Lower track prices
Deutsche Bahn lowers costs for night trains
06/10/2023 5:27 p.m
Deutsche Bahn discontinued its own night train service in 2016. The existing offer is now operated by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). In order to make the business more attractive for other night train providers, the state-owned company is reducing the rail toll – significantly.
According to a newspaper report, Deutsche Bahn (DB) wants to promote the operation of night trains. The state-owned company will continue to reduce the rail toll for long-distance trains from December, the specialist service “Tagesspiegel Background” reported. “Lower train path prices make it more attractive for night train providers to expand their connections,” said Berthold Huber, the railway board member responsible for infrastructure.
“Travellers could use it to travel more comfortably while sleeping in the most environmentally friendly means of transport.” According to the report, trains traveling at night with sleeper or couchette cars should pay the cheaper night tariff for the entire journey from December – and no longer only in the core night hours between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. The trains would only have to pay 2.76 euros per so-called track kilometer, instead of an average of around seven euros a day.
According to the environmental organization Greenpeace, the changes do not go far enough. The operators only saved a few hundred euros as a result, Greenpeace expert Lena Donat told the “Tagesspiegel”. She called for a significantly lower rail fee. “In Germany, night trains should not pay more than the directly incurred costs for rail use.” That would be around one euro per train-path kilometer.
Deutsche Bahn discontinued its own night train service in 2016. The existing offer is operated by the Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB). In recent years, offers from private providers have been added to individual routes. At the end of May, a new night train ran for the first time on the Berlin-Amsterdam-Brussels line. Even the railway does not rule out a return.