Public transport company De Lijn is expanding its initiative of offering free tram and bus travel to people moving to a new home in Flanders for one month.
In Flanders, around 600,000 people (almost 10% of the entire population) move homes every year, either to a new municipality or within their town or village, a change that always involves re-evaluating their travel habits. De Lijn, which believes this is the ideal moment to consider opting for sustainable alternatives, is offering a free trial package of its services for these people.
"De Lijn is committed to making traffic more sustainable. The trial package offers the chance to convince people to travel in a more sustainable way and thus to move towards less CO2," Ann Schoubs, director general of De Lijn.
The free trial package includes a monthly De Lijn season ticket, including a MOBIB card, allowing people to use all buses and trams free of charge for a whole month, as well as free memberships for cambio's car-sharing (two months) and BlueBike's bicycle-sharing (annual), allowing them to combine various forms of transport.
The concept was extensively tested in the Flemish municipalities of Heist-op-den-Berg, Lier, Diest and Mechelen, but will now be made available to all of Flanders, following positive feedback. A total of 1,255 season tickets were distributed across the participating municipalities.
Municipalities have to specifically subscribe to the initiative to give their residents the opportunity to try out the package for their journeys. The trial package can also be requested for the whole family.
