New light rail opens with passenger forecast far below original estimate

Hovedstadens Letbane, the light rail system serving Copenhagen’s suburbs, is opening its full 28-kilometre route with an expected 12,000 daily passengers in 2026, far below the 43,000 forecast when construction was approved, DR reports.

The green trains have operated between 12 stations on the southern section since autumn. The northern section, with a further 17 stations, is now ready for passengers.

The route runs in an arc from Ishøj in the south to Lundtofte in the north, allowing passengers to travel across several municipalities outside Copenhagen.

The original decision to build the light rail was based on a 2013 analysis, which assumed the trains would begin operating in 2020. That analysis forecast around 43,000 passengers per weekday when the line opened.

Hovedstadens Letbane now expects to reach about 12,000 daily passengers during 2026, with the number forecast to rise to around 45,000 in 2031.

“We have added some reality. The calculation from back then assumed that it would go from zero to 100. Now we know that it takes time for people to develop new habits and adapt to new opportunities,” said Hanne Tærsbøl Schmidt, director of Hovedstadens Letbane.

Asked whether it was a problem that the project had been promoted using an opening-day passenger forecast that is no longer expected to be achieved, Schmidt said the long-term target remained unchanged.

“We do expect to reach that number. Our current calculations show that we will reach approximately 45,000 daily passengers in 2031,” she said.

The light rail has cost nearly 10 billion kroner. Schmidt said she believed the project would still have been approved if the original forecast had predicted 12,000 daily passengers at opening.

“We are building for 100 years. It is not a problem that it takes five years to reach that passenger number, but we have to get there,” she said.

Mogens Fosgerau, a professor of transport economics at the University of Copenhagen, has previously described Hovedstadens Letbane as an exceptionally poor socio-economic investment.

He said the lower passenger forecast meant that fewer people would use the light rail and benefit from it during its early years, making the project somewhat worse than previously expected.

Fosgerau said it was normal for passengers to take time to adapt to a new form of transport, but he maintained that the light rail remained a poor investment.

“The major problem is that the light rail provides relatively small benefits for passengers and large costs for the rest of society,” he said.