Zhvg: Greta Thunberg would order everyone to get off the plane, but there is a little problem with that

2020 is not the year to fly, but many would like the following not to be the case either. Swedes already have a say in that they are embarrassed to board a plane because it puts pressure on the environment

Is flight shame,

which has now grown into a movement and is best known for its Greta Thunberg propaganda. Even if the world has not yet changed, the European Union’s green agenda has already prioritized rail transport on the continent. Recently, Frans Timmermans, Vice President of the European Commission for Climate Action, also spoke with hvg.hu about the need to develop transport infrastructure to make rail a realistic alternative to aviation.

According to Eurostat, 56% of trips abroad within the EU are made by plane, while 81% are made by bus or car from home. By contrast, the train also accounts for only 13 percent of domestic trips.

The number of air passengers in Europe and around the world has tripled since 1990, while air transport is also increasingly important in trade. And while the low-cost airline fleet is generally newer and cleaner, it still has twice as many planes in the air as it did ten years ago, the European Environment Agency wrote.

Transport accounts for a quarter of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting emissions are increasing. However, for the EU to meet the commitments made in the Green Deal, transport emissions would need to be reduced by 90 percent. Although rail transport emits far fewer emissions than air or road transport, it currently accounts for 75 percent of road traffic.

Although we find different calculations of how much greener rail is than air transport, since there is a significant difference between a wide variety of planes and trains, the truth is that if we opt for the rail, the CO2 emissions per capita are a fraction of that. like sitting on an airplane.

Where the network, where not

However, the first real intra-European transport network dates back to the 19th century. It was a railway built in the mid-19th century, and the railway station was also a city, says Tamás Fleischer, a researcher at the Institute for World Economics at the Research Center for Economics and Regional Studies, who deals with certain issues of infrastructure networks and environmental protection.

However, with the increase in road traffic and after flights, the exceptional role of the railroad has ceased. It was the first in France that the French recognized in Europe that trains could cause air travel. On the continent, in 1981, the TGV began the construction of high-speed railways (that is, speeds greater than 250 km / h). “The main argument in favor of building these types of railways was to replace the relatively short 600-800 km flights,” says Fleischer.

It is more practical to take shorter trips of a few hundred kilometers (think of the distance between Budapest and Vienna, or between Budapest and Bratislava) by train, but higher speeds also favor the railways, says the expert. “If we think about having to get to the airport on time, wait there, or if our plane has landed, enter the city, this time it will consume the speed benefits of the flight. On the modern track, the train takes you from the city center to the city center, in the same comfortable conditions, ”he says. With the Eurostar you can take a direct high-speed train from London to Paris in 2 hours 15 minutes and Brussels in 1 hour 51 minutes.

However, there is a big problem:

Building a separate high-speed track is very expensive and requires costly and precise maintenance.

The Hungarian TGV

A G7 A few months ago, he wrote that the construction of a kilometer of high-speed railway is two and a half times more expensive than the traditional one, that is, it is much more than 10 billion guilders per kilometer. Furthermore, we have to start from scratch: in the 1990s plans were launched to build a high-speed railway to Belgrade, Zagreb and Lviv, and based on the National Territorial Plan, we would also head to Vienna, Bratislava, Trieste and Bucharest. nothing.

Thus, the construction of the Warsaw target announced by Fidesz before the 2018 elections, or the Budapest-Cluj-Napoca line announced in January this year, which is still in the feasibility phase, is also estimated at one billion billion. . The last line is a G7 According to his calculations, it would be two thousand trillion guilders, only on the Hungarian side. However, we would gain around 2 hours on this run, so building the line is not considered realistic either.

Return is also a problem. “Building the line itself will only pay off economically if it can carry many passengers cheaply. In other words, it is not worth building a track where there would be no more demand than a few trains a day ”.

“But even the heaviest traffic only makes the line profitable: experience has shown that the high-speed train being built will actually divert half of the parallel passengers, but the other half will flow from the rail line. above that connects the same points. the loss must also be taken into account ”, says Tamás Fleischer.

And on the old line, the loss of passengers is a loss even if the same company handles high-speed transportation. In many cases, however, international train services are not operated by the local railway company, but by specialized public or private companies, such as EuroStar or RFF.

According to Tamás Fleischer, it is questionable to what extent the railway can be compensated in such a case by the fact that freight traffic can be better organized due to the capacity of the free line. “According to the general rule, the length of rail transport is about 500 km, so it is worth doing two transfers: from truck to train and then from train to truck again. In Hungary this is uncommon in domestic transport, the main pillars of rail freight transport are exports, imports and transit transport, ”he says. The image can be nuanced if there is already a coating incorporated somewhere and the merchandise can be transported to the destination. Furthermore, the transport of oversized goods, explosives and other special goods can be better organized by rail than by road.

However, there is a strong argument in favor of railway development: as Tamás Fleischer puts it,

the high-speed road is the same as the highway in the case of the highway.

“An expensive and specialized infrastructure, with significant space requirements and area reduction effects, at the same time allows you to use the car or even the railroad for distances where previously it was not worth traveling with this device,” he says. In doing so, it also stimulates new demands and enables paths that were previously considered unrealistic.

However, these additional needs are also necessary because without it, expensive infrastructure would not be profitable and a prudent investor would not build it. But the same goes for airplanes: as an example of this, the expert mentions that many people fly to Brussels in the morning, negotiate and then return at night. (Another question is how common video conferencing is becoming to replace travel after the current epidemic.)

Brussels and Munich

And European policy based in Brussels has not only contributed to increasing air traffic. The Austrian State Railways (ÖBB), for example, after 16 years, resumed their direct night service between Vienna and Brussels in January this year. Tamás Fleischer is also of great importance for night connections on the traditional railway network, here it is worth choosing the railway only for long journeys, because night journeys essentially save us hotel and time.

However, the savings are again only relative: Although it emits a tenth of the carbon dioxide of airplanes over the same period, the trip can cost five times more due to the higher costs and takes ten times longer.

But it is not just for Brussels that a railway would be worth developing. According to Eurostat data for 2019, Hungarians travel to Germany, Croatia and Austria more frequently, so if we take Germany further afield, we will have to cover about 1000 kilometers by road. So if we consider just the three destinations, we Hungarians could really do the most travel by train.

MÁV offers international train tickets to 13 countries. If we only look at Vienna, Munich and Zagreb, we must come to the conclusion that, although it is not always smooth, it is worth choosing the train even without high-speed train. We arrived in Vienna in less than 3 hours, in 2nd class, if we only look at the road, we can buy a ticket from 13 euros. By plane, the cheapest ticket would be around 10,000 florins, and the trip would still take 3.5 hours, considering that you also have to get to the airport, as opposed to easy access to train stations in the middle of cities. We can get to Munich by train in at least 7 hours and from 29 euros, and if we go to Zagreb, we can get from 15 euros by train in about 5.5 hours without transfer, and by plane to Stuttgart – excluding trips to and from to the airport – more than 4 hours, for about 80 thousand florins.

However, the expert believes that the railway will only activate a part of today’s flights. “If someone goes to Munich to travel further from there to America, it is a direct benefit to get to the airport and they will continue to fly. Roads of more than 900-1000 km already have the advantage of flying within Europe, not to mention the transcontinental ones ”, he emphasizes.

According to the EU, international trains could actually operate at a distance of 300 to 800 kilometers and could replace shorter-haul flights. An earlier UBS study found that business travelers would travel 4 hours by train, while leisure travelers would travel up to 6 hours by train; experts say these are international trips, especially at high speeds, where the rails might be preferred. instead of clouds. Even more optimistic is Karima Delli, director of the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism: she says that night flights can have up to 1,800 kilometers to win.

In June this year, 25 countries (all of them EU Member States except Malta, Cyprus, Estonia and Croatia, as well as Norway and Switzerland) signed an agreement to jointly develop international rail transport where it is not yet competitive. “International train travel is not currently operated within the EU. It is much more developed within national borders ”, says a letter from representatives of the countries to the European Commissioner for Transport, Adina-Ioana Vălean.

Tamás Fleischer also emphasizes that in the case of passenger transport, the competitiveness of railways must be demonstrated mainly in interurban and suburban traffic, although even in Hungary there is much to be done in this area to transport large masses to more urban areas. no congestion. “Already today, Budapest’s suburban traffic accounts for almost 90 per cent of the total passenger traffic of the Hungarian railway,” he notes, and Budapest’s role is inherently outstanding with 15 incoming HÉVs and rail lines. The third option, while not a cheap solution, is to integrate rail into the high-capacity backbone of public transport: by providing a convenient transfer option at crossings in major cities, rail can play a similar role to metro. in the connection of the remote interchanges of the city.