Former SBB boss Weibel criticizes night trains: “It harms the climate and is expensive”

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In recent years, night trains have experienced a real renaissance. Slow and sustainable travel by train is in fashion.

However, Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB), which offers many night train services from Switzerland, is now making negative headlines. As Swiss rail blog night-ride.ch first noticed, ÖBB has introduced a new pricing system with the timetable change.

This leads to huge price increases. The new system is based on demand-based “price ranges”, that is, the “dynamic pricing” system. This makes it possible to travel cheaper than before by night train on off-peak days. However, on busy days and in higher categories, prices increase significantly.

An evaluation of prices in various categories and on different days by Night-ride.ch shows: The average price is up to 184 percent higher than the previously charged price. In almost every example, the average price is higher than before the system change.

Neither profitable nor sustainable

Can the goal of a widespread switch from flights to trains be achieved, as climate advocates demand?

In the “Tages-Anzeiger” interview, former SBB boss Benedikt Weibel (77) repeated his criticism of night trains, which he expressed in his 2021 book “We Mobility People – Paths and Mistakes to Sustainable Transport”.

The Solothurn resident says night trains should not receive “a single subsidy franc”, especially as there is no proven leverage effect on CO₂ emissions. In the new CO₂ bill, SBB could be given a subsidy of up to 30 million francs per year to run its own night trains. But Weibel says the night train in its current form adds “nothing” to climate goals.

“A 200-ton train that carries 254 passengers at night and otherwise sits on the side unused all day is neither profitable nor sustainable,” he explains to Blick. A 20-ton wagon carrying 80 people is no less sustainable and even cheaper. The subsidy provider therefore needs to consider whether the money can be used to save more CO₂ in other ways.

Additionally, prices are very high because ÖBB targets primarily environmentally conscious business travelers. “Given that prices for night train connections to Vienna or Hamburg sometimes exceed 700 euros, there is no incentive to switch from planes to trains,” says Weibel. He also believes that business trips and night train traffic do not mix: “The demand for them has always been very low, and truly environmentally conscious business people will rely on Zoom, Teams and similar platforms in the future.”

A new night train concept is needed

In principle, according to Weibel, there is nothing wrong with a tourist night train service that is financially viable on its own. He has a proposal to make this work: “We need new, innovative rolling stock that can be converted to day traffic and have the maximum number of moorings and seats for both day and night traffic.”

He notes that daytime traffic improvements are a priority. For example, the new railway line from Basel to London planned by SBB needs to operate with 1,000 seats at least four times a day; The train can reach London via Paris-Charles de Gaulle in five hours. Rail can only meaningfully compete with other means of transport as a “means of public transport” in terms of both price and sustainability.

Source :Blick