The Bundesrat (Germany’s upper house of the legislature) has voted to remove long-standing protections on the national railway network, the Deutsche Bahn, to allow competition for commuter and holiday travel from long-distance, inter-city bus and coach companies. After much debate and research, parliament, risking the displeasure of this established institution, determined that the virtual monopoly should be allowed to lapse, since private enterprise could offer travelers alternatives adhering to environmental standards, at a discount and with greater flexibility.
One quoted example was that with advance-planning and some luck, one can book a trip from Dusseldorf to Berlin from 69 € by train—currently, one’s only option, compared to a 28 € bus trip, a rate probably gotten without reservations. The train people naturally were not happy with this decision, but a healthy outside challenge may drive them to tighten up some service areas that have atrophied a bit—especially punctuality and overlording tariffs that keep increasing. The environmental hook, however, does bother me a bit, since bus-liners are as prone to traffic congestion and jams (Staus) and makes me think of the enlightened (and no less controversial choice) to allow these big rigs, giant trucks on the streets, because they eked out fuel efficiency with capacity—though no one wants these marauding beasts to hog their roads. Trains, I imagine, have already seen pretty big losses in terms of freight and cargo due to trucking. The government has not stripped away all the railroads’ advantage, still limiting regional traffic for public transportation, but I want there to be sufficient measures left in place to ensure that the public train system is not scuttled by private concerns, like elsewhere and erstwhile, leaving unfavourable or under-performing routes without any kind of service.
