Greenpeace calls for Europe-wide climate transport ticket

Environmental group Greenpeace is calling on European governments and cities to introduce affordable ‘climate tickets’ for all public transport.

The group made the call after publishing a study that ranked 30 European capitals’ performance on public transport affordability and simplicity.

Dublin was ranked last out of the 30 cities, after the Irish capital was found to have some of the most expensive public transport coupled with a complicated ticketing system – despite cutting the price of fares last year.

The study found it was also “the only city analysed which does not have a fixed-price long-term ticket for all means of transport and available for all passengers”.

Tallinn, Luxembourg and Valletta – all of which have free public transport – were jointly ranked number one, followed by Prague, Bratislava and Madrid.

“Affordable public transport is a necessity, but many governments treat it like a luxury good,” said Greenpeace EU transport campaigner Lorelei Limousin.

“Millions of people rely on buses, trams and trains to get to work and school, to meet their families and friends, to participate in society in a sustainable way.

“Governments must introduce simple and affordable ‘climate tickets’ for public transport, to cut people’s bills and to reduce the oil use driving our planet towards climate disaster.”

The study comes after Germany and Hungary’s new low-cost nationwide travel cards came into effect earlier this month.

European transport ticket

The group is calling for the European Commission to facilitate the introduction of a Europe-wide single climate ticket in the future.

German transport minister Volker Wissing last month expressed support for a pan-European public transport ticket similar to the new Deutschlandticket.

Public transport tickets in the EU are taxed at an average of 11 percent VAT, which is still higher than many other basic services and necessities.

Six EU countries currently tax public transport as much as jewellery or luxury watches.

At the same time, there is no VAT on cross-border airline tickets in the EU or kerosene for aeroplanes, which Greenpeace says “keeps the price of polluting transport low, while climate-friendly transport remains expensive”.

Apart from Luxembourg and Malta, which made domestic public transport free, only Austria, Germany and Hungary have introduced relatively affordable nationwide tickets, costing less than €3 (US$3.27) per day. Around two-thirds of the countries analysed do not have any country-wide long-term travel passes.

Systemic change

To fund these services and to shift incentives away from the most polluting forms of travel, the group is calling on national governments and the EU to end the tax exemptions for international flights and for aviation fuel, and to further improve and expand their existing public transport networks.

François Bausch, Luxembourg’s Deputy Prime Minister & Minister for Mobility and Public Works, has previously said that free public transport is “the icing on the cake, but it is not the cake”.

He said a wider strategy to increase overall efficiency is much more important. To do this requires “unprecedented investment”.

“The major thing that you have to do is change the complete system and be multimodal,” Bausch said.

“The solutions are in the combination of every mode of transport that exists in our society.”

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