Half a million could be cracked this Tuesday: up to and including Sunday, the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG) sold 450,000 tickets at a special rate of nine euros. A spokesman said on request.
The rush for the cheap ticket continues. 130,000 tickets were sold on the first weekend, and 80,000 on Monday last week. Since then it has averaged 40,000 a day. About half of the tickets are sold at the BVG via the app, initially the system reached its limit. The other half is purchased from vending machines or points of sale.
Deutsche Bahn sold 2.7 million tickets nationwide, as Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz said. A railway spokesman was unable to name figures for Berlin on request.
Theoretically, 1.3 million Berliners could be on the move at a savings price in June, July and August – only with the BVG cards. Because the 870,000 regular customers of the BVG, i.e. owners of environmental and student card subscriptions, annual cards, semester and senior citizen tickets, can also travel nationwide at no additional cost.
The subsidized ticket goes back to the relief package decided by the federal government. Motorists receive a discount on the fuel price because of the high energy prices. The nine-euro ticket is not limited. At your choice, it can be purchased for all three months or just for any one.
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In principle, it applies everywhere in cities, associations and all regional trains, but not for long-distance traffic, i.e. IC, EC and ICE. But there are exceptions to every principle: the nine-euro ticket is not valid on a few IC lines that are partially approved for tickets from the Verkehrsverbund Berlin-Brandenburg (VBB).
These are the Elsterwerda-Berlin, Berlin-Prenzlau and Potsdam-Berlin-Cottbus connections. Regional and long-distance IC trains run alternately on these lines. In order to be able to offer a two-hour cycle, the VBB also finances the journeys in the IC. Berlin and Brandenburg did not want to pay for the release of nine-euro tickets.
[Read more at Tagesspiegel Plus: Traveling with the nine-euro ticket: Nine tips for day trips and weekend vacations from Berlin]
The big question is how crowded the trains will be in the coming weeks – as reported, the head of DB Regio, Jörg Sandvoß, said that one had “no idea”. It is clear that the additional passengers have to use the existing buses and trains.
The offer cannot be expanded due to a lack of capacity, the improvements mentioned are minimal: buses to the Tegelsee lido, a more frequent interval on a tram line (18) – it is not much more. The railway already warns against taking bicycles on regional trains.
