From October 1st, the 29-euro ticket for tariff zones AB will be valid in Berlin Photo: picture alliance/dpa
From BZ/dpa
The 29-euro ticket in Berlin remains in demand and ensures more passengers in buses and trains.
It has now been sold more than 160,000 times by the Berlin S-Bahn and the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG). The successor solution to the popular nationwide 9-euro ticket is only available as a subscription, is only valid in Berlin and is limited to the months from October to December. In the past few weeks there have been a good 140,000 subscriptions, said BVG spokesman Jannes Schwentu of the German Press Agency. “The demand in our customer centers was really huge at the beginning of the month, even though the majority of people took out their subscription online.”
After the end of the 9-euro ticket at the end of August, there were initially fewer passengers. Demand increased again with the start of the 29-euro subscription campaign in October. “We are currently close to the pre-corona level,” said Schwentu. The experience with the Berlin S-Bahn is similar: more than 20,000 customers have signed a subscription contract there, the vast majority of which started in October, as a spokesman explained. An increase in passenger numbers almost to the pre-corona level can also be observed in the S-Bahn.
With the 29-euro ticket, subscribers have the opportunity to use buses and trains in the city for 29 euros a month. The prerequisite is that they have an annual subscription or take out a new one. There is an extraordinary right of termination at the end of the year. After that, there should be a nationwide public transport ticket for 49 euros. The Senate is considering a socially graded offer subsidized with state funds, which could continue to cost 29 euros.
“All of our subscription customers can wait and relax: we will inform you immediately as soon as details of the new subscription offers are available, which are currently being coordinated between the federal and state governments,” said BVG spokesman Jannes Schwentu. A spokeswoman for the Senate Department for the Environment and Mobility added that it was still unclear how public transport tariffs would continue in the new year. “That depends not least on whether the federal and state governments have agreed on a uniform nationwide system by then. They are currently negotiating the financing.”
