Austria’s Rail & Drive — an Example of Multi-Modal Personal Mobility
Transport accounts for about one fifth of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, according to Travel Carbon Footprint. One way to reduce both carbon footprint and energy consumption is multi-modal mobility, i.e. use a combination of low carbon footprint and energy efficient means of transport such as trains and bicycles instead of a personal vehicle. This story is about my recent experience with a new service by the national Austria’s railway company Österreichische Bundesbahnen, ÖBB: Rail & Drive, one of its several shared mobility services next to hiring of bicycles, e-scooters, taxi or shuttles in combination with railway tickets.
For our last trip to and around my home country Austria we decided to use the railway for long distance journeys. We intended to visit relatives and friends on the country side, too, but wanted to avoid asking them to pick us up at various railway stations. Therefore, a car hire service was needed. Most of these are usually located at airports. Luckily I came across the Rail & Drive service when booking my train tickets, and it could not be simpler:
- Create an account and register for the service for a small annual fee,
- Plan your train journey, then book a car at the train stations where a car is needed; there are quite a few stations offering various vehicles,
- On arrival at the target station, unlock the car using the Rail& Drive card and drive; once finished, bring the car back, lock and continue by train.
In theory, the Wegfinder app can be used for registration and booking. Since I am not an Austrian resident, however, the app did not quite work (yet). Therefore, I filed a support request asking how I could book the service from abroad; within 10 minutes I got a phone call. The person on the other end was very helpful and provided a sterling service. I was asked to take a picture of myself and my driving license and send it by email. My account was created in no time, the booking enabled after the verification of the driving license, and the Rail & Drive card required to unlock the car was sent by mail.
The overall experience was pleasant: in advance I booked train journeys for our holiday on the ÖBB website, then the rental car at the desired locations using my Rail & Drive account. On the day we needed the car, we arrived at the target railway station at night, walked to the car (just a few meters from the railway station), unlocked it with the Rail&Drive card and drove away. After a couple of days using the car, we dropped the car at the same location, boarded another train and resumed our railway journey.
Bottom line: combining railway for long distance part and a rental car for the short parts of a journey seems to be a very good value proposition, both for people and the planet. As such the Rail & Drive service will certainly contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of personal mobility by virtue of reducing the overall distance driven by car, and perhaps in some cases, by reducing the number of individually owned cars. For instance, it might encourage people to renounce owning a car all together when combining train and car rental fulfils their needs.
