Germany’s €9 train tickets scheme ‘saved 1.8m tons of CO2 emissions’

theguardian.com:

Germany’s three-month experiment with €9 tickets for a month’s unlimited travel on regional train networks, trams and buses saved about 1.8m tons of CO2 emissions, it has been claimed.

Since its introduction on 1 June to cut fuel consumption and relieve a cost of living crisis, about 52m tickets have been sold, a fifth of these to people who did not ordinarily use public transport. The scheme is due to end on Wednesday.

The Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), which carried out the research, said the number of people who switched from cars to public transport as a result of the €9 ticket was behind the saving in emissions.

“The popularity of the €9 tickets had been unabated and the positive effect on it in tackling climate change is verifiable,” the VDV said. It said the emissions saved were equivalent to the powering of 350,000 homes, and a similar drop would be seen over the period of a year if Germany introduced a speed limit on its motorways. A typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 tons of carbon a year.

Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, who has come under fire for what some have interpreted as a nonchalant attitude towards Germany’s fuel price surge and steep rise in the cost of living in recent months, has lapped up praise for the scheme, calling the €9 ticket “our best idea yet”.

The scheme is also believed to have helped keep inflation, currently at about 8%, slightly lower than it otherwise would have been.

Not only did passengers praise the cheapness of the scheme, they revelled in its simplicity, as it cut through swathes of complication ranging from myriad transport zones to ticket categories that differ greatly from region to region.

Just over 37% of people who bought the ticket used it to get to work,