Vienna, one of the world's most liveable cities, is ending its euro-a-day travel pass. A crunch in public finances has forced the Austrian capital to increase ticket prices - ending a hallmark policy, which could mean losing points in liveability rankings. 

The city famed for composers Johann Strauss and Ludwig van Beethoven is also the city of trams and trains. 

Vienna runs one of the world's largest street car networks and has topped the world's most livable city index five times since 2018. This year it fell to second place due to rising concerns about terrorism.  

Mobility planning expert Hermann Knoflacher from Vienna's University of Technology doubts the city can regain its crown now it has also increased the price of its travel passes. 

"The strategy in Vienna for the last 40 years was going away from the dependency of car traffic to more pedestrianisation, public transport and more cycling," Knoflacher told CGTN. 

"This has changed with the decision to enhance the annual price for public transport so this can have some effects in the future ranking of course."

Introduced 13 years ago, Vienna's one-euro-a-day annual travel pass helped double commuter numbers and became an international model. Now the debt-troubled capital has raised the price of a ticket to 1 euro 26 a day, risking alienating some of its residents.

"I'm a student and I don't have that much money to buy a yearly ticket," 19-year-old Julia said. "The service is really excellent compared to other cities," another Vienna resident says. "But this advertisement, that every year for one euro per day you can go wherever you want, that's a promise they cannot keep any longer."

Thomas Madreiter, director of Vienna's planning division, argues that 'even Vienna has to pay its bills' and that it was necessary to increase the price. 

"We did it the same way for parking prices for private cars," Madreiter adds. "I think public transport is one of the very essential fundamentals of the quality of life in Vienna because it stands for accessibility, it stands for fairness, for a social balance in the city."

European comparison

Even after the price hike, Vienna's annual pass remains one of the cheapest in Europe. The 26 percent increase works out to over 460 euros a year. That's around $540 - an average of around £1.50 a day.

For comparison, Rome charges $293 for an annual pass, Berlin is $689, Paris $1,144 Dollars and London around $3,441.

Some experts fear Vienna's price increase will move the city away from its green mobility vision. 

The plan to build a new motorway around Vienna is also worrying environmentalists. That coupled with the increase in public transport could make for a difficult balancing act as Austria's capital tries to keep the budget in the green as well.