Since the launch of the 9-euro ticket, the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund (HVV) has sold 1.8 million of the inexpensive monthly tickets. The number of passengers in the buses and trains in and around the Hanseatic city rose again to the level of the pre-Corona period for the first time, even exceeding the number of passengers in 2019 by around five percent. Hamburg’s Transport Senator Anjes Tjarks (Greens) decided it was time for an interim assessment and an outlook on how things should continue from September and presented the first plans on Tuesday.

“The 9-euro ticket is a great success,” said Tjarks on Tuesday. The experiences of the past two months have shown that public transport is not only needed, but also how many people really want to use it. The 9-euro ticket is proof that “we can motivate many people to switch with an attractive and easily accessible offer.” With the ticket, you don’t have to think long and hard about which ticket is the cheapest, and whether you want two or three trips during the day, but you simply get in – whether in Hamburg, Munich or Nuremberg.

HVV Managing Director Anna-Theresa Korbutt said that the expectations associated with the introduction of the ticket had even been exceeded. She quoted from accompanying surveys of the HVV. According to this, around 19 percent of the 9-euro ticket users stated that without the ticket they would have used a different means of transport for their current trip.

Twelve percent said they would have driven by car without the cheap public transport ticket. According to the HVV boss, this corresponds to four to five million fewer car journeys and is a “huge opportunity for the mobility revolution.” The number of so-called journey shifts when new offers are introduced in local transport is usually less than two percent, said Korbutt. The 19 percent from the 9-euro ticket is therefore a very high number. It is now important to take this positive momentum with you into the months after the ticket expires.

At least for 999 bus and train drivers, the 9-euro ticket will continue to run for a year. On the HVV website there are 999 annual subscriptions for nine euros a month to be won. New subscribers to the Profiticket can look forward to at least four discounted months for 36 euros (nine euros per week).

For all other HVV users, it will probably be significantly more expensive to have a HVV monthly ticket after August. Tjarks didn’t want to speculate on numbers. But a nationwide local transport ticket as a successor to the 9-euro ticket is probably not available at such low prices. Theoretically, Germany could afford to pay the necessary subsidies to transport companies from the federal budget. That would be eight to ten billion euros a year. But there is currently no political majority for this at federal level, according to the Greens politician.

Realistically, Tjarks says he would most likely consider projections from the Association of German Transport Companies. The association could imagine monthly tickets for a price of 69 euros for full-paying adults. Other associations and parties are demanding a 365 euro ticket for one year.

Should a nationwide valid monthly ticket come, “and we in the Senate will do our utmost to achieve this”, then there must be a second, much cheaper price category for children and social benefit recipients, according to the transport senator. He sees the FDP with Transport Minister Volker Wissing and Finance Minister Christian Lindner as delaying the nationwide solution. Perhaps the liberals should be told what gains in personal freedom a nationwide flat rate for local transport would bring, said Tjarks, who called for a quick decision.

On the one hand, the transport associations need advance notice in order to implement any changed tariff structures, emphasized Korbutt. On the other hand, the 9-euro ticket would have shown that more money had to be invested in the expansion of buses and trains. Such plans would take time. “If we don’t do it now, it won’t happen in the next few years,” said Tjarks.

There was immediate criticism from Hamburg politicians. The CDU, FDP and Left Party, for example, accused the Senate of not using its own financial leeway to lower prices in the HVV. Tickets in the HVV are among the most expensive in Germany.