It's rather a lot, by all accounts. In Germany, a three month pilot program offering ultra-cheap transit tickets saved about 1.8 million metric tons of carbon emissions, and a host of other positive benefits.
The program, which sold 52 million unlimited monthly transit passes for just 9 euros ($9) each, allowed many Germans to ditch their private vehicles for trips and daily commutes to and from work. According to the Association of German Transport Companies, known in Germany as the VDV, the tickets helped transit replace roughly 10 percent of all car trips. Perhaps most interestingly, separate analysis says the tickets - which were valid for local and regional trains and buses - led 20 percent of Germans to begin regularly taking public transit for the first time.
“The results of the market research clearly show that people want local public transport if the ticket is simple and understandable and can be used flexibly everywhere,” said Maike Schaefer, chair of the Conference of Transport Ministers, reports The Beacon.
The climate pollution averted by the trial was equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of more than 200,000 Germans. The 9 euro tickets delivered on other fronts, as well, reducing nationwide air pollution by more than 6 percent and helping to alleviate the burden of higher gasoline prices caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine. As many proponents had hoped, the tickets might also have stymied inflation by up to 2 percentage points, according to one analysis from the Cologne Institute for Economic Research.
If tickets as cheap as this (subsidised by the government) were made available throughout the year it would cost $14 billion in subsidies, so it's unlikely that the government will stomach that. So, what's the right price? The German Green Party is advocating for a two-tiered system that would cost commuters either 29 euros per month for regional travel or 49 euros a month for nationwide travel.
Whatever happens next in Germany, the cheap transit initiative has produced highly beneficial results and will, no doubt, be carefully considered by other nations.