Annual revenue of the urban transport company in Berlin, Germany 2014-2022

The annual revenue of the public transportation company BVG (Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe) in Berlin, Germany, amounted to over 1.3 billion euros in 2022, an increase of around three percent compared to the previous year. In 2019, the number of passengers using public transportation in Germany’s capital city surpassed 1.6 billion. However, ridership figures fell drastically in 2020 and 2021 due to travel restrictions amid the COVID-19 pandemic. By 2022, ridership had recovered to around 85 percent of pre-pandemic figures.

The Bigger Picture

The number of passengers that traveled with regular urban public transportation in Germany reached a historic level in 2019, with approximately 11.5 billion passengers. Due to the pandemic, the national urban transit ridership fell to under eight billion for two consecutive years, reaching 7.8 billion in 2021. In 2022 passenger numbers climbed to 10 billion, 87 percent of 2019 ridership. Germany-wide ridership recovery, therefore, slightly exceeded the recovery recorded in Berlin.

Sustainability On Public Transportation

The urban bus fleet is the most emission-intensive per passenger among the different public transport modes in Germany. City buses emitted 108 grams of greenhouse gases per passenger-kilometer in 2020. During the same year, German tram and subway networks were 28 percent less carbon intensive per passenger kilometer than urban buses. The carbon intensity per passenger of public transport in 2021 remained affected by decreased passenger numbers, and was higher than it had been in 2019. Overall, the transportation sector is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in Germany. In 2022, around 20 percent of the GHG emissions came from the transport industry, accounting for almost 147 million metric tons of CO2e.