Luxembourg is set to become the first country to abolish all public transport fares.

The Grand Duchy’s new coalition government has pledged to scrap tickets on all trains, buses and trams – a move which should come into effect by the summer of 2019.

Luxembourg has long taken a progressive approach to public transport. As it stands fares are capped at €2 for up to two hours of travel – for a country the size of Oxfordshire, this covers just about every journey. It’s an extra €1 to upgrade to first class, while an all-day second-class transport ticket on any form of transport costs €4.

As of this summer, anyone under the age of 20 can travel free in Luxembourg, while an annual “mPass” for commuters costs just €150 for all public transport.

By comparison, a two-hour peak time trip from London to Manchester in standard class costs £120. Many season tickets in the UK exceed £5,000, with rail fares set to increase by 3.2 per cent in 2019 – a move which RMT Union chief Mike Cash described as "another kick in the teeth for passengers".

The travel cost in London is the most expensive in the world, with a monthly travelcard costing £131 (Zones 1–2) up to £340 (Zones 1–9).

A traffic jam as people make their way to work in Luxembourg in August 2018 credit: Getty

Luxembourg’s new government is pushing for free public transport as a way to reduce the use of private cars. Traffic congestion is a serious problem in and around Luxembourg city, with jams across the France-Luxembourg border a common sight. Around 200,000 people living in France, Belgium and Germany commute into Luxembourg every day, and a recent study showed that drivers in the capital spent an average of 33 hours in traffic jams per year.

What does this mean for tourists?

This should be good news for visitors to Luxembourg from 2020 onwards. The exact workings of the system are yet to have been fully thought through, but a free transport system would likely apply to tourists as well as residents. What hasn’t been decided yet is what to do about first and second class compartments on trains.

It will also, in theory, help to make the city a more pleasant place to explore on foot, with reduced congestion and pollution. What is not clear is how the government aims to deal with the possible outcome of homeless people moving from the streets onto public transport in the cold winter months.

The new government – made up of a centrist Democratic Party, the left-wing Socialist Workers’ Party and the Greens – is also aiming to legalise cannabis and introduce two new public holidays, including “Europe Day” on May 9th.

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Which other cities offer free public transport?

European cities are increasingly looking towards free public transport models in a bid to combat air pollution and congestion.

Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor, is the latest local leader hoping to make public transport free across the city, emulating the success of a handful of small towns across France which let residents board buses and trams without paying a cent. Niort in western France has been running free buses since last September for its 125,000 inhabitants; the scheme has been hailed an enormous success, boosting passenger numbers and reducing the number of cars on the road.

The German government is also considering rolling out free transport across the entire country - with the same aim as in France of reducing air pollution - if a pilot scheme in five big cities including Bonn, Essen and Mannheim this year proves successful.

In 2013 Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, started providing free public transport for people living in the city. Earlier this year, the government announced that it would be offering free travel for residents on county buses.

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Why visit Luxembourg?

Telegraph Travel’s Chris Leadbeater makes the case that Luxembourg is an underrated destination: “Often dismissed as a bolthole of banking and bureacracy, Luxembourg City tends to surprise those who lay eyes on it in person. It is an unexpectedly pretty place, laid out above and down the flanks of a steep gorge at the point where the Pétrusse and Alzette and rivers meet,” he says.

“Posh shops abound on the Rue Philippe II, while inviting restaurants and inviting cafés dot the fringes of the central square, the Place Guillaume II.”

Could London ever follow suit and offer free transport?

Like many cities across the world, London is blighted with poor air quality. Two separate high pollution warnings were issued over the summer, with vulnerable people advised to avoid strenuous physical exercise, while a 2017 report suggested air quality in every area of the capital was regularly breaching World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines. So there’s an argument that free public transport could help to restore cleaner air in the capital.

However, if the UK leaves the EU on 29 March 2019 it will no longer be subject to the EU pollution limits. Without the threat of fines from Brussels, the subject of air quality will unlikely disappear but it may slip further down the priority list.

Will London ever make public transport free? Probably not credit: iStock

The main obstacle for a city the size of London offering free public transport is, of course, the cost. Following government cuts and a dip in passenger numbers, Transport for London is facing serious financial challenges. Earlier this year, a leaked internal email suggested that TfL will “make a loss next year of £968m”, so the chances of rolling out free public transport is unlikely top of their agenda.

Another matter is the capacity of the Underground. The Tube is already extremely congested at peak times, so there’s a question as to whether the network would be able to cope with the probable boom in commuters were public transport to become free.

So in short, the answer is 'almost certainly not'. The closest Londoners could plausibly get to free public transport would be under a Labour government. Earlier this year, Jeremy Corbyn said “young people deserve a break” and pledged free bus travel for anyone under the age of 25.