Dutch transport institute predicts air-to-rail shift

More than 5,000 European flights per year could be replaced by rail journeys by 2030, according to the latest forecast by the Netherlands Institute for Transport Policy Analysis

The report, published this week, estimates that some 850,000 air passenger journeys – the equivalent of 5,600 flights – between Amsterdam and 13 European cities could be replaced by trains as early as 2030.

Key takeaways

• By 2040, this is expected to increase to some 1.6 million passenger journeys on routes from Amsterdam to London, Bristol, Birmingham, Paris, Basel, Brussels, Berlin, Hannover, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich and Copenhagen;
• KiM estimates that 6 per cent of air transfers on these routes will be replaced by trains by 2030 and is set to increase to 10 per cent by 2040, when, according to KiM, connections from Amsterdam to London, Frankfurt, Paris and Berlin will together account for two-thirds of the calculated air-to-rail shift;
• KiM added that the percentage of passengers shifting from air to rail could potentially increase further – to approximately 2.4 million air journeys in 2030 and 3.4 million in 2040 – if train fares are reduced by 20%.

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