Since 4 March 2020, the students of Brandenburg and Berlin have been in negotiations with the VBB about the semester ticket. Similar to the trainee ticket introduced last year, students are demanding a semester ticket for 365 € per year, i.e. 182.50 € per semester. In a first offer of the VBB, price increases to 210.30 € for Berlin-ABC and 245 € for the network-wide tariff per semester until 2023 were presented. This corresponds to increases of up to 119% over 6 years for Brandenburg's universities which are not in the Berlin C-range.

"We can understand that the VBB is currently suffering from a large loss of revenue due to the Covid 19 pandemic. However, it is not acceptable that the students, 40% of whom lost their jobs in Corona times, are now being called upon to compensate. After all, we have established ourselves as the most reliable customer group, which has transferred the money for the semester ticket even in the current crisis, although it has hardly been used," says Matthias Weingärtner, negotiator for IGSemTixBB (Berlin).

As early as 2019, an optional AzubiTicket was introduced for Berlin and Brandenburg trainees for 365 € per year, which is subsidised by the states of Berlin and Brandenburg. The semester ticket, on the other hand, is based on a solidarity principle according to which all students are obliged to buy this ticket, regardless of their usage behaviour.

Hier können Sie T"We now appeal to the states of Berlin and Brandenburg to subsidise the semester ticket in the same way as the 365€ ticket for trainees. Students are also an economically precarious group who depend on affordable mobility. The solidarity model would mean that the subsidy per person would have to be much lower than for the trainee ticket," says Tilman Kolbe, negotiator for IGSemTixBB (Brandenburg).ext oder Bilder einfügen.