The cost of Germany's popular transport ticket will rise significantly

BERLIN (AP) — The cost of a popular ticket introduced last year that allows people to use all local and regional trains, buses and subway systems across Germany is set to increase by about 18% next year, a senior official said Monday.

Transport ministers from Germany's 16 states agreed that the price of the Germany Ticket, which has cost 49 euros ($54.70) per month since it became available in May 2023, should rise to 58 euros at the beginning of 2025.

“With this price, we will manage to keep the ticket attractive and put the financing on a more solid footing,” Oliver Krischer, the transport minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, told German news agency dpa. He said the decision shows that German regional authorities “want to stick to the successful model of the Germany Ticket and further develop it.”

The Germany Ticket was intended to encourage people to ditch their cars in favor of more environmentally friendly forms of transportation. It followed a successful experimental ticket offering unlimited travel for 9 euros per month that was offered for three months in the summer of 2022, as part of a government program to help combat high inflation and fuel prices.

Officials said that ultra-low price wasn't financially viable. But it and the Germany Ticket had the added merit of simplifying for ticket holders a fractured public transit system in which individual regions offered myriad different fare options that baffled many travelers.

Around 13 million people in the country of some 83 million people use the Germany Ticket.

Bavaria's transport minister, Christian Bernreiter, said a price rise was “unavoidable” because sales were short of expectations, raising the prospect of a large financing shortfall next year.