Thanks to the area

Lower Austria is only the regional bus king at first glance

Most regional buses operate in Lower Austria, but...(Bild: VOR/Liebhart)

Lower Austria ranks first by far in the regional bus ranking in terms of kilometers traveled - but only because of the size of the province...

Every fourth regional bus kilometer in Austria is covered in our federal state. In absolute figures, Lower Austria is clearly in the lead with 58 million kilometers. Upper Austria follows at a respectful distance (37 million).

Suddenly falling behind
But it is also worth taking a second look at these statistics. As an analysis by Verkehrsclub Österreich (VCÖ) shows, we owe our place in the sun mainly to the size of our federal state. In terms of distance traveled per inhabitant, Lower Austria lags far behind Burgenland (53), Vorarlberg (49) and Tyrol (45) with 34 kilometers.

Better service, more passengers
The VCÖ is therefore calling for further improvements to bus services in rural areas. The Krems-Gmünd line shows that this works. The changeover from a two-hour to a one-hour cycle in 2019 increased the number of passengers there by a respectable 81 percent. On the Korneuburg-Floridsdorf line, the improvement in 2022 from every half hour to every quarter hour during rush hour resulted in an increase of 55% on weekdays.

Across Austria, regional buses provide just under half of public transport services, with a further 18% coming from city buses.