When the topic of preventing climate change comes on the table very often people think of cutting down on their lifestyle. I don't really agree on that point of view. I think when it comes to reducing CO2-emissions there are many solutions, which would acutally also make our lifes better instead of harder. One of these solutions of course is to substitute much of our traffic with public transportation. How could driving hundreds of kilometres ever be better than just taking a train, reading a book, listening to podcasts or music, and generally relax during the journey.

I recently read the book "Out of the Energy Labyrint" by David Howell, who was minister for Transport and Energy under Margaret Thatcher-governments from 1979 to 1983. In the book he takes an ideologically very conservative but nevertheless interesting look at the conflicting priorities of energy security and sustainability. One of the major points I kept in mind was that the train has to substitute the airplane rather than the car.

That sounded intersting to me. So I decided to ask an expert on this (and various other things) to look what he would have to say about that.

So here is my interview with Erich Forster, Head of Longdistance Travel of the Austrian Federal Railways. We discussed some questions around the topic of expanding and integrating a grid of highspeed trains in Austria.I decidd to put it on Youtube because Youtube supports subtitles. I wrote some in English - just activate them in the video menu (or read the translated transcript below). There is also a second part of the video on the European perspective, but due to some confidential information I will have to post it after November 26th.

I made a small mistake during the interview. Not Austrias railway infrastructure was privatized but private companies are now able to offer passenger services.

I think most of you are not really aware of how Austria looks in detail and what the difficulties are in building a highspeed train network. So to give you a better idea, I decided to draw an interactive map with information on the most important train connections that exist here. You will see that Austria has very many mountains that makes the expansion of a highspeed train grid very complicated.

Important Austrian Railroads auf einer größeren Karte anzeigen

How are your countries doing? If you want to add your country to the map, feel free to drop me a line on twitter (@schaffertom) and I will give you the autthorization to draw on it.

TRANSCRIPT

If you prefer to read interviews instead of listening to it in German and reading English subtitles - I wrote a translated transcript of it. It might contain some mistakes.

Tom Schaffer: Hello Mister Forster. I recently read a book from a british conservative politician. He states that the train should substitute the airplane, rather than the car. Now I wanted to know if there are any plans to build a grid of high speed trains in Austria?
Erich Forster: There is already a significant high speed belt in Austria on our most important track. Between Attnang-Puchheim and Sankt Pölten trains go up to 200 km/h. 2012 this will be increased to 230 km/h. This kind of speed makes sense for Austria. There are some natural speed restrictions coming from our topography, whenever we are talking about the innerapline area.

We are of course in competition with the airplanes with our high speed trains – for example between Vienna and Munich or similar destinations. But the most important thing is nevertheless to get a better share of traffic against the cars. It's were the most traffic happens today. Despite the development of the past 20 years the airplane still lies far behind the car.

Tom: So the main rival for the railway still is the car in Austria?
Forster: I wouldn't talk about rivals. We want be so attractive in therms of quality and travel times that the costumers switch from individual transports to the railway.

Tom: What is possible in terms of high speed trains in Austria basically? Being from Styria I am especially thinking of the „Südbahn“. I once calculated that theoratically we could travel from Graz to Vienna within under an hour, but in fact it takes significantly more than two hours today. What would be necessary to happen there?
Forster: At the moment I can't tell you whats possible exactly. It's decisive what substrates are used and what infrastructure we find in a region. There are tunnels planned for the „Koralm“ and the „Semmering“. There already is a well developed part of the „Südbahn“. Between Vienna and Neunkirchen we can go up to 160km/h. That's ok, because if you go 160 or 200 mostly doesn't too much of a difference. Our target has to be to use those parts first that are already very well developed, and that's the „Westbahn“ at the moment.

Tom: Is it possible to define the difference in cost betweet todays trains and high speed trains?
Forster: If you take the Railjet that we introduced as new high speed train recently, then we talk about investing about half the price of a ultra high speed train per seat. That's about the relation if you compare it to an ICE-3 or a Velano. That's about the difference between 200/230km/h and 33km/h

Tom: Would the fares have to go up significantly?
Forster: It's our job to get more passengers. High speed trains help us with that. That doesn't mean that fares have to go up. Look at our Railjet. We do for example not add something on the price, if you travel with it, because we see advantages in offering prices for the whole system. Having a network is a huge advantage.

Tom: Does the economic crisis slow down the expansion of a high speed grid?
Forster: The expansion of the high speed grid is a long-range-programme. Neither in the short nor the middle term we face changes there. Especially because of the crisis the government invested a lot in smaller projects like trains stations to strengthen the economy.

Tom: Austria's railway infrastructure has been privatized some time ago and there will be competition on the „Westbahn“ from 2011 on. What effect will this have on the service of the ÖBB?
Forster: It will of course automaticaly lead to increasing our efforts to improve further and offer an even better quality. We will be ahead by a nose in the competition.

Crossposted in German on my blog

Photocredits: deivis, CC2.0 by-sa