Wake me when the train pulls in!
The Nordic Council gave the group’s proposal for the resurrection of night services between major cities a positive reception at its January meeting in Copenhagen.
“We want the train to be an obvious and natural alternative for travel between Oslo-Gothenburg-Copenhagen, Stockholm-Copenhagen and Oslo-Stockholm. Minor adjustments to locomotives, carriages and signalling systems combined with coordinated timetables and ticketing would cut travel time significantly. It would also make it easier to travel by train than it is today,” says Øvstegård, who represents Nordic Green Left on the Nordic Council Committee for Growth and Development in the Nordic Region.
We want the train to be an obvious and natural alternative for travel between Oslo-Gothenburg-Copenhagen, Stockholm-Copenhagen and Oslo-Stockholm.
Greater interest in trains
Train travel in kilometres per passenger has increased in all of the Nordic countries since the 1990s. Nordic Green Left believes that it is crucial to exploit the momentum generated by this rapidly growing interest.
“We need a Nordic policy for increasing the number of train journeys. Norway, Sweden and Denmark, in particular, could easily work together to re-establish and improve night train services between the Scandinavian capitals and the rest of Europe,” Øvstegård says.
Several members of the Committee for Growth and Development raised concerns that more passenger trains at night might be a problem for freight services, which tend to operate then, and the Committee expressed the opinion that it is important to clear up any potential conflicts and find sensible solutions.
Better ticketing systems
The Nordic Youth Council supports the proposal. During its Session in Stockholm in October 2019, the Youth Council adopted a motion to work for better national and cross-border rail links. It wants to see progress as soon as possible. Since climate-friendly transport solutions will take time to introduce, the Youth Council considers it essential to improve existing services and make them more accessible. A simple ticketing system that works across the national borders would help and could be achieved relatively quickly provided certain conditions are fulfilled.
“As things stand, buying tickets for journeys that cross national borders is too complicated. The companies involved only think on what’s best for them. Nobody takes a holistic approach. It is important that the train companies open up their application programming interfaces (APIs) to third-party providers so that they can develop new, integrated services. We need to make it easy to buy train tickets all over Europe, the way it is to book flights,” says the head of secretariat for the Young Conservatives, Amalie Hervad-Jørgensen.
“As things stand, buying tickets for journeys that cross national borders is too complicated. The companies involved only think on what’s best for them. Nobody takes a holistic approach.
The Nordic Council Committee for Growth and Development in the Nordic Region will continue work on the proposal at the Theme Session in Helsinki in late March.
