German taxi app allows young people to get home safely for half the price after nights out

Like its army of young weekend partiers, public transport in Berlin goes all night. But it doesn’t go all the way for those living in the capital’s outskirts – or the surrounding state of Brandenburg.

Once-an-hour night buses are easily missed, if they even exist, while taxis – particularly on long rural runs – can be ruinously expensive.

But now there’s an app for that.

Called 50:50 Taxi, it allows anyone aged 16-25 to order a taxi to take them home on Friday and Saturday night. The passenger pays half the fare while the taxi driver draws the other half from a €125,000 public fund from the Brandenburg state government.

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“We want young people who go out at night to come back safely, too,” said Rainer Genilke, Brandenburg’s state secretary for transport. “It’s also important to us that this new digital offer can be used easily, so that everyone can reach their destination safely.”

Building on a previous analogue, coupon-based model, the app benefits taxi firms by allowing them to draw down money from the 50:50 Taxi fund directly.

Similar apps are already in operation in other regions of Germany, including the sprawling southern states of Bavaria and neighbouring Baden-Württemberg.

German drivers aged 18-24 are over-represented in motoring statistics, according to the ADAC auto club, with 50,000 traffic incidents last year, of which 326 were fatal.

A week since the launch, taxi drivers and firms from 26 areas surrounding Berlin have already signed up to the 50:50 Taxi scheme. Particularly well-represented are the northern and northwest Brandenburg areas, with lower population density and fewer transport options.

Detlev Baatz of a taxi co-operative in Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg, welcomed the new offer but recommends partygoers reserve their taxi in advance. Otherwise it is up to night-shift drivers to decide whether they take on a late-night fare, he said.

“Potsdam isn’t a big event city like Berlin,” he said. “But on Fridays and Saturdays more taxis are on the road.”

A spokesman for the Berlin-Brandenburg taxi federation said it has been reminding its members to register with the new service.

In rural Rathenow, 100km west of Berlin, local taxi driver Fred Meier said many drivers had good experiences with the previous coupon system. “It was a great deal and worked well,” he told local broadcaster RBB. “Now the drivers have to work with the app but we will encourage them to do so.”

When RBB reporters fanned out to clubs across the region, it appeared that Brandenburg still had some promotional work to do for their 50:50 Taxi app.

“I live quite a distance away and the last train goes at 11pm,” said a regular reveller who gave her name as Sarah. Though hearing for the first time about the app, she said: “This would really work for me.”

The app is proving just as popular with parents in Brandenburg, where tree-lined winding country roads can be fatal for young drivers – particularly if alcohol is involved.

“Some parents do shift work and have real problems getting the kids home,” said one father, who was waiting outside a Rathenow disco, to RBB. “An app like this is super.”