Deutsche Bahn forecast: One in five can use the German ticket

The demand is enormous: in the first three days of advance sales, 250,000 German tickets were purchased from Deutsche Bahn alone. The company expects that every fifth person will use the ticket in the future.

The Deutschlandticket for local and regional transport, which is valid from May, is already very popular. In the first three days of advance sales, 250,000 tickets were sold by Deutsche Bahn alone.

“On Monday we received twice as much traffic as we usually do on our website,” DB’s regional head of data traffic, Evelyn Bala, told Bild am Sonntag. The train is one of several carriers for which a ticket is available. It can also be obtained via the Deutschlandticket app.

My perspective reaches 17 million users

The head of regional transport assumes that the demand for the ticket, which is valid throughout Germany, will remain high in the future. “We expect around six million people across the country to sign up for domestic transport with the German Ticket for the first time.”

In addition, about 11 million passengers already using a subscription are expected to migrate to the new service. “That’s a total of 17 million users.” The cost of a regular ticket is 49 euros. Some federal states are planning cheaper ticket tariffs, which are only available with a monthly subscription—for schoolchildren or particularly low-income people, for example.

You can only ask for understanding.

However, given the delays and construction sites, train drivers will have to be patient. The Federal Government’s Commissioner for Rail Transport, Secretary of State for Transport Michael Thorer, said the situation was so dire that there was no alternative to a general renewal of the network.

One can only ask for understanding from railway customers and also ask for forgiveness. Deutsche Bahn recommends communicating openly and honestly.

Only 65 percent of long-distance trains run on time

In Deutsche Bahn’s long-distance transport, last year’s punctuality rate was 65.2 percent, thus ten percentage points lower than the previous year’s level. The reasons given by the railways were old infrastructure, scarcity, many construction sites, and a rapidly increasing volume of traffic.

When it comes to punctuality, things look better on regional and local transportation. According to Deutsche Bahn, 92.6 percent of regional and S-Bahn trains were on schedule in March.

“As the federal government, we have made clear the management’s expectation that punctuality should improve significantly,” said the railway officer. Bahn boss Richard Lutz points to the network, which must be described as completely overloaded. “Of course, the public sector is also responsible for the network and we are doing our job now,” Thorer emphasized.