Local public transport plan (Nahverkehrsplan)
The plan in which a German public transport authority sets the scope and quality of local bus and tram services, as the Passenger Transport Act requires.
A local public transport plan, in German Nahverkehrsplan, is the document in which a public transport authority (Aufgabenträger), usually a district or an independent city, sets out the public transport it wants. It defines the scope and quality of the service: how far the nearest stop may be, how often and at what times buses and trams run, and how accessible vehicles and stops must be. The legal basis is section 8 of the Passenger Transport Act (PBefG). Each federal state adds its own rules in its public transport law.
The plan is the frame that operators and transport associations work within. The licensing authority takes it into account when it approves bus services, and it shapes the contracts for the services the authority orders. It is updated regularly, and an update usually starts with a status assessment of the current network.
That status assessment is accessibility analysis. Who lives within reach of a stop, how often that stop is served, where the service gaps are, and what a planned change would do. Public transport quality classes (ÖV-Güteklassen) answer these questions with one comparable rating that combines stop distance and frequency, and they can include on-demand services. In GOAT they are calculated from the region’s timetable data.