(ffm) The RMV supervisory board, headed by chairmen Peter Feldmann and vice-chairman Ulrich Krebs, has voted to postpone the 2021 fare adjustment, which traditionally takes place on January 1, to July 1. In this way, passengers will benefit from the 2020 fares for six additional months. In combination with extensive promotions such as the association-wide validity of all annual tickets on summer holiday weekends in 2020, the RMV will pass on the temporary reduction in value-added tax decided by the German government to its passengers in an unbureaucratic manner.
"We want to motivate people to get back on public transport. This can be done with attractive offers and attractive fares," says the RMV supervisory board chairman and mayor of Frankfurt. Feldmann adds: "Many passengers were already able to explore the RMV area in the summer with the extended validity of the annual travelpasses or extended day-ticket travel arrangements at no additional cost and thus benefit indirectly from the reduction in VAT. With the major measure that has now been adopted, fares will now remain constant over the turn of the year for the first time in the history of the association. Thus we relieve all those who are hobbled by Corona."
"Public transport is one of the most important pillars of the transport turnaround, even in the Corona pandemic. To accommodate its passengers in a straightforward way, RMV has already done a lot in recent months with the subscription break, the load forecast and the RMV prepaid discount. With the postponement of the tariff adjustment, Verbund is continuing to pursue this strategy. This means that buses and trains will remain attractive in terms of price. This is an important signal to all those who continue to suffer from the consequences of the pandemic and still depend on public transport," says Hesse's Transport Minister Tarek Al-Wazir.
"Every day, millions of people use the RMV and hundreds of thousands of them travel with season tickets. The shift will not only save them all cash in the first half of 2021, but will also avoid cumbersome reimbursement procedures for all season ticket holders," said Krebs, who is also the district administrator of the Hochtaunuskreis.
"An association tariff is a complex structure that you can't up or down in the blink of an eye," explained RMV managing director Knut Ringat. "If we want to change the tariff, this has to be decided by the supervisory board and approved by the authorities before we can go into implementation - this usually takes several months. The postponement is therefore the simplest and least bureaucratic solution to pass on the temporary VAT reduction to our passengers."
Inclusion of the mask obligation in the conditions of carriage will be examined
In addition, the supervisory board voted for the RMV to examine in which way the mask obligation can be better enforced in the ÖPNV. The association is developing a concept under which conditions the mask obligation can be included in the conditions of carriage and regular checks can be ensured. Since neither the transport companies nor Verbund currently have the personnel available for comprehensive mask checks, the concept also includes examining how a corresponding pool of trained security staff could be built up in order to implement the regulation.
