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Fear of contagion: the Wiener Linien lacks passengers

After the corona lockdown, mobility is also in Vienna rose again. However, many people are not yet quite comfortable with public transport. Because Wiener Linien continues to struggle with a sharp decline in passengers and the associated loss of revenue. The company is now appealing instead of that automobile to ride more subway, bus and bim again – not least because of the climate crisis.

“Before the pandemic, we had a peak in terms of the image of public transport,” said Wiener Linien manager Alexandra Reinagl talking to journalists. She also referred to ever new record numbers of passengers: “Then we suddenly fell from this top.” In times of strict exit restrictions, the Open only 20 percent of the usual occupancy counted. In the meantime, mobility in the federal capital has increased significantly again – but not to the same extent in public transport.

Half of the passengers than before

Currently driving loudly Reinagl around half of the people on the subway, tram or the bus compared to pre-Corona times. This also leads to loss of ticket revenue. The manager speaks of “significant losses” and expects a minus in the double-digit million range by the end of the year. This would also have to be discussed with the owner – i.e. the city. So far, annual ticket holders have only been lost “in the per mille range”, but “we can feel the individual tickets and multi-day tickets”.

For fear of infection would be more ways with that automobile traveled. The virus-related stop on the construction site or the temporary abolition of the short-term parking zones had probably intensified this.

In order to reverse the trend again, the company tries to fear one infection to take with passengers. On the one hand, reference is made to the study by AGES (Agency for Health and Food Security) presented on May 6, according to which not a single infection cluster – i.e. the occurrence of frequent cases – has so far Open occurred. On the other hand, you get argumentative marksman support from science.

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