Fast & climate-friendly!

Ranking of the Omio travel platform compares popular travel routes on land

The journey influences the destination. In other words, the arrival and departure themselves are also part of the vacation and help shape it. And the summer of 2022 made it abundantly clear: long waits at the airport and lost luggage can really put a damper on your mood and throw your vacation plans into disarray. In preparation for 2023, Omio, the world's leading platform for overland travel, has therefore analyzed the most popular routes in summer and made it clear where bus and train offer a good alternative to flying - not only in terms of environmental friendliness, but also in terms of time. In the ranking, Omio shows where travelers can save time by land. One thing should not be forgotten when planning a vacation: in addition to the flight time itself, check-in times, baggage drop-off, etc. must also be taken into account. And the journey from the airport to the city center can often take a long time.


International routes that save time by bus and train

Travelers save the most time when they take the train instead of the plane between Paris and Brussels. Together with the check-in time at the airport and the transfer to the city center, travelers reach the city center a full two hours and 22 minutes (142 minutes) later than by train. The train journey from London to Brussels is also a good hour and a half (104 minutes) faster. On the Rotterdam - Brussels route, travelers save 83 minutes. And from Vienna, the train to Budapest is 48 minutes faster than by plane.


Domestic routes that are faster by train

The top domestic routes in Europe where the train beats the plane include Rome to Florence (here travelers are 79 minutes faster by train), Paris to Lyon (77 minutes faster), and Madrid to Barcelona (just under an hour faster, 56 minutes). The world's fastest train route within a country is from New York to Washington. Here, travelers save almost an hour and a half (84 minutes).


The plane is faster here

The situation is different within Germany. Between Munich and Berlin, travelers can reach the respective city center faster by plane. While a train journey and subsequent streetcar or bus ride to Berlin city center takes about 4 hours and 20 minutes, it takes about 3 hours and 40 minutes by plane, even with longer waiting times at check-in (90 minutes) and transfer to the city - so the train takes about half an hour longer. Travelers on the Lisbon - Porto and Zurich - Genoa routes also save almost a quarter of an hour if they take the plane instead of the train (13 minutes).

On international, cross-border routes, the train between Warsaw and Berlin (here travelers need almost 4 hours longer by train, 227 minutes), Copenhagen and Berlin (here the train is 225 minutes slower) and Berlin and Amsterdam (the plane is 127 minutes faster) are at a disadvantage. On the Prague to Budapest route, air travelers save 199 minutes compared to the train.


The biggest CO₂ savings

But the time factor isn't everything: traveling overland, even if it takes longer, can be more relaxing, more comfortable and more beautiful. When you drive past interesting landscapes, your vacation begins on the way there. And climate protection also plays a role when traveling. Compared to air travel, holidaymakers traveling by bus and train cause around 70 to 88 percent less CO₂ on the routes examined. Train travelers save a particularly large amount of CO₂ on the Rotterdam to Brussels route, where just 12.38 percent of the emissions of a flight are emitted. Traveling from Prague to Budapest or from Madrid to Barcelona is also particularly climate-friendly by train and bus (around 16 percent each). Relatively speaking, the least amount of CO₂ is saved from Zurich to Paris ("only" 69.2 percent).

You can find all the routes mentioned and more here, as well as tips for traveling by (night) train and particularly interesting routes: www.omio.at/c/zug-vs-flug-eu/


To collect the data

This ranking is based on the 50 most-booked train, bus and flight routes in Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy and France booked via Omio in summer 2022 (between June 22, 2022 and September 23, 2022). A check-in time of 90 minutes for domestic flights and 120 minutes for international flights as well as the transfer time from the airport to the city center (determined via Google Maps) were added to the flight routes. The CO₂ emissions in kilograms per train/bus/flight were calculated using the values from the climate protection organization Atmosfair.