Germany finished experiment with cheap travel tickets

At the beginning of the summer, Germany introduced cheap fares costing €9 a month to encourage people to switch to public transport. The experiment was successful and prevented 1.8 million tons of CO2.

Bloomberg reports this.

Such measures were introduced in the country to soften the blow from the sharp rise in energy and fuel prices. In three months, they managed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to providing electricity to approximately 350,000 homes for a year. It was possible to travel cheaply not only by city buses, trams, and metro but also by regional trains.

According to the Association of German Transport Companies, approximately 52 million tickets were sold in Germany throughout the summer. It also found that one in ten shoppers have given up at least one of their daily car journeys. 78,000 people participated in the survey.

Despite the positive result, there were problems with such an initiative: at first, the action caused overcrowding of trains or their lack in general. However, despite this strain on the transport network and concerns about the continued funding of tickets, the government is considering extending the subsidy in some form.

In addition, the country is looking to find additional ways to reduce emissions. Germany's transport sector has been accused of falling short of environmental targets by around 3 million tonnes of CO2 last year.