FLUG REVUE December 2002: New German government has bad ideas

NEW GERMAN GOVERNMENT HAS WRONG APPROACH

By Volker K. Thomalla

Under the title of "renewal, social justice and sustainability”, the German coalition government, Bündis 90/Die Grünen (formerly known as the Green Party), and the Social Democratic Party (SDP), on 16 October unveiled the coalition agreement that outlines the government's political and economic objectives over the next four years. Aerospace plays only a very minor role in the document. Its role as a key technology platform is not recognised and it is not even listed as an economically significant mode of transport. On the contrary. "We intend to replace a considerable number of the point-to-point connections in domestic air travel with attractive rail offerings and to further strengthen the links between central airports and train services,” says the document in the chapter entitled "More public transport, stronger railways”.

How are we to interpret this? Are one-day business trips to be a thing of the past, with business people instead making less efficient use of their time by travelling by train? Yet time is critically important in business travel. For example, the journey between Cologne and Stuttgart takes the same time by both rail and plane, although the pure flying time is significantly shorter than the time that the train is in transit. Naturally, in this case business travellers prefer to go by train as they can then work during their journey and do not have to check in in advance and wait around at the airport gate.

But if I was planning a business trip from Cologne to Berlin, I would never dream of going by train. The shortest scheduled journey time is four hours and 16 minutes, even on a direct Inter City Express (ICE) connection. When I use the plane, in that same time I have already finished my first meeting before the train even pulls in at Berlin's Zoo Station.

"The price paid for mobility should reflect the costs caused,” says the agreement. It is to be hoped that the government coalition will not make this statement a reality, as the railways would then find themselves in severe difficulties. Due to their extremely high infrastructural costs, the railways will always be at a disadvantage. If all the costs caused by railways had to be borne by rail users, then travel by rail would no longer be competitive. Obviously that is undesirable. Rail travel is an important means of transport; however, it cannot itself cover infrastructure costs such as the cost of new routes. Unlike air travel, it will always depend on support from the state. In my view, this statement from the coalition agreement does not stand up.

As far as I am concerned, the coalition agreement is a disappointment from a transport policy point of view. For there is no sign in this document of any future-oriented transport policy that is geared towards sustainability in the areas of environment and economy. Such a policy would try to harness the strengths of individual modes of transport and combine them in an integrated transport system. This applies to all modes of transport, from the bicycle through to the Jumbo Jet. Leaving aviation out of the equation is not helpful, nor will it create any jobs either.

A modern society based on the division of labour such as we have in Europe is by definition mobile. And it will become ever more mobile. The growth in traffic that is to be expected as a consequence can only be accommodated through intelligent integration of all the modes of transport, the emphasis here being on "all”. The aim of a sustainable transport policy must be to integrate the various modes of transport more strongly and to reduce dramatically the time it takes to transfer from one means of transport to another. This critical approach is totally absent from the coalition agreement. All we can do is hope that this agreement follows the fate of previous coalition agreements and is not actually implemented as described.

From page 4 of FLUG REVUE 12/2002

Last updated 4 November 2002

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