A Nation-Wide Experiment

In this fifth report published by the project team Mobilität.Leben, we present several analyses of the data collected between April 2022 and September 2022 via a smartphone tracking app to learn more about the people’s mobility behavior. The report focuses on the evaluation of the socio-demographics of the study sample group. In this way, we gain a deeper understanding of the participants’ activities, considering their different social backgrounds.

The analysis of the participants' mobility behavior considering trip purposes, age, and income sheds light on how the 9-Euro-Ticket impacts different social groups and activities. We find that age, income, and trip purpose significantly influence the impact of the 9-Euro-Ticket on the observed modal split.

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Several key findings can be highlighted for this report:

First a total of 665.114 trips was correctly reported during our observation period with a total length of 6.550.250 km. Walking was the most prominent mode of transport with 372.430 reported trips, followed by car (108.944 trips), public transport (101.265), bike (80.088) and airplane (786) and all other forms of transport (1.601).

Second, the introduction of the 9-Euro-Ticket had a visible positive effect on the use of public transportation vis-à-vis the use of car. The use of bikes was not affected while a slight decrease for walking shorter trips can be observed during the observation period.

Third, the analysis of mobility behavior shows significant influences of trip purpose, income, and age on the use of public transportation:

• The 9-Euro-Ticket led to a general increase of mobility, especially on weekends and holidays. Here, we can observe that public transportation was used for trips more frequently compared to periods without cheap tickets. Work and education trips during workdays were hardly affected by the 9-Euro-Ticket, while we see an increase in public transportation usage for errands, leisure, and shopping activities during the 9-Euro-Ticket.
• People with higher incomes use public transportation less frequently – and the car more often and vice versa. Additionally, the availability of the reduced ticket appears to have a particularly strong effect for low-income households compared to high-income households, especially on non-working days.
• Age seems to have an adverse effect on public transportation usage in our sample with younger age groups using public transportation. However, the introduction of the 9-Euro-Ticket had a positive effect on the usage of public transportation across all age groups – except for those between 30 and 49.