Vienna: trend towards public transport

The Austrian capital city has succeeded in reversing the trend from using cars to taking public transport. More people now use public transport each day than cars, and this tendency is increasing.

The tendency to switch to public transport has continued even after the end of the European Football Championship. In June, Vienna’s public transport company, Wiener Linien, sold thousands more monthly travel passes. An increase is also expected to be announced for July, with more than 80,000 monthly passes believed to have been sold. This is remarkable on more than one account. Firstly, because of the fact that so many monthly passes were purchased in the middle of the holidays, and also because many Viennese people could only go on holiday in July this summer, with EURO 2008 causing this delay. Wiener Linien is therefore highly satisfied, although definitive figures can be first expected in September.

U2 underground extension has paid off

Wiener Linien is also satisfied with passenger numbers on the extended U2 underground line. They fulfil expectations up to the Messe Prater station, though they then decrease after that. This will change, however, by 2013 at the latest, when the extension of the U2 to the Aspern airfield will be completed.

Schicker sees a trend away from cars

Vienna’s City Councillor for Traffic and Transport, Rudolf Schicker, considers the trend away from cars and towards public transport to be confirmed. He says that this trend has been observable for a while now. An example was given by traffic surveys on Vienna’s Gürtel ring road between 2004 and 2006, which showed that traffic there had decreased by 3.7%. Schicker now wants to convince many of the 230,000 commuters, who come daily to Vienna from the surrounding area, to use public transport. Currently, the majority of them still travel by car. Schicker recognises that it is a challenge to encourage as many of them as possible to switch to travelling by train. He wants to make the switch easier for them by expanding the municipal rail service and providing more Park & Ride facilities at the city limits.

Taxis to become more environmentally friendly too

The City Councillor for Traffic and Transport, together with the Vienna Economic Chamber, is aiming to make taxi drivers become more environmentally friendly and adapt their cars for hybrid power, natural gas or electricity. He aims to achieve this by introducing an obligation in taxi regulations. He says that this measure concerns more than 4,000 taxis.

Majority using public transport

For the first time in Vienna last year, more people travelled using public transport than cars. This development has been highly praised by the Austrian Traffic Club (VCÖ). According to the VCÖ, the air in Vienna has become better as a result. There are also fewer traffic jams. The previous year, 35% of all everyday trips were taken by bus, underground or tram, 34% by car. For the first time in history, the number of car registrations decreased slightly, by about 700 to 657,430.

The current prognosis for the first half of this year, according to the VCÖ, shows that Wiener Linien recorded their highest ever number of passengers. “In Vienna, more people than ever before are now using public transport,” confirms VCÖ expert Martin Blum. In the East Region, the number of train passengers has risen by up to 10%. The VCÖ considers rising fuel costs to be the cause for this. 9.2% less petrol was bought in the first six months of the year, with diesel purchases only decreasing 4.7%, due to the massive increase in lorry traffic. According to Blum, there must be continued investment on a large scale in public transport, especially in highly populated areas, otherwise there is the risk of a squeeze on the rails in a few years time.