Will Germany Roll Out a €49 Family Ticket This Summer?

To enable low-income families to travel during the school holidays, the Greens have proposed a summer holiday ticket priced at 49 euros. According to a paper by the Greens' parliamentary group, two parents and all of their own children would be able to travel with it for the duration of the summer holidays. This was reported on Saturday by newspapers of the Funke media group.

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The ticket is intended to be based on the Deutschlandticket and, like it, would be valid for local and regional transport.

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The Party's Reasoning

"Not every family can travel to the North Sea – but every family should be able to reach the lake in the neighbouring district," parliamentary group leader Katharina Dröge told the newspapers. She pointed out that one in five children spends the summer holidays at home because a family holiday is too expensive. "With the holiday ticket, we're making day trips by train possible for everyone," she said, promoting the Greens' proposal. Family members should also be able to use the ticket individually.

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A Longer-Term Goal

The Greens' parliamentary group also hopes that such a ticket would promote climate-friendly mobility, extending beyond the holiday period itself. Those who get used to bus and train travel "with an uncomplicated ticket" during the summer months often continue to use public transport afterwards as well, the paper states.

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How It Would Work

Such an offer would be financed via a temporary special fund for social mobility at the federal level, supplemented by contributions from the states and transport associations. The technical processing would be possible via the existing digital infrastructure of the Deutschlandticket. The Greens estimate costs of up to 24 million euros per month for the ticket, assuming that one in five families would take up the offer.

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The timing of implementation was left open in the report. In several German states, the summer holidays have already begun this year.

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