Content area
Full Text
FlixTrain became the latest entrant to the German open-access long-distance passenger market earlier this year when it took over services previously operated by HKX and Locomore. Kevin Smith assesses the operator's position in the market and its prospects for future development.
PROMISING an attractive alternative to German Rail's (DB) long-distance ICE services, Locomore's distinctive orange and black trains and throwback compartment coaches were a welcome addition to the German rail network in late 2016.
The service offered passengers a lowcost means of travel between Stuttgart and Berlin while its crowdfunding model presented an innovative way of raising capital for an open-access rail venture in the liberalised market.
However, Locomore was short-lived.
Despite ridership and revenue per passenger growing continuously, overall revenues failed to increase in line with projections meaning that the service was never cost-effective. With its financial reserves exhausted, the company filed an insolvency application at the district court in Charlottenburg, Berlin, in May 2017.
Locomore was later joined by Hamburg-Köln Express (HKX) on the scrapheap of recent failed German open-access ventures.
HKX, was majority-owned by Railroad Development Corporation (RDC), United States, and initially worked alongside Locomore. It began operating three return services per day, seven days per week between Hamburg and Cologne in July 2012. This was subsequently scaled back to one daily round trip on Thursday - Sunday in December 2015 while the operator introduced a Hamburg - Frankfurt service.
However, further expansion plans were thwarted by HKX's failure to obtain suitable train paths on the network from infrastructure manager, DB Network. The Frankfurt - Hamburg train was withdrawn in September 2016, and despite attempts to reduce costs and improve financial performance by cutting back the Cologne - Hamburg frequency to a single round trip on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, HKX announced that it was suspending operations in October 2017 for two months.
Services were briefly revived over the Christmas period but with a new backer involved, which had also stepped up to support Locomore.
FlixBus, Germany's largest private long-distance bus operator, reached an agreement with HKX to sell tickets for a single daily round trip for seven days between December 22 and January 2. Prospective passengers were redirected from the HKX website to the FlixBus site, where they could...