Germany is committed to continue providing sustainable and efficient public transport. Consequently in the coming years (2025-2035) authorities both at regional and national level will dedicate increased funding for electrification, and infrastructure expansion according to the results of a capstone project with TU Dresden Masters’ students presented in April 2024 at the EIB in Luxembourg.

With tighter state and regional budgets, increasing provision costs and the exiting ticketing model which is financially non sustainable, a ticket-sale revenue increase is needed and the private sector is likely to play a greater role in the financing of regional railways.

According to a previous capstone with TU Dresden, rail represents only 3% of passengers trips in Germany and is planned to grow close to 4% by 2030.

In 2017, 43% of trips were made by car according to the Germany ministry of Transport (BMDV) and similar percentage is expected in 2030. To attract more passengers train transport needs to be cheaper in relative terms compared to other transport modes and be able to deliver the level of service travellers expect.

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Capstones are student consultancy projects in which teams of four to six Masters’ students work on topics chosen and supervised by an EIB Group staff.