Germany's 'Deutschlandticket' helps environment – study
37 comments
·April 4, 2025dfxm12
zeeZ
The Japan Rail Pass has gotten a price hike recently and now it feels like you have to keep chasing trains a lot to make it worthwhile. The regional passes are a bit better, but still require more moving around than I'm comfortable with for a vacation.
The Deutschlandticket is only valid for up to Reginald lines and not on faster trains like IC and ICE. It's already worth it money wise for the first trip already, but only using local connections adds at least an hour per trip between those cities, plus a bunch of layovers.
elpocko
It doesn't. The ticket is available as a monthly subscription only, you can't just go and buy one.
usr1106
It's a subscription requiring a German bank account in most cases. In theory any SEPA account should work, but it's a well-known problem that sellers break the law and accept only domestic accounts.
However, reportedly a small number of apps allow paying by credit card. And some are more flexible regarding cancelling the subscription than others.
filmor
I just stayed with the app that I used for my old monthly ticket (mobil.nrw) and it allows paying with Paypal.
dietr1ch
Which would help tourism if tourists could buy it, but the app asked for some Id and double-checking the web asks for an European address (UK is also listed)
elpocko
Yeah, as in "you can just go and buy one." It looks like they made it intentionally hard to acquire the ticket: government issued identification required, no way to purchase it ad hoc, subscription only; it's German bureaucratic hell. It's as if they want it to fail.
usr1106
There is no "the app". There are 100s of sellers, and each of them has different processes. Some sell smart cards at the ticket windows, most have apps, and some have both. Only the price and the basic rules of validity are nationwide. Some offer extra regional perks.
pixelpoet
Mine's even paid for by the company, and on top of that we get a great discounted bike program: https://www.jobrad.org/
Over 40 years old, lived in basically all the countries, never had a driver's licence!
Etheryte
Somewhat curious, how long is the list of "basically all the countries" really?
chaoskanzlerin
Might not be what you meant, but German uses the same word for "state (federal subdivision)" and "country", known as "Land". In contrast, "Staat" refers chiefly to the administrative apparatus (implicitly of some country).
jeofken
Maybe GP means country as in “Bundesland”, like how British people call their regions “countries“
pixelpoet
Ehh yeah actually the list of countries isn't that long, and I mean living as in at least a few months (but most are at least a few years) in own apartment etc. Includes Indonesia (used to speak Bahasa as a kid), South Africa, Poland, Czechia, USA, England, Germany, Switzerland, and probably some others along the way. I suppose the actually-long list is cities; in Germany I've lived in 6 cities, and it's quite a few cities for some of the other countries.
My main point though is that, while I get there are places where you absolutely need a car, a lot of people (particularly in car-cultured countries) are surprised to hear you can get by just fine without one in many cases.
comrade1234
Pre-pandemic some cities/kantons here in Switzerland wanted to make public transportation free (we’re still recovering from running trains and transport essentially empty for a couple of years).
However the Swiss constitution says that people have to be charged a “reasonable” fee for public transportation. It was probably meant to make it so they can’t be overcharged. But it’s been also interpreted that there has to be a minimum charge - thus no free transport.
quakeguy
Nothing new under the sun.
ChrisArchitect
Some previous discussion:
Germany's 49-euro ticket resulted in significant shift from road to rail
Aldipower
"A study funded by the German government ..." bla bla bla
I mean, the Deutschlandticket is finance by taxes, so it is no surprise, that a study financed by the government, that is responsible for the taxes, reveals only good things.
riedel
The study was published by the Ariadne Project[0]. They also publish studies that actually criticize other subsidiaries by the government [1]
Our research system in Germany is mostly publically funded, btw. Not sure who else would fund an independent study. It is actually a meta study, that states it's methodology and also mentiones contradictory results.
[0] https://ariadneprojekt.de/news-de/deutschlandticket-verkehrs...
[1] https://ariadneprojekt.de/en/press-releases/a-reward-of-seve...
oytis
The government decided to introduce Deutschlandticket to, among other things, reduce CO2 emissions. The government financed a study to quantify the effect. I don't really see a conflict of interests here, or how it compromises the integrity of the study.
Aldipower
The conflict is the potential waste of tax money, if it does not work as advertised.
Krasnol
I don't know what conspiracy you try to construct here, but it doesn't make sense. The new government would love to have a study which says that it didn't help, so they can cut it. They'd still want to cut it and it already got more expensive.
Also, this is a Meta-analysis. Here it is: https://ariadneprojekt.de/media/2025/04/Ariadne-Report_Deuts...
Try reading that before you start spreading such constructs.
niemandhier
Parts of the government would like to get rid of it, we are a nation of car companies after all.
Aldipower
Not true, when this study was financed.
I have nothing against the Deutschlandticket, like it too. But I do not like bad studies.
ziddoap
>But I do not like bad studies.
Can you share your link to the study & data? I'd like to determine if it is a "bad study" myself. I looked at the links in the article and it doesn't seem to have the study.
It probably helps tourism too. Foreigners in Japan can get a rail pass at a huge discount. I might not have left Tokyo if not for it. It would be fun to pop around the country, from Munich to Stuttgart (for Oktoberfest and Volksfest?), then onto Frankfurt and Nuremburg. It looks like it pays for itself after 2 trips.