Making travel easy
Transport by its nature is about connectivity: the easier and cheaper it is to buy tickets, use them interchangeably on bus, train or tram, and complete a journey taking in both regional and city services, the more people will be drawn to swap their car for public transport.
Munich
The Munich public transport system covers 175 municipalities, 5 500 km2, and a population of 2.7 million. This is comparable to the area and population of the IOW, Hampshire and West Sussex combined.
Across this whole area, public transport functions as a single system: buses, trams and underground and suburban trains are planned together to provide “one network, one timetable, one ticket”. This means you can buy a ticket on a bus and use it on trams, the underground or regional trains, and vice versa. There is also a mobile app where you can get timetable information and live departure times for all modes of transport, and buy electronic tickets.
In Munich itself, the system operates 24 hours a day, and around 1,200 stops and stations are located within 400 metres of all homes.
As a result only 32% of journeys within the city are completed by car: the rest are by public transport, bicycle or on foot. Per capita public transport trips are three to four times higher than in equivalent UK regions.
The system works because even though some operators are privately owned everything is coordinated by a public governing body that sets routes, prices, timetables and quality standards. This model is so successful it has spread across Germany, as well as to Zurich, Vienna, and most of Austria.