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ICE high-speed trains and the French TGV
Photo: JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP
In view of the climate crisis, at least when traveling within Germany, a question that many people are now asking more and more often: Do I take the train or do I take the plane?
It is usually quicker to get from door to door by plane - but not always.
In addition, large amounts of climate-damaging emissions are released during flights.
Short-haul flights are around twelve times more damaging to the climate than comparable train journeys.
On the other hand, the train is not always a good alternative - bad connections and incalculable delays are to blame.
An analysis commissioned by the environmental protection organization Greenpeace has now looked at which rail connections there are to the 150 most heavily frequented short-haul flights in Europe and examined the travel times.
The result: for more than a third of the flights there are practicable train alternatives that are far less harmful to the environment.
For a further 15 percent there are direct connections by night train.
Accordingly, Greenpeace calls on the European governments to promote train traffic so that less environmentally harmful aircraft fly over the continent.
According to the analysis, 51 (34 percent) of the routes can be covered with a train ride of less than six hours.
The study, which will be published in the run-up to the UN climate summit, which begins on Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland, highlights some particularly problematic flight routes, which, according to the authors, emit a dozen times more carbon dioxide than train travel.
These include heavily frequented routes such as Madrid-Barcelona, Frankfurt-Berlin or Brussels-Amsterdam.
It is said that the distances could even be covered in two to four hours by train.
Ban on short-haul flights
If almost all of the 250 most important short-haul flights in Europe were replaced, around 23.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide could be saved each year.
That would correspond to the annual CO₂ emissions of Croatia, so Greenpeace.
During the election campaign, the Green candidate Annalena Baerbock had meanwhile brought up a ban on short-haul flights.
Greenpeace also demands this for connections for which there is a rail alternative under six hours.
Business travelers from Hamburg would therefore hardly be able to make an appointment in Munich by plane with a return trip as a day trip.
In the analysis, the duration of the train journey for the route is given as 5:48 hours.
Measured against the behavior of German travelers, the study also set the reasonable rail travel time at six hours to be quite high. Data from the Federal Association of the German Aviation Industry show that the majority of passengers prefer to fly when distances of more than 400 kilometers have to be covered that would take longer than three to four hours by train. The decision should also be based on how good the local connection is - i.e. where the airport is located and how long the further travel time to the center of a metropolis will take. With the Hamburg - Munich example, it must be taken into account that the airport is located quite far from the city center and that you have to take the S-Bahn to the main station for a long time.
In addition, the airlines argue that around a third of short-haul flights are necessary because they are important connections for long-haul flights.
In Germany, for example, many passengers travel to Frankfurt Airport to start a long-haul flight from there.
Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn therefore intensified their cooperation in March - more passengers should travel to the flight by the more climate-friendly train.
If the railroad offers good offers, flight connections could also be dropped, Lufthansa had said.
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