The Deutschlandticket is intended to encourage people to switch to buses and trains. According to an evaluation of mobile phone data, the first successes are evident: the number of train journeys has increased significantly since the introduction in May.
The 49-euro ticket has apparently already had an impact on train and road traffic in May and June. This suggests an evaluation of mobility data from the mobile phone provider O2 Telefónica, which is available to the dpa news agency.
This shows a significant increase in train journeys of more than 30 kilometers after the ticket was introduced at the beginning of May. In June, the number of these commutes was more than a quarter higher than in April. At the same time, according to the data, the share of rail in passenger transport increased by around 2.5 percentage points compared to the time before the 49-euro ticket was introduced. This is a “perceptible shift from road to rail,” said O2 Telefónica.
Success of the 9-euro ticket not yet achieved
However, its 40-euro more expensive successor cannot keep up with the effects of the 9-euro ticket. After this was introduced in June 2022, the jump in train travel was much larger than it was now.
For the analysis, the data specialist Teralytics evaluated the anonymized movement profiles of around 40 million mobile phones for O2 Telefónica and extrapolated them to the entire population.
Traffic Company hope for new customers
The Deutschlandticket entitles you to travel on all local and regional transport throughout Germany for EUR 49 per month. According to the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), it was used by a good 9.6 million passengers in June (as of June 20).
The VDV assumes that 17 million people will get a Germany ticket in the future. Above all, the association is hoping for new customers with the job ticket variant – many companies had not yet switched the previous job tickets to Germany tickets in time for the start in May.