ÖBB Annual Report 2023

31 For a reliable future What are the plans? How do you want to address the challenges? How are such developments to be prevented in future and what will you tell your passengers? MANUELA WALDNER: This is the right moment for me to join the conversation for the first time. I have been fully involved for a little over six months now and we are working together at the top of the holding company to overcome this difficult situation. As Andreas Matthä has already mentioned, the problems affect several areas of the company. Our job was and is to check all processes: from purchasing and infrastructure maintenance to servicing the rolling stock. MATTHÄ: It is of vital importance to us that we prepare the entire company for a further increase in service expansion. After all, we want to double the capacity of the railway system by 2040. We need to orientate ÖBB as a whole entity towards this. Mistakes do happen. And yet travellers often feel left alone in moments when something fails to work out as it should. Now to the topic of “Customer information”. How are things going in this area and what needs to be improved? WALDNER: This is indeed one of our weak points. Our customers are often left in the dark when something fails to go according to plan when travelling by train. Moving away a little from the problems to the positive developments in the company. Last year, the first new Nightjet was put into operation, or as the railwaymen like to say: “fleeted in”. MATTHÄ: The new Nightjet is absolutely state of the art in terms of equipment and quality. The inaugural trip was therefore one of the highlights of last year and one of the moments we would have liked to offer our customers more of recently. And when may passengers expect to benefit from more new trains? MATTHÄ: The start of the 2nd quarter finally heralded the arrival of first new Railjets for the Brenner line, after a wait lasting two years. The introduction of these Railjets means that the trains we provided to temporarily fill the gap in Brenner transport will return to the Southern or Eastern region. WALDNER: We have currently ordered approx. 330 new trains, and they are all gradually being rolled out. We are investing a total of more than six billion euros for the new Nightjets, for new Railjets that will be travelling on the Brenner route, for new vehicles that will be used for inner-Alpine transport from 2025 and for new double-decker trains from 2026. We believe we are well equipped for the future given a capacity increase of approx. 50 percent by 2030 just in long-distance transport alone. Let us take a step away from the train. Nothing works in Austria without buses. How is Postbus doing? WALDNER: You are right: the expansion of the railway is a factor but without buses we will not be able to achieve the transport turnaround in Austria we mentioned earlier. There needs to > Railjet rolls in – time for a talk with ÖBB-Holding AG’s newly formed Board of Management “We consider ourselves well equipped for the future with a capacity increase of approx. 50 percent by 2030 in long-distance transport alone.” MANUELA WALDNER