Christian Bernreiter continues to criticize that the train ticket should work purely digitally. But with a Bavarian special route, passengers in other federal states could become fare dodgers.
Bavaria excludes going it alone with the 49-euro ticket. Transport Minister Christian Bernreiter (CSU) reiterated his criticism of the plans of Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP), who calls for an exclusively digital solution. “But there cannot be a Bavarian special route, because otherwise the passengers might not be able to use their ticket in other federal states,” said Bernreiter of the German Press Agency.
It should be clarified in the coming weeks whether Bavaria will offer a chip card or other digitally controllable solutions for the planned ticket launch on May 1st as an alternative for people without a smartphone. Bernreiter emphasized that it was important to him to win new passengers for local public transport and not to exclude anyone.
“In any case, a paper ticket for the transition phase by the end of the year would have been a better alternative than a chip card or a QR code,” he said, criticizing that the federal government had “chosen the more cumbersome solution”. According to Bernreiter, the many medium-sized bus companies in particular should not be at a disadvantage compared to their larger competitors when it comes to sharing the income from the ticket.