The 365 Euro Ticket

I noticed a piece on N-TV (our German commercial news network) this morning which was political in nature but revolved around public transportation.

The Green Party spoke up yesterday (Saturday) about this agenda item which would work on climate change.  The idea?  Introduction of a one-Euro per day ticket for ALL public buses/trams/trains.  Basic cost for a year.....365 Euro or roughly 420 US dollars (for the whole year).

The aim?  They want people to use public transportation more than private cars.  All of this would of course relate to greenhouse gas emissions, thus saving humanity from global cooling/warming (which ever you prefer).

To make all of this enticing?  The sales tax business which is normally 19-percent for long-distance movement?  The Greens say they'd dump it down to 7-percent.

The negative of this deal?  This 365 Euro ticket per year....simply wouldn't pay for the total amount of traffic cost.  If you aimed this strictly at larger scale cities (Frankfurt for example), where there is X-amount of daily traffic and no long distance traffic....it might work.  But once you suggest that you could buy this yearly ticket and go from Berlin to Hamburg once a week, with all the regular Berlin traffic tied in....there's a significant amount of cost.  They'd end up having tax people (probably increasing the VAT sales tax from 19-percent to 21-percent) to pay for the 'low-cost' travel option.

Selling this idea across to the public?  That's the thing.....if you came up to a hundred local working-class folks and said you had this wonderful plastic card that you only paid 30-Euro a month (36 US dollars roughly) and you got all of the bus travel, tram service, and railway options....not just in the local town, or the state itself.....but across of Germany, it would perk the interest of folks.  But the thing drawing you to question this....you kinda like your private car and the ability to leave home and be at work within 30 minutes (not 55 minutes with bus/tram service). 

So could you entice most people to give up the car, and do the ticket deal?  I have my doubts.  I live on the outer boundary of Wiesbaden (285,000).  Monday through Friday....I have regular bus service.  For the rush-hour period, there are potentially five buses running through the village, then things slack off to three per hour.  After 7PM?  It goes to two per hour.  Sundays?  They still run two per hour, for the whole day.  But the thing is....there is one single route from the village into Wiesbaden, and this 16-minute route has to be achieved before you reach the bus terminal area for connections.  It's this connection business which adds onto your 'adventure'.  Adding more buses or routes?  It won't happen because they simply don't have the capital or number of passengers to make it economically feasible.

Explaining this to the Greens?  Just about impossible. 

The one other odd part of this idea....once you get into rural areas of Germany, where you have a village with just ten bus runs per day....cheaper tickets just don't matter.  So they (the Greens) are going for bulk vote situations....in highly urbanized areas....to pump up the party votes.