FIGURES released by the German national statistics office (Destatis) on public transport usage in Germany for the first half of 2023 show significant growth in rail usage compared with the same period in 2022, but overall passenger numbers remain 13% below pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
In the first half of 2023, 10% more passengers travelled by bus and train compared with 2022, with 5.3 billion passenger journeys recorded.
The number of passengers using local rail services including S-Bahn in major cities rose by 14% to more than 1.2 billion in the first half of 2023. Trams and light rail also recorded an increase of 14% to 1.8 billion passengers.
Long distance rail passenger numbers rose substantially to a total of 72 million passengers, 16% more than in the first half of last year, although still 11% below the same period in 2019.
Destatis attributed a 4% increase in usage to the introduction of the nationwide €49 monthly Deutschlandticket in May, although the much cheaper and short-lived €9 promotional version of the ticket in summer 2022 led to a 44% increase.
Destatis is having to adapt its measurement and forecasting systems to cope with the 10 million passengers now using a Deutschlandticket, as journeys using this ticket are not recorded and the pass can also be used in any region.
Rail and light rail operators are increasingly fitting vehicles with automated passenger counting systems but most buses in Germany do not have these. As a result passenger journey figures may rely more on estimation than in previous years. As Deutschlandticket users cannot generally use long distance services, these figures are largely based on actual ticket sales.
