Cyclists in front of wind turbines in Brandenburg
Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa
According to a survey, the majority of people in Germany can basically imagine switching from cars to public transport or to bicycles more often.
However, the around 4,000 households surveyed named requirements for this.
According to the state development bank KfW, around 75 percent of households that regularly use a car consider a more frequent switch to buses and the like to be conceivable, while almost 66 percent consider this to be the case for bicycles.
There were hardly any differences between urban and rural areas when it came to the willingness to switch to cycling. The study describes this as “quite remarkable, because up to now the expansion of bicycle traffic has primarily been discussed in an urban context”.
For more than half of the households, a better infrastructure is a prerequisite for greater use of the bicycle (cities more than 50 / rural communities a good 48 percent). Almost half of the respondents (cities around 45 / rural communities around 42 percent) would use the bike more often if it could be better combined with local public transport. The purchase of an e-bike could be an incentive for a total of almost 28 percent of households to switch; this was mentioned a little more frequently in rural areas. According to the KfW study, bicycles also have the potential to become a key pillar of the traffic transition in rural areas.
Around 35 percent of those surveyed said that they would not be able to switch to cycling under any circumstances.
This particularly affected households for whom the car is important as a status symbol, as well as the elderly: a majority of those over 70 saw no possibility of replacing their car with a bicycle.
Cars just stand around in the city
The more rural the region and the worse the connection to local public transport, the more often the car is used.
In rural areas, both the number of cars per household and the proportion of households that use a car every day are about twice as high as in large cities.
In large cities, only a fifth of households use the car every day, and around 36 percent do not have a car at all.
The development bank, which co-finances a large proportion of investments in climate protection, has calculated the figures for its energy transition monitor.
"Transport plays a decisive role in achieving the climate protection goals," said KfW chief economist Fritzi Köhler-Geib.
One fifth of German greenhouse gas emissions recently came from the transport sector, mainly because of the increase in car journeys for years.
Electric cars are also inefficient
KfW describes the rapid switch to electric cars, which are already more widespread in rural areas than in cities, as important, but not sufficient.
According to the study, the energetic inefficiency of the cars, which are usually not very busy, will persist even if they are operated electrically.
And electricity from renewable sources will remain a scarce commodity for the foreseeable future.
KfW expects the most from a switch to buses and trains, which are significantly more efficient than car traffic.
In rural areas, 71 percent of those surveyed name better connections as the most important prerequisite for greater use of public transport.
In the big cities, which are usually well supplied, other reasons come to the fore.
Around 58 percent of households would switch to buses and the like more often if the fares were lower.
ak / dpa