The Danish Transport Agency sent a new traffic plan for consultation in March this year. It shows that it is not just international long-distance trains that benefit from the fixed connection over the Fehmarnbelt.
The traffic prerequisites for the Fehmarn Belt project have taken their starting point from a dimensional operational plan with two freight trains and up to three passenger trains per hour in both directions. Among these passenger trains, there may be, for example, a German local train in Schleswig-Holstein extended to the Danish side, or a local train in Region Zealand extended to the German side, the consultation report for the traffic plan states.
On the whole, according to the presentation, the Danish Transport Agency expects that the Fehmarn connection will give international train traffic a good push forward from 2030.
Took a dive in 2019
The total passenger train traffic between Denmark and Germany was around one million passengers in 2015. Since then, however, it has taken a huge dive. From 2019, trains have been directed to run over Funen and Jutland, because the section from Nykøbing Falster to Rødbyhavn closed in connection with the reconstruction of the Ringsted-Femern line and thus effectively put an end to direct trains between Copenhagen and Hamburg.
20 percent above 2019 level
But train traffic across the Danish-German border has started to increase again.
In the summer of 2022, international traffic across the Danish-German border was approximately 20 percent above the 2019 level. In the 2022 summer season, the international trains have been running with full capacity for several months, and with the need to deploy parallel train buses to cope with the peak load when the train capacity has not been able to keep up, writes the Danish Transport Agency in its presentation for a traffic plan.
Night trains on the rise
In the plan, The Danishish Transport Agency has also opened its eyes to the growth potential of international night trains. In Sweden, both Snälltåget and SJ have resumed international night trains, such as the Stockholm-Berlin route via Copenhagen.
Together with the mentioned passenger growth in international day trains, there may be a broader trend at European level, where travelers increasingly demand trains across borders, the traffic plan states.
From Copenhagen to Budapest or Paris
However, the new traffic plan does not expect the international train routes to be limited to connecting Scandinavia and Germany. After the opening of the Fehmarn Tunnel, the whole of Europe is open.
With the Fehmarn connection, new operators will look at the opportunities to share in the passenger potential. This could mean an expansion of the international line network, probably in the direction of the proposal for the establishment of Trans-Europa Express 2.0 (TEE), as presented by the German Ministry of Transport.
New lines from Budapest-Vienna-Munich to Copenhagen and Paris-Brussels-Copenhagen are also indicated here. In both of these corridors, it is conceivable that new equipment is present, which is capable of driving across several national borders, writes the Danish Transport Agency in the consultation report for a traffic plan.
