The current station price system contains a fundamentally stable price catalogue with six "Laender"-specific category prices which are both governed by the importance of the stations for traffic and integrate the "Laender"-specific infrastructure requirements and funding arrangements. The specific conceptions of the "Laender" concerning regionalisation are thus taken extensively into consideration.

The classification of all of the 5,000 or so stations into six categories serves as the basis for the price system. Each station is allocated to a category according to features that are standard for the whole of . What is decisive here is the respective importance of the station for traffic - for example the number of train stops, the number of passengers and the interconnection function.

The new station price system reduces the number of station prices from some 5,400 to only 96 "Laender"-specific prices (16 Federal "Laender" times 6 categories) with 2 train-length factors each. For a train length up to 180 m, the factor is1; above 180 m, the factor 2 is used as the basis. This facilitates the mode of accounting and, at the same time, takes the higher requirements of longer trains on the railway infrastructure into consideration.

Allocating the stations to the six categories increases the transparency and comparability of station utilisation significantly. In addition, the new price system has big advantages in particular for railway undertakings (RUs) and ordering bodies owing to the improved planning reliability.

The logical consequence of a category model is a certain consolidation of prices since the 5,400 or so stations are allocated to six categories. There is however nothing to be said against such consolidation since the formation of categories is in line with economic, legal and transport considerations. Before being introduced, the 2005 station price system was agreed informationally with the Federal Cartel Office and the Federal Railway Office.

You can find the station price list and the general business conditions here: