According to the newspaper, inoperative air conditioning in hot weather, increasing delays and the multitude of passengers crowding the corridors of carriages with tickets or traveling in toilets show how the attendance success has exceeded the capabilities of Polish railway carriers.
“Such pictures, seen very often this summer, may soon effectively scare some people away from the trains” – warn experts. According to the daily, this is a problem for PKP Intercity, which owes its current market success (in Q2 2022, 15 million people boarded the company’s trains, almost a quarter more than in Q2 2019) mainly due to high fuel prices. Some people abandoned their cars for cheaper trains.
“But when fuels start to cheaper, with the deteriorating quality of rail services, a retreat from it will become inevitable” – predicts the newspaper.
More and more delays
“Rzeczpospolita” informs, referring to the data of the Office of Rail Transport, that in June (the latter data) only 61.4 percent were punctual. PKP Intercity trains, compared with 73.4 percent. in April. The carrier explains it with delayed departures from the station by attaching additional wagons and longer getting in and out of more passengers.
Meanwhile, the punctuality of Koleje Dolnośląskie was 83.7%, Polregio – 86.4%, Koleje Mazowieckie – 89.6%, and the Warsaw Commuter Railway – 99.7%.