Timetable change

December 15 brings many new bus and train services

Marcus Ender, Michael Stabodin, Christian Hillbrand, Andrea Kaufmann, Christof Bitschi, Thomas Schierle and Michael Faast (from left) presented the changes to local public transport.

(Bild: mih)

This time, the traditional timetable change will provide more connections and closer intervals in the Bregenzerwald, the Unterland and on the city buses in Dornbirn, Bregenz and Feldkirch.

Around 86,000 Vorarlberg residents already use trains and buses for their everyday journeys. "We want to broaden the range of services so that there is a public transport option available for every situation and every need," explained Provincial Councillor for Mobility Christof Bitschi at the press conference on the timetable change on Monday. This will take place on December 15th. Some existing connections will be optimized and there will also be new lines and stops.

New bus services

• In the Bregenzerwald, the timetables of some lines will be adjusted to further improve the transfer to other lines. The winter timetable for route 870 will now be extended to cover the whole year, resulting in a half-hourly service from Bersbuch or Schwarzenberg to Dornbirn from Monday to Friday throughout the year.
• The bus journey to the ski lifts in the Bregenzerwald is set to become even more attractive. On route 833, an additional service in the morning will ensure that winter sports enthusiasts can reach the lift earlier.
• From the timetable change, the night bus routes 8N1 and 8N2 will offer a public transport service on Saturday and Sunday nights instead of Friday and Saturday as before.
• The "Am Kumma" local bus line 302 will also run on Saturday afternoons with a new route via "Unteres Tobel" from the timetable change.
• Following the success of the evening services on route 104 of the Bregenz city bus, the operating hours will be extended on routes 102 and 103. This means that the outlying areas of the provincial capital will be served from Monday to Saturday until 10.30 pm.
• Following last year's major expansion of the Upper Rhine Valley rural bus service, some timetables will be further adjusted. In Rankweil, for example, the routes of lines 428, 450, 455, 456 and 457 will be optimized. Line 440 will be extended to "Tisis Landeskrankenhaus" in future.
• Lines 460 and 462 (Götzis - Koblach to Klaus) will run until after 10 pm from the timetable change.
• For commuters, additional journeys and adjustments to the departure times of route 495 (Laterns - Rankweil) will provide better connections to the Rhine Valley, the regional hospital and the Liebherr plant.
• The operating times of the Feldkirch city bus line 403 will be extended. From Monday to Saturday, the buses will run until after 10 pm. On Sundays and public holidays, the line will run every hour.

Following the major expansion of services in the Upper Rhine Valley last year, this time the focus is on the needs of passengers in the Lower Rhine Valley. The services on the 18 main lines will be massively expanded. The half-hourly timetable applies not only from Monday to Friday, but also on Saturdays. "With the timetable change, the public transport service in the lowlands will once again receive a significant improvement and frequencies that are almost only known from large cities," said Thomas Schierle, Chairman of Landbus Unterland.

Changes to the railroad

• With the new timetable, the S1 (Bludenz - Lindau) also departs from Lindau at 5.19 a.m. with a connection to the long-distance services to Vienna. There is also an additional REX train from Bludenz at 9 pm.
• From December 15, the S3 (Bregenz - St. Margrethen) will now also run every 30 minutes on Saturdays.
• Additional evening services on the Montafonerbahn S4 will extend the half-hourly frequency by a whole hour.
• On the R5 (Feldkirch - St. Margrethen), a gap will be closed in the afternoon for the hourly service from midday to the evening.
• On the three-country line S7 (Romanshorn - Bregenz - Lindau), all journeys to Lindau-Insel will now be extended.
• The EC Zurich - Munich service will be extended by a further train pair with an early morning connection for commuters departing at 5.33 a.m. from Zurich and an additional evening connection from Munich at 8.55 p.m.
• Further Westbahn connections to and from Vorarlberg are new. A train leaves Bregenz for Vienna at 3.40 pm. The new connection from Vienna back to Bregenz departs Vienna at 7.08 a.m. and arrives in Bregenz at 2.08 p.m.

Pilot project cashless ticket sales
On Wednesday, December 11, a pilot project for cashless payment on buses will be launched on the Arlberg. Nine buses on routes 750 (Langen am Arlberg - Lech) and 760 (St. Anton am Arlberg - Lech) will be equipped with NFC-enabled contact terminals. A credit or debit card, smartphone or smartwatch then becomes a public transport ticket. The passenger no longer receives a ticket; the information is stored in encrypted form in the background system. In this way, it is also possible to check whether a valid ticket has been purchased. In addition to using the "Fairtiq" app, the pilot project on the Arlberg offers the option of paying without cash. It will initially run until spring 2025.