable such a measure would be over the long term.