Night trains for business travellers: Wissing examines potential

Berlin The Federal Ministry of Transport wants to examine the potential of night trains in Germany with a report. The aim is “to make a holistic ecological and societal comparison of night train services with other modes of transport,” says the relevant tender. In addition to the economic benefit, the experts should check whether tourists and business travelers would travel by night train instead of by plane, car or coach.

SPD, Greens and FPD have set themselves the goal of strengthening cross-border traffic with night train offers. According to Deutsche Bahn AG (DB), only “around 6,500 trains with sleeping and couchette cars” ran last year, i.e. around 18 trains per day.

Criticism of the tender comes from the Greens. The benefits of night trains are well known, said the rail policy spokesman for the Greens, Matthias Gastel, the Handelsblatt. “Night trains help to avoid flights that are particularly harmful to the climate and are a contribution to strengthening sustainable mobility.” The Bundestag had already provided funds in the last budget “to investigate how technical and legal hurdles for more European night trains can be removed. We now have to get to concrete implementation as quickly as possible.”

The Pro-Rail Alliance is calling for competitive disadvantages between the modes of transport to be corrected. “One of the first measures would be to abolish VAT on cross-border train tickets and to lower the train path prices for night trains,” said Managing Director Dirk Flege. As a further measure, the association recommends introducing a kerosene tax and value added tax on cross-border flights. This is a contribution to achieving the climate goals.

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Among other things, the ministry wants to use the report to examine a technical problem: whether there is still enough space in the rail network for night trains. After all, the federal government wants to transport far more goods by rail by 2030 than today. “Already today” there are “capacity bottlenecks”, as the poor condition of the network is described in the tender.

Night trains: The market leader ÖBB expects three million passengers

In addition, the ministry has the “entrepreneurial efficiency” of night trains assessed. DB discontinued its last connections in 2016 because they didn’t pay off. The Austrian Federal Railway (ÖBB) took over some connections, invested 40 million euros in the fleet and is now the largest European provider in the small segment of night train connections.

According to its own statements, the company transported 1.5 million passengers in sleeping and couchette cars in the pre-Corona year. In 2022 there was “a boom in demand”, as a spokesman explained. The seats in the wagons and more sleeping compartments are in demand. They are “often fully booked for weeks – that’s why we ordered new trains with significantly more sleeping car places,” said the spokesman. By 2026, ÖBB plans “to have up to three million passengers on our night trains”.

ÖBB night train

The group reports a “boom in demand”.

(Photo: dpa)

However, as in the past, business is not always sufficient. According to the ÖBB, only “the majority of the costs” are covered by ticket sales. One problem: pure sleeping and couchette cars are only used at night and are parked during the day. In order to work cost-effectively, government orders are “still necessary today, at least for sections of the route”. That is, the state orders night trains and guarantees to compensate for possible losses.

However, the market seems to have potential. The Belgian-Dutch railway company “European Sleeper”, founded in 2021, recently announced that it would connect Berlin and Brussels three times a week with a night train from the end of May 2023.

The European state railways cooperate

The state railways in Germany, Austria, France (SNCF) and Switzerland (SBB) had already announced that they would reestablish connections for the “European Year of Rail 2021” proclaimed by the EU Commission. Since then, under the management of ÖBB, trains have gone from Vienna via Munich to Paris or from Zurich via Cologne to Amsterdam. According to a DB spokesman, the connection from Berlin to Paris or Brussels should be added at the end of 2023.

>> Read here: Cheap, punctual, clean – are Czech trains a role model for Germany?

In Berlin’s Bahntower, the key has long since changed from what it was a few years ago. “We never got out of the night train business, we changed the business model and now offer sleeping and couchette cars together with our European partner railways,” said a railway spokesman. “If everyone operates a little night train, nothing is won in the competition between trains and planes.”

In fact, cooperation in cross-border traffic is mandatory. According to the ÖBB, some state railways such as the SBB and the Dutch NS also assume the costs and risks, while others such as the Deutsche Bahn cooperate in “sales and production”. According to the DB, it provides the locomotives and engine drivers and offers the journeys in its own sales channels.

More: Transport Minister Wissing wants to transport more goods by ship – but without a major reform

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