The financing of the 9-euro ticket has not yet been secured – but the monthly tickets can already be purchased in Wuppertal. The demand is high, the public utilities are surprised by the rush. The saver ticket is also available early in Hamburg.
There is a high demand for the 9-euro monthly tickets, which are expected to be valid nationwide in local and regional transport from June 1st. According to the expectations of the large local transport associations in North Rhine-Westphalia, Stadtwerke Wuppertal is providing initial evidence of this. They started selling 9-euro tickets online via their WSW ticket app on Wednesday – days before other transport companies.
“We sold 1,700 tickets in the first 24 hours from Wednesday 7 a.m.,” a spokesman for Stadtwerke Wuppertal told the “Westdeutsche Zeitung”. This clearly exceeded expectations. “All in all, from our point of view it was a very strong start that we didn’t expect at all.”
However, the Bundestag still has to decide on the financing of the 9-euro monthly tickets, and the Bundesrat must follow suit on Friday. Stadtwerke Wuppertal is still relaxed about the premature start of sales: “It is almost impossible for politicians to back down here, which is why we also assume that the 9-euro ticket will come,” says the Stadtwerke spokesman.
Ticket sales should also start early in Hamburg: the 9-euro monthly ticket can be purchased from Friday, May 20, according to the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV). The ticket is then available via the HVV app, in the HVV online shop, at almost all service points and in many buses in the Hamburg area, as HVV Managing Director Anna-Theresa Korbutt said. The special ticket will only be available from ticket machines, in Hamburg buses and in the HVV switch app from June 1st.
Deutsche Bahn will be offering the ticket for sale from Monday, May 23rd. It should apply from June 1st – and then in June, July and August for the calendar month. Holders can use it to travel nationwide on all buses, trams, subways, suburban trains and local and regional trains – regardless of whether they are operated by Deutsche Bahn or other providers. The price of 9 euros applies per month. Long-distance transport with ICE, Intercity and Eurocity, the green Flix trains and long-distance buses cannot be used. In addition, the ticket is only valid for 2nd class.
With the ticket, the federal government wants to relieve commuters and encourage more people to leave their cars at home. This should save energy costs and protect the climate. For financing, the draft of the traffic light coalition provides that the federal government provides 2.5 billion euros to compensate for loss of income from transport providers.
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