The deregulation of the railway market in Europe has shown that more competition leads to more traffic on the rail. Hence, the positive growth over the last years can only continue by aimed investments into the new construction and expansion of the railway infrastructure.

It is therefore necessary for the politicians to set the right course and provide an optimum framework for the further growth of the railway transport in the short- and long-distance sector. VDB advocates a new orientation of the transport politics with a much stronger orientation towards the environmentally-friendly and efficient railway transport. Important steps into that direction are amongst other things the reduction of distortions of the competition on the account of the railway and stronger considerations of external costs. There is a paradox situation in the short-distance traffic: despite the increasing number of passengers the subsidies provided by the federal government for the regionalisation of the short-distance traffic were drastically reduced. Here, too, a change of mind in politics is necessary. After all, the reductions do harm to the business location of Germany in the end.

If the railway transport is impeded by a reduction of funding this will be not only detrimental to the people but also to the business location of Germany.