By train to France, Austria or Italy: The demand for long-distance journeys abroad continues to grow. It remains cumbersome for those who want to cross several borders.
More and more people are using the train to travel abroad. International long-distance rail transport grew by 30 percent last year compared to the previous record year 2019, as the state-owned Deutsche Bahn announced on Tuesday. More than 21 million people traveled across the border by train. The share of trips abroad in the Group’s total long-distance transport increased by 3 percentage points to 16 percent between 2019 and 2022. In the first quarter of this year, Deutsche Bahn recorded 4.4 million international passengers.
“International long-distance transport is not only central to Deutsche Bahn, the strong popularity also stands for Europe’s growing together on the rails,” said Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz. Around 200 destinations in other European countries can now be reached directly from Germany.
Significant backlog demand
Most trips go to neighboring countries, especially France and Austria. “The routes Frankfurt/Stuttgart-Paris, Frankfurt-Brussels and Frankfurt-Amsterdam are the absolute strongest,” says Deutsche Bahn.
There is still a lot of catching up to do when it comes to rail services across several European national borders. If you want to travel from Germany via France to Spain and Portugal or to Eastern Europe, you still have a hard time by train. The timetables are not coordinated, the tickets have to be booked with the respective train providers in the countries.
It looks a little better in the direction of Italy. The Austrian Federal Railways also offer night trains there from Germany. There are also nightly direct connections from Berlin via Hamburg to Stockholm, which are offered by Swedish railway companies.
When traveling abroad, Deutsche Bahn usually cooperates with foreign railway companies. For example, both ICE and TGV trains are used in German-French high-speed traffic.
Source: Stern
