Make Rural Areas of Germany Accessible by Reactivating Rail Lines
The ifo Institute is in favor of reviving disused rail lines. This would be a way to improve accessibility to rural areas more quickly, according to a study by the ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch in cooperation with researchers from the German Center for Rail Transport Research at the German Federal Railway Authority. “Decades of thinning out the rail network are making it more difficult for us to transform transportation today, especially in rural areas,” says Felix Rösel of the ifo Institute, one of the study’s authors.
Nearly 30 percent of rail lines in Germany have been closed over the past 60 years, in eastern and western regions alike, the study says. In many cases, however, the tracks have not yet been removed. As a result, some closed lines could be reactivated. This potential should be exploited as far as possible before new lines are built.
The German rail network has shrunk by almost 15,000 kilometers since 1955. Laid end to end, the rail line would be three times as long as the entire length of the rail network of North Rhine-Westphalia, or more than one-third of the circumference of the Earth.
“We were very surprised that eastern and western Germany are affected by closures to exactly the same extent,” Rösel says. “In western Germany, rail lines were closed during the Wirtschaftswunder and the car boom; in eastern Germany, they were closed during the economically difficult phase after reunification. This explains the marked difference in perception between eastern and western regions.” For the study, the researchers evaluated numerous historical data sources on the public rail network in eastern and western Germany from between 1919 and 2019.
Publication
15,000 Kilometers Less Railways than 70 Years Ago in Germany - East and West Germany Equally Affected
ifo Institut, Dresden, 2021
ifo Dresden berichtet, 2021, 28, Nr. 4, 03-06
