Railway lines: Expansion of fast train routes in EU too expensive and too slow

an 34; inefficient patchwork and 34;: The European Court of Auditors criticises the expansion of the high-speed network in the EU countries as uncoordinated.

Railway lines: Expansion of fast train routes in EU too expensive and too slow

The European Court of Auditors has criticised expansion of high-speed network in Europe as too expensive, too slow and too uncoordinated. There is no strategic planning in Member States, said EU auditor Oskar Herics. With EU aid of 23.7 billion euro since year 2000 an "inefficient patchwork of poorly networked national railway Lines" was created.

The goal of having at least 30,000 km of high-speed trains in European Union by 2030 will not be achieved. Because each Member State plans and constructs connections are deficient. Cross-border high-speed lines are not a priority for individual EU states.

The EU auditors had analyzed expenditure for more than 5,000 kilometers in Germany and five or countries. They examined a total of ten domestic routes and four cross-border links. One kilometre of tested routes cost an average of 25 million euros. EU funds are used for co-financing, i.e. Member States and EU share costs of development of route.

According to Court of Auditors, a minute journey time to four of ten routes generates more than 100 million euros in construction costs. The Stuttgart-Munich route is particularly expensive: every minute saved will cost 369 million euros.

Date Of Update: 27 June 2018, 12:02