"Facilitates the changeover"

Public transport ticket for deregistering cars in Frankfurt

Traffic jam on a German highway (archive image)

(Bild: APA/dpa/Ursula Düren)

In Frankfurt am Main, drivers will be rewarded with a Deutschlandticket for a year when they deregister their vehicle. This is intended to make it easier to switch from private cars to public transport.

According to city councillor Wolfgang Siefert (Greens), the environmental bonus will be available from July 1 and is worth 588 euros. That in turn is one year's worth of 49-euro tickets (which are valid for one month, note). To be eligible for the offer, citizens must have their primary residence in Frankfurt am Main and have scrapped a car with a combustion engine no more than three months ago or sold or given it away to someone outside their household. It doesn't matter whether they then have other cars.

We expect 50 or 60 applications per month.

Tom Reinhold, Geschäftsführer der Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt

50-60 applications per month
Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt expects 50 to 60 applications per month. The city is likely to spend 420,000 euros a year on this. An extract from the vehicle register is required for the application. To ensure that the bonus is not misused, random checks are planned to ensure that citizens have not purchased a new car.

Mobility councillor Siefert justified the move by pointing out that cars take up significantly more urban space and are often parked for long periods of time, especially in the city center.

1250 euro bonus in Marburg
The city of Marburg (Hesse) also recently introduced a bonus. Anyone who deregisters or gets rid of his or her private car there for a year receives 1250 euros. With a voucher, people can use car sharing for a year, travel by bus and train or pay in stores and restaurants.