Journal Frankfurt Nachrichten – RMV sees 9-euro ticket as a great success
According to RMV managing director Knut Ring, the 9-euro ticket was a great success. The number of passengers reached the pre-corona level again in the summer. The RMV also sees a chance for the future of public transport in the discounted ticket.
The Frankfurt public transport company traffiQ had already reported in July that the number of passengers had increased by almost 20 percent in Frankfurt alone thanks to the discounted ticket. In the entire RMV area, the number of passengers rose to around 2.5 million people per day in summer and, according to the RMV, reached the level from before the pandemic. About 30 percent of these trips resulted from new customers. The 9-euro ticket was mainly used in the leisure sector, which was often carried out when regional trains were very full. According to the RMV, the reason for this was the short lead time, which meant that neither the number of monitoring nor the number of vehicles could be increased.
It is unclear whether there will still be a way to travel cheaply with public transport in the future. According to Ringat, the 9-euro ticket showed the potential of local public transport. The RMV and the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV) therefore also proposed a possible successor model, a 69-euro ticket. Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) has so far rejected such models. It is clear that if there were to be a discounted public transport ticket in the future, the state would have to invest more, also with a view to the necessary expansion of public transport.
The RMV currently draws a good every second euro for the approximately two billion euros in total costs from the tickets sold, the rest comes from public funds. By 2030, the transport association expects the financing requirement to be twice as high; if the cost of tickets goes down, public funds would have to go up. RMV Managing Director Knut Ringat sees an opportunity in the 9-euro ticket: “The 9-euro ticket is one of the most hotly debated topics of the summer of 2022. Just because public transport and its potential are being discussed by politicians and the general public, the 9 euro ticket was a great success.”
From September, the regular tariffs will apply again in the RMV area, including the price increase that the RMV had ordered on July 1st. Because of the 9-euro ticket, this is only now having an effect on ticket prices. Above all, people who do not travel regularly by bus and train and do not have a season ticket such as the 365-euro ticket are affected.