Bus and train instead of the car: going to Krones on public transport

Especially shift workers at Krones have it anything but easy to get to work without using their own car. For a long time, pipe welder Thomas Kneitschel had been setting a positive example by using public transport. Now, however, a timetable change is throwing a spanner in the works for him – and for many others, too.

But let's start from the beginning. Thomas Kneitschel had been using public transport to get to work for almost two full years – despite working shifts. He took the conscious decision to leave his car behind for the sake of the planet. It all started with the introduction of the nine-euro ticket. At the time it simply made sense to try and make the journey to work more climate friendly. “Nine euros isn't much to lose if it doesn’t work out,” Kneitschel thought. “But in fact it worked out astonishingly well.” That persuaded him to stick with it. As everyone knows, the ticket price then rose to 49 euros, but that was still worth it for Kneitschel. “Krones subsidises the ticket, after all, so it only costs 30 euros a month. When I consider that I would travel to work and back again by car every day, then perhaps take a little diversion on the way to go shopping or something like that, the costs of fuel and so on quickly add up to that sort of amount anyway,” he said at the end of last year. So Kneitschel continued his strategy for as long as he could: walk 600 metres to the railway station in his home village of Sünching, get off at Burgweinting and then take the e-bus to right in front of the plant.

Timetable change brings the car back

His climate-friendly strategy has been off the cards since December, however – there has been a timetable change that now makes it virtually impossible to continue getting from his home village to his shifts by public transport. The first train in the morning has been cut entirely. “However much I hurry, I would always get there too late when I am on the early shift,” says Kneitschel. Starting that shift 20 minutes later would be simply out of the question. And it's not looking much better for late shifts either: “I would now need two hours to get back home.” When trying to get home from the night shift, the first train is usually cancelled entirely. For the past few months, then, Kneitschel has been forced reluctantly to use the car again.

Nor is any significant improvement in sight in the near future: “I even asked the transport company whether something could be done about it or whether the problem might soon be resolved again,” the pipe welder explains. The answer was sobering, though: nothing could be done about it, the timetable had been changed so that new lines and routes could be added next year.

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Colleagues who are not bound by shift patterns have it a lot easier, with the much more flexible working hours making public transport a popular option. Kerstin Brünnler, for example, who works as a media designer at Krones, commutes from Regenstauf to Neutraubling. “My partner and I have a car, but I'm not generally a fan of driving,” she explains. So, every morning when she has to go into the office, she walks to the railway station in Regenstauf, takes the train to Burgweinting via Regensburg and goes the rest of the way by bus. If everything runs to plan, she completes the journey of some 20 kilometres in about an hour. The recent timetable changes don’t affect her. “It looks like my journey will be just as boring, nothing's changed in that regard,” she says with a wink.