The new, cheap ‘Deutschlandticket’, which can be used to travel throughout Germany from next month, will also be valid on routes to and from Hengelo and Enschede. The province of Overijssel pays the costs. This concerns the connections between Hengelo and Bielefeld, Enschede and Dortmund and Enschede-Münster.
The Deutschlandticket is a subscription that allows unlimited travel throughout Germany by train, bus, tram or metro for 49 euros per month. A separate ticket must be purchased for travel by intercity or high-speed train ICE. The Deutschland ticket is the successor to the ‘9 euro ticket’ that was offered for three months last summer and has been sold to more than 50 million people, Germans and tourists.
Many Dutch people who work in Germany and Dutch and German students who study in the Netherlands are already traveling on the Hengelo-Bielefeld, Enschede-Dortmund and Enschede-Münster routes. The Overijssel deputy Bert Boerman thinks that cross-border traffic by train will increase if the journey becomes cheaper. “If we look at the impact it has on the economy, being able to move easily from one place to another across the border, then that is a nice impulse,” he says at RTV Oost.
Nice test case
That success inspired Boerman to pull out his wallet. “Of course it costs the province something. But we think that the increase in the number of travelers will more than make up for it,” said the deputy. “I’m not saying that just like that, we’ve already experienced that. Last summer we worked with the 9 euro ticket. We saw that the number of travelers increased enormously. That was a nice test case.”
For Boerman, cheap travel on the three train routes is not over; he hopes that bus transport across the border will also become more attractive. Regional carrier Arriva has already said that it is investigating new bus connections between Twente cities and cities in Germany.
The Deutschland ticket is already on sale, but can only be used from 1 May.
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