Germany’s popular nationwide transport pass is affordable and convenient, but demands that you pay for a whole month’s worth of travel up front. What if there was a more flexible option?
So you want to ride local and regional transport with a convenient travel pass, but you don’t commute daily or ride transport for it to be worth paying €63 per month (soon to be €66.80 per month) for a Deutschlandticket?
If this applies to you, then you’ll want to hear about the latest idea to come from Germany’s state transport ministers.
Ahead of the conference of state transport ministers, to start Wednesday, the ministers have signalled that they want to create a nationwide transport pass offer for occasional travellers – i.e. a Deutschlandticket for daily use.
Quoting a draft resolution for the transport ministers’ conference, a report by the Rheinische Post says that the ministers aim to propose an offer “for occasional users with validity to travel nationwide, analogous to the Deutschlandticket”.
The proposal reportedly comes from the ministers of North Rhine-Westphalia and Hamburg, and envisions a smartphone-based “check-in/out” system.
So passengers could check-in for journeys on a mobile app, paying as they go.
“Those who only occasionally use buses and trains should be able to travel just as easily, and at fair prices, as frequent travellers with the Deutschlandticket,” said North Rhine-Westphalia’s Transport Minister Oliver Krischer.
Krischer is set to be responsible for developing the offer if the proposal goes forward.
A solid example of how it could work is already seen in North Rhine-Westphalia via the “eezy.nrw” offer.
When travellers buy tickets via eezy.nrw they are always charged the cheapest available price for the route. Additionally their total monthly cost is capped so that never becomes more expensive than the monthly Deutschlandticket subscription would have been.
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Presumably there could be high demand for more flexible, affordable transport subscription options.
Around 14.5 million people continue to use the Deutschlandticket, despite its price having risen three times in the past three years.
For people who don’t commute by public transport every day, but maintain a Deutschlandticket subscription for the convenience of not needing to buy daily tickets for transport, a pay-per-use option could be an appreciated money saver.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: thelocal.de
