Ticket for a Euroregion

It was a major undertaking, involving two completely different systems of transport, managed on the Austrian side by the Salzburger Verkehrsverbund and on the German side by the Regionalverkehr Oberbayern- Betrieb Berchtesgaden. An agreement between the two regions led to the creation of a cross-border transport association in 1997, without an agreement having to be signed at the national level. Today, only one ticket issued anywhere in the area is all that is needed to travel throughout the Euroregion, allowing an unlimited number of bus transfers back and forth across the border. The initiative has led to a rise in the number of users of public transport, encouraged the development of tourism and the geographical resources in the Euroregion and fostered closer cooperation. To achieve this result, ticket machines had to be installed in all the buses and ticket offices of the Euroregion, itineraries and connections had to be coordinated across a network comprising thousands of routes, a standardised system of tariff zones had to be set up and various legal, financial and tax provisions had to be harmonised. Aside from certain problems relating to the infrastructures, the project was implemented without too much difficulty; the two partner transport companies in particular had no problem agreeing on the fares that were to be charged. The system first included the buses and trains of the Austrian Land of Salzburg (with part of the Land of Upper Austria) and the buses of the German Land of Berchtesgaden but was then expanded to include the Landkreis (district) of Traunstein, integrating the German railways as well. A cross-border bus line was put into service for visitors to the National Park of the Land of Salzburg while night buses were introduced to provide young people with inexpensive transport for discotheques and cultural events.