Advertisement

Public transport fare dodgers face fine hike

Author thumbnail
Public transport fare dodgers face fine hike
Photo: DPA

Germany's public transportation fare dodgers will soon be hit with increased fines if caught by ticket inspectors, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Advertisement

Fare evaders, commonly known in German as Schwarzfahrer are to be fined up to €60, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

Passengers on trams, underground metros and buses across Germany typically do not have to go through ticket barriers before boarding, making it easy for fare dodgers to ride without a valid ticket.

Instead, plain clothes officials from the transportation authorities randomly board vehicles to check passengers for tickets.

Transport ministers voted unanimously to raise the fine for fare dodging from the current €40 to €60 at their conference on Wednesday, an initiative spearheaded by the North Rhine-Westphalian Transport Minister Michael Groschek, wrote the paper.

The new €60 fine is much lower than the €120 demanded by the German transport association VDV at the end of February, after it complained that the €40 punishment had remained unchanged for a decade.

The states' initiative must now be approved by Federal Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer, before being put to a parliamentary vote.

The move is the latest in a series of nationwide measures to catch out freeloaders on German public transport, who are thought to cost local networks around €250 million every year in lost revenue.

DAPD/The Local/jlb

More

Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.

Please log in to leave a comment.

See Also