Minister presents review of demand planning

Berlin. The Pro-Rail Alliance has welcomed the Federal Transport Ministry’s “new openness regarding the evaluation of rail infrastructure projects”. Commenting on the review, which takes place every five years, the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege, said on Thursday in Berlin: “There has never been so much transparency in a  review of demand planning for rail infrastructure, which is part of overall transport demand planning.” However, the rail alliance also criticised the “the old approach to demand planning for federal transport infrastructure, which has been taken on board in its entirety by transport minister Peter Ramsauser.” Flege: “The transport forecasts and scenarios upon which the planning is based are also in need of a complete overhaul. There is still absolutely no suggestion as to how to meet minister Ramsauer’s own self-declared targets of shifting all freight transport sector growth onto the railways.”

Despite the fact that nine of the 38 rail projects reviewed have been put back, the “dramatic underfunding of the remaining projects is still clearly evident”. Flege: “The federal government is pushing along a 28-billion euro bow wave of unfunded rail projects that were classified as urgent in 2003. If the ministry continues to invest only one billion euros annually in these projects then it will take until 2038 until they are completed.”

The Pro-Rail Alliance is calling on the Federal Transport Ministry to “start a dialogue with the rail sector and civil society and quickly present a plan that sets out how to get an ambitious and feasible programme for growth on the railways back on track.”