Greifswald (dpa / mv) - Transport companies from Western Pomerania are demanding more money from the state for the trainee ticket. The special ticket, with which young people can use all local transport in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania for 365 euros a year, is a complete success, but will not be sufficiently funded in the future, the transport companies from the districts of Western Pomerania-Greifswald and Western Pomerania-Rügen announced on Tuesday. Problems were already pointed out before the introduction in February 2021. However, the announced talks did not take place.
The companies in the Cooperation Community Western Pomerania criticize, for example, that the compensatory payment only takes into account vocational school students based on their place of residence, but not based on their school location. Ludwigslust-Parchim, for example, receives about the same subsidy as the Vorpommern-Greifswald district, explained Henrik Umnus, managing director of the Greifswald transport company. However, there are three large vocational school locations in the Vorpommern-Greifswald district and about three times as many vocational students. "It's a glaring disproportion."
There are special grants for city traffic for Rostock and Schwerin, for example, but not for Greifswald and Neubrandenburg. In addition, buses should be given more consideration than rail transport, since most vocational school students take the bus. Other points of criticism are a lack of consideration of inflation and increasing demand, which leads to more effort.
"As an independently operated transport company, we are urgently dependent on cost-covering remuneration for our transport services," emphasized Jörgen Boße, Managing Director of the Usedomer Bäderbahn (UBB). "Unfortunately, we cannot accept any further losses, although the trainee ticket is also very important to us."
