The transport ministers of the federal states are discussing the shaky future of the 49 euro ticket. Loss of income and a shortage of skilled workers are an unsolved problem for transport companies.
The Deutschlandticket has been around for almost six months now. Across the country with a single fixed tariff – that didn’t exist before. It is a successful model for politicians and transport companies. Around eleven million people use the ticket every month, eight percent of whom are new customers who have never used public transport before.
But now the Germany ticket could soon be over again. The federal and state governments have been arguing about further financing for months. Both sides contribute 1.5 billion euros annually. However, the transport companies still complain about additional costs of more than a billion euros. The federal and state governments have also shared these so far. From 2024, however, the federal government wants to contribute less money – the states are responsible for regional transport.
Federal states are calling for talks with the federal government
For the federal states, these would be costs that they could not bear alone, according to North Rhine-Westphalia’s Transport Minister Oliver Krischer (Greens). The states are demanding concessions from the federal government in order to receive the Deutschlandticket. “We are ready to do this, across all party lines,” said Krischer yesterday before the conference began. “Anything else would send a fatal signal, especially at this time, if we as the politically responsible people don’t ultimately manage to find a common solution here, but this requires the federal government’s willingness to talk, which has not been evident so far.”
Activists had previously presented Transport Minister Krischer with a collection of more than 360,000 signatures on the sidelines of a demonstration to receive the ticket. They actually wanted to give it to Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP), but he refused, according to a spokesman for the Campact citizens’ alliance. Wissing has not yet commented on a possible agreement.
Meanwhile, the transport companies are also waiting for a decision: “We have a significant financing problem, especially in these weeks,” explains Alexander Möller, chairman of the Association of German Transport Companies. “We still have a lot to negotiate, that’s a big problem for us as an industry.”
Germany ticket: Not attractive to everyone
Although it is considered a successful model, not everyone benefits equally from the Deutschlandticket. According to a survey by the association, only six percent of those surveyed in small towns and rural areas currently have the ticket. Because the public transport network is patchy in many places, it’s not worth it for many people.
Ulrike Reutter is researching public transport of the future at the University of Wuppertal. She says the Deutschlandticket is a good start, but one shouldn’t rest on it: “Regardless of whether with or without a Deutschlandticket, the public transport offering needs to be worked on. Especially for rural areas. We need to continue working on reliability in the city and Country. And comfort.”
A lack of drivers leads to failures
However, this reliability is a problem for many transport companies. Because the shortage of skilled workers has also reached their industry, such as in Münster. For two weeks now, buses have only been running every half hour instead of every 20 minutes as before – an emergency solution that the city had to take, as city utility spokesman Florian Adler says: “In principle, the problem exists in all large cities and also in many rural ones Regions: that buses simply fail because the services can no longer be staffed. This is a bad sign for the mobility transition throughout Germany.”
Stadtwerke Münster would immediately hire around 30 additional drivers if there were any applications. And the need will increase significantly in the future. A good source is career changers and immigrants. However, the retraining takes around a year – and therefore too long to be able to rely entirely on it: “What would help the transport companies is actually to shorten and simplify the training. In other EU countries it is sometimes quicker to get a bus driving license “With the same level of security,” says Stadtwerke spokesman Adler from Münster.
Time is running out transport services
Today the transport ministers of the federal states want to announce the results of the conference at a final press conference. If there is no agreement on the Germany ticket, the country leaders would have to negotiate with the Chancellor at the Prime Minister’s Conference at the beginning of November. According to the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Transport, this is actually already too late for the transport associations that are now planning for 2024.