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Local Transport Days 2025: "Using buses and trains - for your health and our future"
Using buses and trains - for your health and our future
Sustainability and health are key issues in our society. Public transport creates both: more sustainability through social participation, efficient and environmentally friendly transportation and a better quality of life through better health for the individual. Last year, the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) addressed the issue of mobility as one of the most important topics in its vision "Healthy living on a healthy planet" in order to come closer to this vision. Attractive and reliable public transport is an important component of this vision.
People who use buses and trains move much more than those in cars and are often more relaxed on the road. Who can read a book, answer text messages or simply daydream while driving? What's more, public transport is the safest of all modes of transport: the risk of being killed in a traffic accident is around 16 times higher in a car than on a bus or streetcar and around 72 times higher on a train. The risk of contracting an infectious disease is also very low and can be reduced to almost zero with simple measures, as studies on the Covid-19 pandemic have shown. People who use buses and trains therefore live much healthier lives. But do people actually know that?
And are decision-makers aware that public transport generates economic benefits worth several billion euros a year thanks to its positive health effects?
Currently, the topic of health is mostly associated with cycling or walking, rarely with public transport. The public transport industry makes little use of the positive effects of public transport use on health in marketing - presumably also because the knowledge in this area is not widespread. Health has also played a rather subordinate role in urban and transport planning to date. Although some research findings are available worldwide, there is a lack of systematic and broad-based research into the health effects of public transport, and not only in Germany.
The Local Transport Days 2025 will therefore take up this highly relevant topic in order to publicize current findings on the connections between public transport use and health and to provide solutions and contributions to the discussion on how the positive effects on health can be used in planning and marketing. The following questions will be answered at the event: What effects does public transportation use have on the health of individuals? What are the benefits for society? How can these economic benefits be quantified and used (e.g. for evaluation procedures, beneficiary financing)? How can the topic of health be anchored in the marketing strategies of transport companies, public transport authorities, associations and municipalities?
You can find more information here