Thousands of Germans surrender driving licence for free public transport
Germans are handing over their driving licences in exchange for free public transport.
Around a thousand people in North Rhine-Westphalia, a populous western German state, have relinquished their driving licences as part of a scheme designed to reduce the car-loving country’s reliance on automobiles.
Aimed primarily at senior citizens, the incentive enables people to surrender their driving licences for a year’s free public transport, known as the “Deutschlandticket.”
The ticket, which normally costs €49 (£41) a month, allows holders to travel on all local transport across Germany, including regional trains.
In Leverkusen, near Cologne, nearly 600 people over the age of 75 have opted into the scheme so far, saving them just under £500 on public transport for the year. The benefits of the scheme vary from state to state.
Leverkusen pioneered the initiative in 2023, with other Rhineland areas such as Dortmund, Kleve, and the former capital Bonn following suit this year.
The Deutschlandticket was established in 2023 as a permanent replacement for the “nine euro ticket”, which aimed to help citizens with the cost of living crisis by charging passengers only €9 per month to travel on local and regional transport throughout Germany.
The regional transport association, Rhein-Sieg, hailed the scheme as “a valuable alternative for people who want to be mobile and want to part with their driving licences for age or health reasons,” as well as for climate reasons.
The initiative was welcomed by the state’s climate and transport ministry but was entirely funded by local councils.
Public transport is a heated political issue in Germany, with the Handelsblatt newspaper comparing it to discussing gun control in the US.
Germany’s car industry makes up around 5 per cent of GDP, and the country is one of the few in the world without a speed limit on its famous autobahns.
Speed limits and combustion engines
A recent survey by the Leibniz institute for economic research found that almost two in three Germans support introducing a speed limit of 80 miles per hour (130 km/h), but the issue remains deeply polarising.
Speed limit advocates hoped for stricter rules when the Greens entered the “traffic-light” government in 2021, but reform by the centre-right FDP, which controls the transport ministry, has not been forthcoming.
Around two-thirds of Germans are against the phase-out of combustion engines, planned across the EU in 2035.
Markus Söder, the Bavarian state leader, called on Ursula von der Leyen, the EU Commission president, to scrap the ban. “The fundamental ban must go. We should rely on openness to technology instead of ideology,” Mr Söder told the tabloid Bild on Sunday.
