Almost as many people as live in Paderborn commute to Bremen every working day to work here: as of June 30, 2023, there were exactly 150,739, according to the commuter calculation from the state statistical offices that has now been published. This measures the “employment-related potential mobility flows,” as it is called in bureaucratic terms. A little simpler: the paths of working people. A clear trend has been emerging for Bremen over the past three years: commuting traffic is slowly but steadily increasing.
This also applies to people from Bremen who work outside the city limits, preferably in Hamburg, Stuhr and Achim (see graphic). 62,065 people did this as of the last deadline. The total number of people commuting in and out rose from 204,419 in the Corona year 2021 to 212,804 last year, i.e. by 4.1 percent. It is noteworthy that the state capital of Lower Saxony, Hanover, is not in the top ten as a destination, even though it is only slightly further away from Bremen than Hamburg.
With the help of other statistics – for example from the Federal Labor Office, the federal and state personnel statistics or the microcensus – it was also possible to determine who comes to work from the surrounding area every day or who travels there for that reason. Last year, these were predominantly employees subject to social security contributions (almost 131,000), almost 7,000 civil servants and almost 13,000 marginally employed, self-employed or family members helping commuters. The size ratio is similar for commuters, even over the years.
When such crowds of people move within a radius of around 100 kilometers as the crow flies every working day, the question automatically arises as to how they do it. “Unfortunately, there is no current uniform data on this,” regrets the press office of the Senator for Construction, Mobility and Urban Development. The household survey (microcensus), which takes place every five years, only took place in 2023, but the data has not yet been evaluated. Until then, older surveys by the Chamber of Employees will be used, and the results are quite sobering from the perspective of the desired transport turnaround.
Accordingly, local public transport (ÖPNV) was used by 18 percent of commuters in 2019. In the Corona year 2021 it was only 13 percent. Only six percent of those commuting in and out got into the bike saddle, which is probably also due to the longer distances. Likewise, the high proportion of “motorized individual transport”, i.e. people who drive to work in their own car, motorcycle or scooter: in 2019, according to information from the transport department, this was 74 percent and in 2021 it was even 78 percent.
The transport authority also emphasizes that these surveys only concern employees subject to social security contributions – civil servants, self-employed people or marginally employed people are therefore not taken into account. The local transport plan of the Bremen/Lower Saxony transport association has a similar situation on the subject of commuter flows. The inventory is based on figures from 2019, some of which were also collected by the Federal Employment Agency.
Bremen’s Commuter Streams
What is interesting, however, is the large difference in the number of people getting on and off the transport association (VBN) per working day: at Bremen main station an average of almost 80,000, in Oldenburg only a quarter of that, in Delmenhorst and Bremerhaven a tenth and in Achim a twentieth. According to the VBN survey, around half of the public transport users in Bremen, Bremerhaven, Delmenhorst and Oldenburg were traveling for work, the others stated school, shopping, leisure or other purposes as the purpose of the trip. “Another current traffic survey is currently underway, but it has not yet been completed and therefore cannot yet be evaluated,” says VBN spokesman Eckhard Spliethoff.
The surveys by the state statistical offices, which the VBN also relies on in its “potential analysis”, show how difficult it is to channel future commuter flows with good transport planning. Last year, the state of Bremen recorded 40,589 arrivals, but only 31,703 departures. On balance, there was a population gain of almost 9,000 people.
However, there is also a kind of close-up, the so-called surrounding hike. The State Statistical Office bases its calculations on a radius of 30 kilometers, measured from the Bremen market square. The surrounding areas of Bremerhaven include the collective or unitary communities of Beverstedt, Geestland, Hagen, Loxstedt, Schiffdorf and the Wurster North Sea coast. Although 5,843 people moved to Bremen or Bremerhaven in 2023, 7,895 citizens from both cities settled in the respective “bacon belt”, which results in a population loss of a good 2,000 people. However, it is quite possible that they will keep their jobs in Bremen or in Seestadt, thus further strengthening the army of commuters.
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