It can be both expensive and time-consuming and travel environmentally friendly between Norway’s two largest cities.
Among other things, it takes an average of 14 minutes longer to take the train between Oslo and Bergen today than it did in 1975.
– It is much faster to fly. Then you often choose the easier solution, says air passenger Benjamin Sandøy.
– BERGEN FLESLAND: Peter Hellesøy and Benjamin Sandøy on their way to Oslo Gardermoen. Photo: Frode Hoff / TV 2
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When TV 2 asked several air passengers why they choose flights over trains between Bergen and Oslo, they all answered that travel time plays an important role when choosing transport.
– Both time and price come into play. But I only think about getting there as quickly as possible, says Peter Hellesøy.
European champions in flying
Figures from 2019, before the pandemic changed our travel habits, show over two million travelers between Bergen Flesland and Oslo Gardermoen.
But it is not only this route that is popular among Norwegians, in fact we are supreme European champions when it comes to the number of domestic flights per inhabitant.
Norwegians fly three times more domestically than the country that flies second most; Iceland. It shows a review of Eurostat’s statistics for air travel in Europe carried out by the Norwegian Society for Nature Conservation.
Holger Schlaupitz, head of the Nature Conservation Association, believes that the low prices contribute to us flying as much as we do.
– It is too cheap to fly and it is too cheap to pollute. The environmental taxes have to increase, says Schlaupitz, who himself has worked for six years in the train company NSB, now Vy.
While two million travelers chose to fly between Oslo and Bergen in 2019, less than 400,000 traveled the same route by train.
– Prices for railways have risen steadily. This is a problem, says the head of the Nature Conservation Association.
– Despite the obvious environmental benefits of traveling by train, a clear majority of us choose to fly when we travel between Norway’s two largest cities – Bergen and Oslo. Photo: Frode Hoff / TV 2
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Trains often pay off
But how big is the price difference? A review TV 2 has done shows that if you plan your trip well in advance, and can travel at any time on a given date, it pays to take the train.
TV 2 checked the prices on 30 randomly selected dates, three months ahead, from 3 November.
The guidelines for the survey are that we have chosen the cheapest option on the given date, and checked prices both with and without checked baggage. The ticket should also be a standard adult ticket.
In 27 out of 30 journeys, it was cheapest to take a train, if one would have been dependent on checked baggage on the alternative aircraft.
If you could travel without checked baggage, it was cheaper to fly 13 out of 30 trips.
Cheapest without luggage
If you are good at planning, you can often get the cheapest departure if you travel by train. The average price for a train ticket during this period is 390 kroner, much cheaper than flights, which have an average price of 596 kroner.
On the other hand, this presupposes that you travel with checked baggage – as the average price for flights with only hand luggage is NOK 277, and therefore on average cheaper.
Fly cheapest for the spontaneous
TV 2 has also checked the prices of travel for the next ten days from 4 November.
If you are the more spontaneous type when it comes to travel planning, the airlines win almost without exception on price. Especially if you do not need checked luggage.
Because while the average of the train prices we checked ten days ahead was 564 kroner, the average of a plane ticket without checked luggage was 530 kroner. The average price with checked luggage was NOK 695.
This is how we examined the prices
- Prices are taken from 30 randomly selected dates three months in advance, in addition to checking the cheapest prices for the next ten days.
- The price selected for each date is the cheapest available, regardless of the time of day.
- The journey must depart during the day, the night train has therefore been taken out of the survey.
- Only Vy runs the train route between Bergen and Oslo.
- We have used the search engine finn.no/reise, which compares all the airlines that fly the route Flesland-Gardermoen
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Big difference in price development
If you look at the price development over time, there are clear differences between planes and trains.
Compared with the general inflation, the consumer price index, the price of railways, metros and trams remained relatively stable in the period 2008 to 2018. Railways, metros and trams increased by 25.7 per cent, slightly more than the general inflation increased by 23 , 2 percent.
If you look at the price development for air passengers, you get a completely different picture. Compared with the consumer price index, airline tickets have actually become cheaper, and only increased by 5 per cent in 10 years.
Going even further back in time, the differences increase further: From 2003 to 2018, prices for railways, metros and trams increased by 43.9 per cent, while airline tickets were only 9.3 per cent more expensive. In other words, it has become relatively more expensive to take a train, and far cheaper to take a plane.
Want higher prices
– It is clear that price has a lot to say for people’s choice of means of travel. There has been a lot of competition in air traffic which has pushed down the prices of aircraft, says Schlaupitz.
He believes the Bergen line serves as a good example of why today’s environmentally friendly transport services do not work well enough.
– Holger Schlaupitz, head of the Nature Conservation Association, believes that the prices of the railway must go down, and the price of aircraft must go up. Photo: Sveinung Kyte / TV 2
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– On the Bergen line, there are too few seats. There is a battle for seats at those times of the day, week and year when there are many passengers, and then the prices go up. We must bring about improvements on the train that cause prices to fall, the department head believes.
He is clear on what it takes for more Norwegians to choose environmentally friendly travel in the future:
– We must get faster and more frequent train departures, at the same time as it must cost more to pollute. This makes it more attractive to take a train.
– Prices have not increased
It is the train company Vy that runs the Bergen line, after they won the tender round in 2019. The contract is valid for nine years.
– If you can travel outside the most popular times, we have tickets at good prices. We have good prices on all our departures, but the best prices go first, says communications manager at Vy, Gina Scholz.
– Trains win the prize if you plan well in advance. But if you are of the spontaneous type, the flight between Oslo and Bergen is generally the cheapest. Photo: Mathias Kleiveland / TV 2
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She emphasizes that the maximum price of ordinary tickets is regulated by the Norwegian Railway Directorate.
– The price has not increased even though the Bergen line has been exposed to competition. We do our part to keep prices down. For us, it is important to have more satisfied customers, and we must have good prices and ticket types that are attractive to our customers, says Scholz.
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