9-euro ticket helped to reduce traffic in Germany, report finds

Did the 9-euro ticket encourage people to use public transport in Germany instead of driving? A new study has suggested that, thanks to the ticket, traffic congestion went down in many German cities in June and July. 

Fewer traffic jams in major German cities thanks to 9-euro ticket

Many people apparently left their cars at home and took the train in June and July 2022, according to a new study by the traffic data experts at TomTom. Their analysis found that there were significantly fewer traffic jams in the major German cities in June and July compared to May, before the 9-euro ticket was introduced.

As the RND reported last week, the effect on traffic was much stronger in June than in July, but in both months TomTom’s evaluation of data showed that there was a dampening effect in 12 out of the 14 cities surveyed. The decrease in traffic was most apparent in Stuttgart and Wiesbaden, while Bremen and Karlsruhe were the only two cities out of the 14 where drivers sat in traffic jams for longer.

More people making tourist excursions via train

The 9-euro ticket first became available in Germany at the beginning of June. Rather than necessarily causing people to take the train rather than driving for regular (i.e. commuter) journeys, the ticket appears to have boosted domestic excursion tourism by trains, with rural routes in particular seeing an uptick in passenger numbers.

According to data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), the number of people taking journeys longer than 30 kilometres in rural tourism areas was way above the average for June 2019 - on average 80 percent higher.