Short-term remedy impossible
Passenger association fears overcrowded trains
06/21/2023, 02:41 am
Last year, many regional expresses were bursting at the seams because of the 9-euro ticket. The Pro Bahn passenger association predicts that this will be repeated this summer. The railways can hardly do anything at the moment to ease the situation.
The Pro Bahn passenger association expects many overcrowded trains to popular destinations by the sea and in the mountains during the summer holidays because of the Germany ticket. “Already today, many of these trains are full to overcrowded,” said the honorary chairman of Pro Bahn, Karl-Peter Naumann, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. The Germany ticket introduced two months ago costs 49 euros.
An urgently needed increase in connections on heavily used routes is not possible, said Naumann. “The railway cannot expand its connections because there is a lack of wagons and personnel, and the platforms would not be sufficient for longer trains.”
The Pro-Bahn honorary chairman draws mixed conclusions about the Germany ticket. Above all, “former subscribers and regular train passengers” have switched to the 49-euro ticket and are now mostly cheaper. But the ticket “didn’t lead to a major shift in traffic from cars to rail,” Naumann summed up. The main reason for this is the lack of supply outside of larger cities and in rural areas. The route network is often insufficient, and buses and trains run too rarely and only at large intervals, criticized Naumann.
Cheap alone is not enough
He urgently called for an expansion of the rail service from politicians. “You don’t win new customers with the price, you only get a better offer,” he said. In addition, car traffic must be made more expensive due to higher parking costs and city tolls. “Without restrictions on car traffic, there will be no shift in traffic.”
Naumann is critical of the different regulations in the federal states for additional costs for bicycles, additional tickets for first class or discounts for students. A uniform nationwide regulation is required here, said Naumann. In addition, the transport companies had failed to digitize the ticket system. “There are still tickets both digitally and on paper. The digital transformation was missed here,” he criticized.