Deutschland-Semesterticket

The DE-SeTi is a discounted Deutschlandticket and is valid nationwide in 2nd class on all local buses and trains, wherever the Deutschlandticket is valid. The DE-SeTi is based on a Agreement between the federal and state governments and is intended to provide students throughout Germany with affordable mobility. The ticket will be offered to student bodies by the transport associations from 2024 on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Transport.

The price is 60% of the price of the Deutschlandticket (currently €49/month) and will therefore be at 29,40€ per month. Just like the existing nationwide semester ticket, the DE-SeTi is purchased by the student body as a whole. You do not need to buy any additional tickets to use it, as you have already paid for the semester ticket with your semester fee for the entire semester.

From October 1, 2024, instead of the state-wide semester ticket, all students will receive a discounted Deutschlandticket with the DE-SeTi, which entitles them to use local bus and train services nationwide. In the winter semester 2024/2025, the proportion of the semester fee for the ticket will increase by €5.30 to €176.40.

As with the Deutschlandticket, the DE-SeTi will be issued exclusively as a digital ticket. This will primarily take the form of the familiar cell phone ticket. However, as student representatives in Schleswig-Holstein, we have managed to ensure that it will also be possible to issue a chip card in individual cases. The chip card would be applied for in writing via the AStA using an application form and issued by the local transport company (KVG).

The basic conditions regarding who receives a semester ticket and what reimbursement options are available are not expected to change.

The federal political decision on the DE semester ticket was not made until the end of November 2023 and many details were still unclear at the beginning of 2024, meaning that it was not possible to switch to the summer semester in Schleswig-Holstein due to the deadlines for the semester contribution, among other things. As different regulations apply in other federal states, some universities in Germany are already switching to the summer semester.

In the summer semester 2024, students in Kiel, Flensburg and Lübeck will continue to use the existing state-wide semester ticket, which entitles them to travel on local public transport within Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg. The individual Upgrade option from the state-wide semester ticket to the regular Deutschlandticket will remain in place until September 2024.

The price of the DE-SeTi is set by political decision at 60% of the price of the regular Deutschlandticket and is therefore directly linked to the price development of the Deutschlandticket. The latter, in turn, is dependent on agreement between the federal and state governments on the financing of the Deutschlandticket.

Unlike the existing state-wide semester ticket, the DE-SeTi does not charge all students for the journeys they actually make, but instead applies a flat rate. The Federal Ministry of Transport arbitrarily set the price at 60%. Under the current conditions, the DE-SeTi will only cost €0.88 more per month than the existing state-wide semester ticket with a significantly larger area of validity. However, in the event of price increases for the Deutschlandticket, the DE-SeTi would also become correspondingly more expensive and could become unattractive or disadvantageous for students in terms of price compared to the existing nationwide model.

In future, the price should be fixed at least eight months before the start of each semester and, in the event of a price increase, the DE-SeTi contract can be terminated up to three months before the start of the semester. This gives the student body the opportunity to evaluate possible price increases and react to them. Theoretically, in the event of a significant price increase, it would be possible to return to the nationwide semester ticket after renewed negotiations between student bodies and regional transport companies at comparable conditions to the existing nationwide ticket.

Switching to the DE-SeTi allows students flexible and supra-regional mobility. Instead of just to Lauenburg or Wedel, the ticket will be valid to Lörrach and Oberwiesenthal from the winter semester onwards. And in addition to using the Fördelinie F1 ferry at the weekend and during Kiel Week 2025, the DE-SeTi also includes the Lübeck Priwall ferry for students from Kiel and Flensburg. At the same time, we as a student body are giving up our previous, painstakingly negotiated state-wide semester ticket in the solidarity model and will instead purchase a ticket in the subscription model with a fixed price from the winter semester.

The student parliament (StuPa) had to make a decision in February so that the switch from the state-wide semester ticket to the DE semester ticket would be possible in the coming winter semester. After extensive deliberation, the parliament decided in favor of the change, as the advantages of the DE-SeTi outweigh the additional financial burden for students from the perspective of the student representatives. In order to find out what all CAU students think about the semester ticket, the StuPa also decided to conduct a student survey on the semester ticket in the coming summer semester.

In the student survey, all students will be asked - following a detailed information campaign on the conditions and possible price development of both tickets - whether they support the decision to switch to the DE-SeTi or whether they are in favor of returning to the expiring nationwide semester ticket. If the vote is in favor of a state-wide semester ticket, it would be possible to switch back to this for the 2025 summer semester.

Background information:

Before the state-wide semester ticket was introduced in 2019, all CAU students were asked in a student survey whether they would like to switch from the regional ticket valid at the time to the state-wide semester ticket. In the survey, the majority of students were in favor of extending the area of validity and the StuPa followed this decision and introduced the state-wide ticket. Although the switch from the regional to the nationwide semester ticket was only a "minor" change in terms of the area of validity compared to the switch to the nationwide DE semester ticket that has now been decided, it had much more far-reaching consequences from the 2019/2020 winter semester in terms of the financial burden on students than the switch to the DE semester ticket decided in February 2024.