Germany is trialing a plan for free public transport in polluted cities
![The Deutsche Bahn main train station "Hauptbahnhof" in Frankfurt, Germany, March 15, 2017. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach](https://assets.weforum.org/article/image/large_OLILmrreMUPKPhS0f6kerjQOkhais5r3gCsEXUDA7A0.jpg)
Germany might make public transport free in some cities in order to combat rising air pollution levels.
Image: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
Stay up to date:
Germany
The German government is considering plans to make public transport free in cities suffering from air quality problems, according to a letter seen by Reuters, which also outlines more conventional measures such as low emissions zones.
The letter, sent to EU Environment Commissioner Karmenu Vella, was signed by German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks, Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt and chancellery chief Peter Altmaier.
Germany has been under pressure from the European Commission, which in January promised to get tough on air quality and threatened to penalize members that breached EU rules on pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and particulate matter.
German authorities face legal action because of air quality problems in cities.
In the letter, the authors proposed low emission zones, free public transport to reduce car use, extra incentives for electric cars and technical retrofitting for existing vehicles as long as this is effective and economically feasible.
They said they would test these measures out in five cities - Bonn, Essen, Herrenberg, Reutlingen and Mannheim - before rolling out the most successful measures to all other cities affected.
The authors said they had agreed these measures with Germany’s federal states and municipalities, but Helmut Dedy, the head of the Council of German Cities, said he was surprised by the proposal.
There had been plans for lowering ticket prices in some cities, he said, adding that the federal government would have to finance public transport if it wanted to make it free.
Most local public transport in Germany is owned by municipalities.
Accept our marketing cookies to access this content.
These cookies are currently disabled in your browser.
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Related topics:
Forum Stories newsletter
Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.
More on Industries in DepthSee all
Minos Bantourakis and Francesco Venturini
January 21, 2025
Pawan Goenka
January 20, 2025
Maria Alonso
January 19, 2025
Rhiannon Thomas and Katie Thomas
January 13, 2025
David Steinbach
January 6, 2025