BERLIN, Oct. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Greens (Gruene) have made a proposal for a far-reaching reform of public transport pricing in Germany on Sunday.
Speaking to the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Greens parliamentary faction leader Anton Hofreiter said that traffic was among the "biggest climate killers in our country." In order to encourage citizens to rely less on their cars, Hofreiter urged the German government to introduce a new annual standard ticket for local public transportation with a low cost of 365 euros (423 U.S. dollars), which means 1 euro a day on average.
The mayors of Bonn, Essen, Mannheim, Reutlingen and Herrenberg have recently unveiled plans in Berlin to enhance the provision of public transportation and build more cycle paths in their respective cities. Among others, Bonn is planning to introduce an annual ticket for public transportation at the price of 365 euros. The city is hereby copying a successful model already adopted by the Austrian capital Vienna back in 2012.
The frequently-cited Viennese 1 euro per day pricing model witnessed an increase in the number of annual ticket holders from 373,000 to 780,000 between 2012 and 2017. There are now more Viennese owners of a 365-euro ticket than citizens in possession of a private vehicle.
Hofreiter wants to create a similar but even more ambitious scheme with a "Mobility-pass Germany" which applies to local public transportation in towns and cities across his entire country. "Enough of the ticket confusion. I demand that the federal government launches negotiations with transport operators and car-and bike sharing providers towards this end," the Greens leader told Bild am Sonntag.
The "Mobility-pass" as envisioned by Hofreiter would form part of a multi-pronged overhaul of the German transportation. He also called for a reduction of value-added taxes (VAT) levied on long-haul railway journeys from 19 percent to 7 percent.
