Austria Transportation and Telecommunications
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Figure 10. Transportation System, 1993
Vienna International Airport
Courtesy Luftreportagen Hausmann, Vienna and ICD Austria,
New York
Austria has a wide variety of transportation services and
usage, reflecting the diversity of its geography and its central
location in Europe
(see
fig. 10). Because of the mountainous
topography, for decades scheduled nonlocal bus service carried
almost twice as many passengers as rail service (288 million
riders versus 168 million riders in 1990). Air transport is
becoming more commonly used and carried 9.1 million passengers in
1992, more than twice as many as in 1982. Because of its central
location, Austria is an important segment of the European
railroad network, and a number of high-speed international trains
pass through the country. The Brenner Pass has long been the main
north-south route from Germany to Italy. The country's importance
in east-west travel is also likely to increase in the 1990s with
the opening of Eastern Europe.
Austria's total railroad network amounts to approximately
6,028 kilometers, of which 5,388 kilometers are stateowned. The
standard-gauge (1.435 meter) network is 5,403 kilometers in
length, of which 3,051 kilometers are electrified. The number of
electric trains increased during the 1980s, from 35,353 in 1980
to 47,803 in 1992. The number of train passengers remained steady
during the 1980s, amounting to 170 million in 1980 and 175
million in 1992.
The main railroad system is the state-owned and stateoperated Österreichische Bundesbahnen (Austrian Federal Railroad-
-ÖBB), which accounts for 90 percent of the country's rail
routes. The remainder is managed by nineteen small privately
owned railroads operating primarily narrow-gauge lines with a
total length of about 550 kilometers. The ÖBB is pursuing an
extensive investment in modernization, the Neue Bahn (New
Railroad) project. Major projects include the construction of a
tunnel under the Alps that would handle north-south traffic
between Germany and Italy and greatly reduce the need to use the
Brenner Pass. Freight operations have been steadily modernized,
especially with the greater use of pallets and rail-container
transport. Austria is part of the European Transfer Express
Freight Train System.
Austria has about 22,000 kilometers of paved roads. As of
1992, there were 3.2 million private automobiles registered,
compared with 2.3 million private automobiles in 1982. The
increase in the number of trucks in Austria was not as great:
269,000 trucks in 1992, compared with 193,000 in 1982.
An increasing volume of freight is transported by truck. Onefourth of Austria's imports and one-half of its exports are
carried by road. The growth of freight transported through
Austria has increased greatly, going from 4 million tons in 1970
to 20 million tons in 1990. This traffic has begun to pose a
threat to the country's natural environment. Government
regulations to counter this threat include limiting the size of
international trucks traversing the country, most importantly
those traveling between Germany and Italy and the Balkans via
Alpine passes, especially the Brenner Pass. The government, with
widespread popular support, is also seeking to have freight
shipped on the less noisy and less polluting railroad system.
Government regulations also limit trucks using Alpine passes at
night to 7.5 tons. This ban has been extended to other parts of
country.
Transit road traffic poses such a great threat to the
environment that part of the agreement with the European Economic
Area (EEA) provides for separate negotiations with Austria on
traffic volume. An agreement reached in 1992 limited the volume
of traffic and also provided for rules protecting Alpine areas.
Austria's inland waterways total only about 350 kilometers.
Of the country's rivers, only the Danube is navigable. Vienna has
long been a major port on the Danube River. As of 1991, water
transport brought in less than 10 percent of the amount of
imports and exports transported by road or rail and accounted for
only about 5 percent of domestic long-distance freight.
Water transport is likely to become more important in the
future, with a related expansion of Vienna's role in river
shipping because of the 1992 completion of the Rhine-Main-Danube
Canal in Germany. The canal makes possible travel by boat from
Rotterdam to the Black Sea. As a result, Europe's inland waterway
traffic is expected to triple by the end of the 1990s. The main
traffic will likely be in bulk commodities, some of which might
be off-loaded in Vienna and transshipped elsewhere. The Vienna
port already serves as a principal petroleum and petroleum
products terminal because it is linked by an oil pipeline to
Trieste. The port of Vienna is equipped with automobile
transshipment facilities and a large grain terminal.
Austria has a small national airline. Austrian Airlines is 51
percent state owned and operates throughout Europe and the Middle
East, as well as across the Atlantic. It also operates an air
freight line, Austrian Airtransport. In addition, there are two
smaller privately owned air carriers, Lauda Air and Tyrolean
Airways. The latter airline operates from Innsbruck and largely
ferries passengers to and from Alpine destinations. Austria's one
important international airport is at Schwechat, located near
Vienna. Of the smaller airports, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz,
Klagenfurt, and Linz are the most important and receive
international as well as domestic flights.
Telecommunications in Austria are excellent. In 1991 there
were 3.3 million main telephone connections, or one for every two
inhabitants. International facsimile (fax), data transmission,
and telex services are also available. In 1992 there were 2.5
million television sets (black-and-white and color) and 4.7
million radios. The state-owned and state-controlled Austrian
Radio and Television (Österreichische Rundfunk--ORF) is
responsible for all broadcasting. In 1992 there were six AM radio
stations, twenty-one FM radio stations, and forty-seven
television stations. The country's satellite ground stations are
linked with International Telecommunications Satellite
Organization (Intelsat) Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean
satellites and with the European Telecommunications Satellite
Organisation (Eutelsat) system.
Data as of December 1993
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