The plan is to expand free, cross-border public transport to other places as well. The Ministry of Mobility has decided on a zone of five kilometres.
If the pilot project goes well, the plan will move on to the next stage. Luxembourg’s free public transport would then be expanded to include P&R areas in neighbouring countries that are no more than 5km away from the border.
Minister for Mobility François Bausch specified that “if it happens to be 6km in one place, it will still be okay”.
However, travelling for free to Trier and back will not be possible. After all, Luxembourg will be the one to fund the free transport in the zone beyond the border. And the authorities have no intention “to fund the entire public transport of Rhineland-Palatinate”, Bausch noted.
The Ministry hopes that the project will incentivise cross-border workers to park their vehicles outside of the Grand Duchy’s borders and take a bus or train to Luxembourg. Up until now, authorities have observed that while many cross-border workers enjoy travelling by public transport, most look for parking spaces in Luxembourg – to the detriment of the P&R areas that the Ministry negotiated to have set up along the Grand Duchy’s borders.
By making free public transport available beyond the country’s borders, the Ministry hopes to keep even more cars out of Luxembourg.
