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Danish opposition wants answers from minister over rail fares hike

Several opposition party spokespersons say they want Transport Minister Thomas Danielsen to intervene after major increases in rail fares were announced.

Published: 26 September 2023 17:36 CEST
Danish opposition wants answers from minister over rail fares hike
Taking the train in Denmark will cost more next year. Photo: Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix

National rail operator DSB announced on Monday that rail tickets will cost up to 13 percent more in Denmark next year, with most locations in the country likely to see higher fares.

Opposition parties say they will summon the transport minister, Thomas Danielsen, to parliamentary committee hearing over the rising prices.

“We are summoning the minister to committee,” said transport spokesperson Signe Lippert of the Socialist People’s Party (SF).

“Something needs to be done so that we don’t get a vicious circle in which prices go up, customers leave the store and prices then have to go up even more, until we end up with a public transport system which doesn’t function,” she said.

The fares for 2024 were published by DSB on its website on Monday, and will come into effect on January 21st. The price rises vary by area and ticket type but average at close to 10 percent.

Prices are being put up next in response to increasing costs, the rail operator said.

READ ALSO: Rail fares set to increase across Denmark in 2024

The Danish People’s Party (DF) also expressed concern over the price changes.

“It seems completely crazy,” DF’s transport spokesperson Nick Zimmermann said.

Politicians will find it difficult to persuade the public to make more use of public transport when prices are high, he stated.

“If prices keep going up, I can 100 percent understand more people using their car,” he said.

Zimmermann said he also wanted to bring the minister into discussion of the matter.

The Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority (Trafikstyrelsen) has input into DSB’s prices.

The government agency decides the limits by which public transport fares may be put up. Costs at operators are taken into account.

Recent years have seen transport operators face increasing energy costs and inflation.

DSB has not raised prices to the full limit set by the travel authority, with the average price increase across the country not amounting to the 2024 limit of 10.3 percent set by the Danish Civil Aviation and Railway Authority.

Transport spokesperson Jens Meilvang of the Liberal Alliance party called the price increases “grotesque”.

Meilvang called for more competition in the transport sector, noting that DSB’s contract with the Danish state is scheduled for renegotiation next year.

“As long as there is a state monopoly with no competition, we’ll never get anywhere,” he said.

“We need to award more competition in this area, and not only on price but also punctuality,” he said.

Higher prices are necessary for public transport to maintain its service levels in the wake of inflation and the energy crisis, DSB’s head of customer services Charlotte Kjærulff said in a comment.

“It’s clear that when there are prices increases, that’s not something that will be appreciated. So it’s not surprising that some people aren’t happy with it,” she said.

Kjærulff said that DSB customers will still be able to make savings by purchasing Orange tickets, the limited number of reduced-price tickets for set departure times made available by DSB.

One million additional Orange tickets are to be made available outside of peak times, she said.

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TRAVEL NEWS

Do you really need to own a car living in Denmark?

Denmark is one of the most expensive countries in the world for owning a car, its public transport is one of the best, and if you want to cycle, it's mostly flat. There are few places where it makes more sense to ditch your car.

Published: 10 May 2024 16:35 CEST
Updated: 19 May 2024 08:30 CEST
Do you really need to own a car living in Denmark?

The case against owning a car in Denmark

Denmark’s Vehicle Registration Tax, together with VAT, more than doubles the cost of buying a petrol or diesel car, making owning a car considerably more expensive in Denmark than in its neighbours Germany and Sweden, although electric cars that cost less than 436,000 kroner are currently tax-exempt.

If you use a car to commute into Copenhagen, Aarhus, or Odense, you will also often find yourself stuck in traffic jams, with the Danish Roads Directorate estimating that Danes lose 365,000 hours to traffic jams every weekday, with the Motorring 3 motorway circling Copenhagen, other major access roads to Copenhagen, the E20 south of Odense, and the E45 on either side of Aarhus the most congested roads in the country.

Parking can also be expensive in Danish cities, costing as much as 500 Danish kroner for 24 hours for non-residents. 

How easy is it to get around inside Danish cities without a car? 

Denmark is a cycling nation.

According to Visit Denmark, in 2022, 25 percent of all trips under five kilometers across Denmark were done by bike, and 16 percent of all journeys of any kind. 

Copenhagen’s aim is for fully half of all trips to work and education to be done on bike by 2025. In 2019, the city was already on 44 percent. It’s a similar situation for smaller cities like Aarhus, Odense, Vejle, Aalborg and Esbjørg.

But even if you can’t or don’t want to cycle, you can still get by in most places without a car, thanks to Denmark’s excellent public transport networks.

Public transport in Denmark has significantly improved only over the last five years, with several new metro lines and light rail systems opening. 

With the Cityringen (M3) and Harbour lines (M4) opening in 2019 and 2020, respectively the Copenhagen Metro can now get you to most places in the city. 

Denmark scrapped its city tram systems in the 1960s and 1970s, with cities like Aarhus and Odense instead shifting to buses for public transport.

There has recently been a recent revival, however, with Aarhus, Odense and Copenhagen all opening or building new tram/light rail systems.

Odense Letbane opened in 2022, making it easy to get to the out of town shopping area where IKEA and other superstores are based and also to the new hospital. Aarhus Letbane opened in 2017, and takes passengers all the way up the coast around the city, from Odder in the south to Grenaa in the north.

Copenhagen next year plans to open a light-rail system which will travel in a ring around the city’s outer suburbs linking Lundtofte in the north to Ishøj in the southwest. 

This will end one of the big drawbacks of the city’s “five finger” transport corridor plan: that while it is quick to travel from the outer suburbs to the centre and vice versa, it is complicated to travel between suburbs which are on a different transport corridors, for example from Albertslund to Herlev, or from Birkerød to Buddinge. 

Even before that opens, however, so long as you are only travelling in and out from the centre, it is extremely convenient to get from central Copenhagen to its suburbs and surrounding towns using the S-trains, which run from 5am until half-past midnight on weekdays, and all night on Fridays and Saturdays. 

This means you can eat out and party with your friends until the small hours, and still normally get back to Køge, Høje Taastrup, Frederikssund, Farum and Hillerød, the furthest out stops. 

Where might you struggle without a car? 

Plans for a light railway or tram between Vejle and Billund, or between the so-called Triangle Region between the cities of Vejle, Kolding and Fredericia have so far come to nothing, and even though the local and regional bus and train services can be good, it’s certainly tougher to survive without a car if you don’t live on Zealand, near Aarhus, or perhaps on Funen. 

Many people do in fact live without owning a car even in the more far-flung villages on Jutland, and on islands like Bornholm, Lolland and Falster.

They still manage to get everywhere they want to go, but it does require waiting. It’s certainly possible to live without a car, but you might feel limited in where to and when you can travel. 

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