Editor in chief at IamExpat Media
If you can’t wait to get your hands on Germany’s new Deutschlandticket, which offers unlimited travel on regional transport in Germany for 49 euros per month, you’ll be pleased to hear that presales will soon start nationwide via a new app!
Just under two months before the 49-euro ticket is set to kick off on May 1, the developer Mobility Inside has unveiled a specially-designed app called “Dein Deutschlandticket” to support the discounted transport scheme. The app should be available in the next couple of days, and the Germany-wide advance sale of tickets will begin on April 3.
As well as buying your 49-euro ticket, you will soon also be able to use the app to purchase other tickets, for instance to take your bike with you, or to book long-distance trains. It should also be possible to use the app to rent other forms of transport like e-scooters and rental bikes. For now, the app will offer real-time travel information, timetables and ticket prices for the whole of Germany.
If you don’t want another app clogging up your mobile phone, however, it will soon be possible to purchase the 49-euro ticket via the Deutsche Bahn “DB Navigator” app, and as a paper ticket, as was the case with the 9-euro ticket last summer. Unlike the 9-euro ticket, the 49-euro ticket will only be available as a subscription, but it will be cancellable on a monthly basis.
Although the financing question has now just about been settled, a few other issues still remain up in the air: ideas for offering discounts on the tickets for commuting workers, schoolchildren, students and people who receive social security benefits have not been firmed up yet, neither has a plan to offer monthly bicycle passes for people who routinely travel with their bikes. Some critics have also called for a special plan for families, since under current rules every family member over the age of six would have to buy their own ticket.
If you are already locked into a public transport subscription until after May, it should be possible to change your subscription to the Deutschlandticket. In some places, this will happen automatically, but in others you need to initiate the process yourself. Be sure to speak to your transport association about this.
However, the 49-euro ticket still needs to be formally approved by the Bundesrat, which is expected to happen on March 31. In the meantime, the Bundestag can still change the draft law.