Overview
- BVG’s supervisory board has approved a shift in sales strategy and distribution chief Michael Beer outlined the validator plan this week as the company moves away from 30-year-old vending technology.
- The proposed system would let riders tap a contactless bank or credit card on small validator terminals and have their travel right recorded in the cloud using ID-based and account-based ticketing.
- BVG cites sharply falling demand for paper tickets and high costs from maintenance, vandalism and cash handling, noting that some trams sold only about six paper tickets per vehicle per day in the first half of 2026.
- Passenger group IGEB warns the change risks excluding people without bank cards or smartphones and demands preserved analogue sales options while BVG points to local expansions of station sales (for example a roughly 70 percent increase on the M4 line) as partial mitigation.
- Early signs of the shift include new Alstom Urbanliner trams delivered without ticket machines, but concrete rollout dates, which payment methods will be supported, how the system will guarantee the cheapest fare and data-privacy rules have not yet been published.