Greenpeace calls for more long-distance trains from Zurich and Geneva
According to the Greenpeace analysis, Geneva only had four direct train connections to major cities compared to 17 in Vienna.
Keystone / Martial Trezzini
Greenpeace is calling for more European long-distance trains between major cities. According to an analysis by the environmental organisation, there is potential for 15 more train connections from Zurich – and as many as 25 in Geneva.
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Keystone-SDA
Greenpeace is calling on the federal government and the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) to improve rail connections with European cities. European governments should give priority to rail transport over air transport, the environmental organization announced on Tuesday.
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To this end, air travel concessions should be abolished and a kerosene tax introduced for airlines. There also needs to be more economy tickets for trains and a simpler booking system, for example via a pan-European booking platform.
Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe analysed a total of 990 routes between 45 major European cities, according to the environmental organisation. Direct trains operated on only 12% of the routes, while direct flights were offered on 69%. According to Greenpeace, a direct day or night train with a journey time of less than 18 hours could be operated on 419 routes (42%) with the current infrastructure.
According to the press release, the cities with the most direct train connections to other major cities were Vienna (17), Munich (15), Berlin (14), Paris and Zurich (13 each). Geneva only had four direct connections. The difference between Zurich and Geneva was particularly with regards to night train connections: There were nine in Zurich and none in Geneva.
Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
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