According to a Greenpeace assessment of rail use in the Community bloc, rail links to Lisbon are among the six worst on the European continent.
Lisbon, Athens (Greece), Pristina (Kosovo), Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Skopje (North Macedonia) and Tallinn (Estonia) are among the six worst-connected cities in Europe, with no connection to another major European city, according to a Greenpeace assessment published on Tuesday.
Unlike these six cities, Vienna, the capital of Austria, is the city with the best train connections: there are 17 direct connections between the Austrian city and other capitals.
In an analysis by Greenpeace, the next city on the list is Munich, with 15 direct links between that German city and another, followed by Berlin with 14, and Zurich and Paris, each with 13 direct links.
However, the NGO warned that the railway, particularly the lines, are not widely used. Although Vienna is the city with the most direct connections, trains only use 59% of the available routes, so there could be 12 more direct connections.
Other cities on the list could also get more routes, with Munich and Berlin each getting 14 more direct flights, Zurich getting 15 more, and Paris getting 16 more.
Greenpeace reports that the number of passengers using overnight trains to cross Europe has fallen sharply since 2001, with just 445 in 2019.
The environmental organisation has therefore called on the EU and national authorities to rethink investments in transport and take advantage of the potential of the railway.