A sign indicates a bus stop. © IMAGO/Zoonar.com/Zoonar.com/zoonar/Markus Hötzel
The Murnau market is threatened with a long time without public transport. This is based on documents from the town hall administration.
Murnau – Even if you want to put it very carefully, you can't help but choose big words – because one thing is certain: What the town hall administration has put together under the unwieldy heading "Preparation of an award - implementation of the cross-party urgent application for a (ring) bus line from the special sighting of public transport on 27.3.2023" is explosive and explosive. Apparently against this background, the municipal council had decided to remove this item from the program before the meeting on April 27.
The facts described in the paper suggest that after July 1, 2023, from which point on, according to the decision of the majority of the municipal council, the Omobi on-demand bus will no longer have to cease operations in Murnau, while local public transport, as the market has come to know and appreciate it over the past two years, will no longer exist. In the best-case scenario, as the administration points out in its draft resolution, the operation of the new (ring) bus line could not start before the end of 2023. If a concept with a passenger transport performance – by definition the product of the number of passengers and the distance travelled – of more than 50,000 kilometres per year is chosen, a start of operations would not be feasible before the beginning of 2025 due to the required advance notice (see keyword). "There is a time problem. This creates a real problem for the citizens," says Wolfgang Küpper, who, together with Simon Pittrich, leads the ÖDP/Citizens' Forum parliamentary group in the Murnau municipal council.
The worst-case scenario
"That would be the worst-case scenario," says CSU co-parliamentary group leader Josef Bierling, whose party is the driving force behind the ring bus line. Should the worst-case scenario occur, the Christian Socialists want to pull out all the stops to prevent Murnau from having to go without public transport for more than a year and a half. "There is certainly the possibility of a temporary solution," explains Bierling. What should it look like? Bierling relies primarily on taxi companies, "with whom we are in discussion". In this way, citizens, Bierling calls "walking or visually impaired", could be given a minimum of mobility. He rejects extending the contract with the Omobi company by one and a half years until the ring bus line has made its way through the instances. It does not make sense ecologically and economically. "Too many empty runs."
At the special meeting on 27 March, expert Ralf Willrett, the managing director of PKF IVT Consulting, had hired the municipality as an expert, recommended the Omobi to local politicians and recommended that it be continued, "because it is established and used. That would save us a bit of time." Because he fears that there will be no or only a "bumpy solution" by July. However, he did not reach the majority of local councillors with his concerns. Bierling blames the unfortunate situation in which Murnau finds himself on the one hand to the municipal administration – "nothing has happened for a long time" – he even suspects a blockade attitude, and on the other hand to the citizens' initiative. "That's one of the reasons why there is a standstill."
Grist to the mill of critics
In addition to the time factor, the deficit that a ring bus system is likely to cause and put an enormous strain on the market's budget is grist to the mill of the critics. Willrett calculated large losses in his report. For Line 1, on which a minibus is to run between the train station and the accident clinic, he comes to a minus of 193,000 euros. Willrett, who until a few years ago was responsible for the bus divisions of Stadtwerke München (SWM) and Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft (MVG), is even higher for variant two, which is considered a premium solution. Two buses will run on two lines, which will carry around 300 passengers per day. According to Willrett, the shortfall is likely to amount to "at least 386,000 euros". By way of comparison, the deficit of the Omobi is only a fraction of it, Küpper, whose parliamentary group has positioned itself in favour of an on-demand bus, speaks of around 90,00 euros. Can this burden caused by a ring bus system be borne by the Murnau household, even if the Blue Land bus, which is expected to go into operation at the end of 2024 according to an optimistic estimate, costs the market an additional 100,000 euros?
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