It is not only people with cars that feel that fuel has become more expensive. Public transport customers also benefit from higher energy prices via the fare. But there are more factors.
In many regions, fares for buses and trains in local transport increase with the turn of the year. The transport associations justify the price round mainly with higher costs for personnel as well as diesel and electricity.
Many companies emphasize that they only partially pass on the increased costs to customers. There is a wide range in this. Depending on the transport association, the average tariff increases by up to 5.5 percent. In some cases, however, the prices do not change at all after the resolutions of the past few months.
According to calculations by the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV), tickets were around 1.5 percent more expensive on average last year. A single ticket in city traffic cost a nationwide average of 2.74 euros, 1.6 percent more than in the previous year.
In the transport association for the greater Nuremberg area, however, there has not been a tariff increase for three years, which is why the tariffs there are now increasing by an average of 5.5 percent. The city of Nuremberg itself is excluded from this. In Munich and the surrounding area it was already significantly more expensive in mid-December: plus 3.7 percent.
There are increases well below the inflation rate in Stuttgart and the surrounding area (2.5 percent), in the Rhein-Ruhr transport association (1.7 percent) and in the Rhein-Sieg and Rhein-Main transport associations (1.5 percent each). In Hamburg and the surrounding area, the premium is 1.3 percent.
Nothing will change for passengers in Bremen and its environs in Lower Saxony, as well as in Berlin and Brandenburg. There, the transport associations want to bring customers back to buses and trains with stable prices after the drop in passengers in the corona pandemic.
For a high-performance and economically healthy local public transport, fare income plays a decisive role, the VDV had made clear. How the ticket prices develop on site was decided by those responsible with the municipalities, depending on the economic situation.