Slightly more than every fifth (22 percent) business trip was made by train last year. According to the Verkehrsclub Österreich (VCÖ), more business trips were made by train than by plane for the first time in this century.
The data comes from Statistics Austria and shows that the share of passenger cars has increased from 41.4 (2019) to 52.4 percent. This means that in the previous year more than every second business trip was made by car. Rail follows in second place (22 percent); Air travel accounted for 17.9 percent. Buses (4.4 percent) and other means of transport (2.9 percent) had relatively small shares.
Overall, business travel has picked up again after the massive slump of the Covid 19 pandemic. In 2022, 3.1 million were counted. About four in ten trips (42 percent) went abroad, the most to Germany.
“Pleasant from an environmental and traffic point of view”
According to the VCÖ, it is gratifying from an environmental and road safety point of view that the share of business trips by train has increased and has surpassed the previous record. “More and more companies have enshrined in their travel guidelines that business travel should mainly be carried out by train,” VCÖ expert Michael Schwender said in a broadcast. More companies should do that.
The VCÖ recalled that video conferences can also be held over long distances. This potential is already being used more often, “here too, the urge for digitization is noticeable among companies.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
