Overview
Agora Verkehrswende is a joint initiative of the Mercator Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. Their main objective is to find ways to fully decarbonise the transport sector by 2045 in collaboration with key players from politics, business, science and civil society. The initiative acts as a platform for the exchange of opinions, focussing on land-based passenger and freight transport in Germany in the European context. To illustrate the current deficits in public transport services in Germany, we have carried out analyses with GOAT on the quality of public transport services, including the calculation of public transport quality classes. These have been incorporated into the "Mobility Guarantee" and "Public Transport Atlas" projects.
Average quality of public transport services
Comparison of car density and public transport quality classes (ÖV-Güteklassen)
Basic bus and rail supply - status quo 2023
Nationwide mobility guarantee by bus and rail
The project revolves around the idea of creating a nationwide mobility guarantee by bus and rail. As many people, particularly in rural areas, have inadequate transport connections and one in ten households in these areas does not own a car, the project aimed to provide the population in Germany with a minimum number of daily journeys. The methodology used for this was the public transport quality classes commonly used in Switzerland and Austria, calculated on the basis of current timetable data and combined with high-resolution population data. In this way, it was possible to show how public transport provision is organised in different areas throughout Germany. In the following, various future scenarios with different levels of public transport expansion (S, M, L) were analysed.
Public Transport Atlas 2023
The Public Transport Atlas is an established online tool from Agora Verkehrswende that visualises the number of bus and rail journeys in relation to the population and built-up area. In the project, Plan4Better calculated the indicators based on timetable and structural data for the year 2023. The calculations were carried out for Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark. The international data sets were collated and processed for this purpose. The data sets were then processed by Agora Verkehrswende in the online tool and the results further analysed.
Publications on the projects:
Project websites of the Agora Verkehrswende:
