Wiesbaden (dpa/lhe) - Hesse's Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir (Greens) has shown himself to be optimistic that there could soon be an agreement on a follow-up offer for the 9-euro ticket in local transport. The "good and constructive atmosphere" at the conference of transport ministers gives reason to hope "that a solution can be found quickly," he said on Monday in Wiesbaden. At the same time, Al-Wazir insisted that the federal government should give the states more money to finance public transport operations.
The federal and state governments are aiming for an agreement on a follow-up offer for the 9-euro ticket by mid-October. All countries had announced that they could imagine carrying a connection ticket, said the chairwoman of the conference of transport ministers, Maike Schaefer (Greens) from Bremen after consultations with Federal Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
A working group is now to start discussions on this. At the same time, however, the federal states expected that this would be linked to an increase in the general regionalization funds of the federal government. The federal states use the money from Berlin to order services from the transport companies.
"Personnel and energy costs are rising significantly, even the current operation of buses and trains can hardly be financed by the federal states and municipalities - the necessary expansion of the offer is certainly not," argued Al-Wazir.
