'Every Trip Counts', Norwegian Public Transport Claims--and Raises Fares

In an absolutely stunning first-time ever discovery (I swear), Oslo now learns that making people pay extra for climate indulgences comes with consequences

Every now and then, I feel the urge to report on totally expectable, if nonetheless carried out, stupidities to make a very simple point about human nature:

While far from the theoretical homo œconomicus, people do tend to notice, eventually, when they are being had. Today’s story is about one of these kinds of examples that combines excessive virtue-signalling with excessively high rates of delusions.

As always, the devil is in the details—and much like with the Austrian Fiscal Council (Fiskalrat) admitting in writing that the costs deriving from climate change™ are actually due to expected acquisition of ‘CO2 Emissions Certificates’—the reason for higher bus tickets is…[rolls drums] the gov’t mandating new bells and whistles (emissions-free™ buses).

We’ve seen this before, and now, perhaps owing to the bad economic development of the past couple of years—wage growth well below inflation plus high interest rates—Norwegians are seemingly waking up, that is, at least as far as their individual interests (abilities) are concerned.

Non-English content comes to you in my translation, with emphases and [snark] added.

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Public Transport Crisis Predicted Across the Country as New Rules Demand Emission-Free Buses

You can now expect more expensive and poorer public transport services. If the ticket is too expensive, Even (31) thinks more people will choose the car.

By Eline Molvær Løndal et al., NRK, 14 May 2025 [source]

Even Rydheim Samuelsen takes the bus to work every day. He is satisfied with the current service where he lives.

Now the service he depends on is in jeopardy.

Across the country, county mayors [orig. fylkesordførere] are announcing a sharp reduction in public transport services.

The reasons for this include a requirement for emission-free buses and ‘everything’ becoming more expensive [oh, would you consider that…]

‘It’s still more environmentally friendly to take the bus than to drive a car, but I think more people will go back to the car if it becomes more expensive to take the bus’, says Samuelsen.

Demands Subsidies From the Government

In 2024 and 2025, several counties [orig. fylke] will advertise tenders for new contracts with public transport companies. The contracts will run for the next ten years.

The cost of the tenders has increased abnormally—up to 60% in some places [huhum, FAFU, I suppose].

The extraordinary price increase in bus and ferry contracts is now leading to a public transport crisis in county after county.

This is according to Ole Ueland (Høyre [the conservatives-in-name-only]), county mayor of Rogaland and leader of the College of County Mayors:

We’re leaving no stone unturned to find a solution, but route cuts and higher fares are unfortunately a necessary consequence [remember: There Is No Alternative]).

He is now demanding that the state contributes more to maintaining a good public transport service for residents [if your one and only answer™ to such problems is more gov’t subsidies, you’re a moron; this will rapidly erode whatever regional/local democracy is left, too].

What do you think about rising ticket prices?

• This is bad, but I shall continue to use public transport anyways: 27%.

• WTF! I shall rather take the car: 53%.

• Don’t care, I’ll never travel like that: 20% [as of 15 May 2025, around 6 a.m. local time]

School Buses May Disappear

In Vestfold, an agreement has been reached that will lead to an increase in costs of NOK 134 million a year [about US$ 12m].

The county mayor, Anne Strømøy (Høyre), reports dramatic consequences for residents:

If we only increase the price of tickets to cover the extra costs, the monthly pass will increase by 109%.

If we’re going to reduce public transport services as much as we might have to, we’re unsure whether we’ll be able to provide school transport in accordance with the Education Act [now get this: the county gov’t tells everyone that they may break the law: why pay taxes? There was another such story in recent weeks—with Tromsø municipality being unable to offer the legally mandated kindergarten spots for all residents, and their answer™ was to weigh breaking two laws (the one mandating kindergarten spots or the one about staffing requirements)]

She points to overall price increases in society, a shortage of bus drivers, and the transition to zero-emission buses as reasons:.

We are now transitioning to zero emissions in all public transport. That transition costs money [good luck with that: buses are one thing, esp. those in the countryside that travel longer distances; how is the de-carbonisation of ferries coming along? That should be way easier, right? Interestingly, nothing is said about that]

Fear That More People will Choose the Car

Emission-free buses are a requirement from the government [see who’s behind these cost explosions: the gov’t] and one of the measures to fulfil Norway’s climate commitments.

For every diesel bus that is replaced with an electric bus, CO2 emissions will be reduced by around 50 tonnes of CO2 per year, according to regjeringen.no [I just had a look, and, yes, the gov’t website—it’s a press release—says that, albeit without providing any evidence for this claim; it merely reads:

The government is accelerating the requirement for zero emissions in public procurement of Class I buses from 1 January 2025 to 1 January 2024. For every diesel bus replaced with an electric bus, CO2 emissions will be reduced by around 50 tonnes of CO2 per year.

So, how would NRK or the gov’t know that these reductions are a fact?.

They don’t, yet now the state broadcaster said so, hence it’s out there.

Note, further, that the press release (no. 134/23) was released on 21 Dec. 2023, and in it the gov’t announced that said emissions cut mandate was moved up and went into force less than two weeks later as of 1 Jan. 2024.

There Is No Alternative.]

In December 2023, the government, led by the Labour Party and the Centre Party, announced that the climate requirement would be accelerated [the gov’t has since disintegrated, yet these insane ordinances have not been rescinded or amended: would you require more evidence of the illusionary nature of our democracy™?].

We are completely dependent on the government following up this commitment with more money. Otherwise there will be cuts in public transport services.

That's what Terje Riis-Johansen (Senterpartiet [that would be the Centre/Agrarian Party]), Deputy County Mayor of Telemark, says.

He fears that the zero-emissions measure will instead lead to more people choosing to drive, if the result is more expensive tickets and fewer departures, adding:

It’s a huge paradox.

[NRK] You’ve known about the requirement for zero-emission buses for a while. Have you been ill-prepared?

[Riis-Johansen] No, we haven’t. We’ve seen it coming, but it’s a process that has to run its course. It has to be negotiated and assessed, and this is happening in all counties around the country right now [I suppose the gov’t arbitrarily moving up the deadline for the mandate isn’t exactly helping…]

Customers Must Bleed

NRK has been in touch with several of the country’s county mayors who express the same concern about public transport services.

In southern Norway, buses are particularly affected, while in the north, express boats and ferries are affected.

County mayors are now demanding more money [as if that kind of reaction™ will solve any of the issues with the new regulation imposing emissions-free™ buses]. They are eagerly awaiting the revised national budget for 2025, which will be presented by the Støre government on Thursday [I’ll keep you posted…].

‘We’re counting on there being something there and are in ongoing dialogue with ministers. If nothing or not enough is forthcoming, we will have to continue working on this’, says Strømøy [he’s obviously a political genius].

Many Experience Increased Costs

The government is well aware that many county councils are in a demanding financial situation, and we understand that public transport in particular is now under pressure.

This is what State Secretary Cecilie Knibe Kroglund of the Ministry of Transport and Communications wrote in an e-mail to NRK [whose journos™ present a summary here; I shall skip that and offer my translation of the full statement]:

Statement By State Secretary Cecilie Knibe Kroglund

The Government is well aware that many county councils are in a demanding financial situation, and we fully understand that public transport in particular is now under pressure [you sure do: the gov’t is the reason for this situation].

We know that many counties are experiencing increased costs related to new tenders, electrification, driver shortages, and general price increases, and in light of this, the government has already proposed several appropriation increases to strengthen the counties’ finances [oh, look, more gov’t money will further decrease the independence of local/regional gov’t].

In its consideration of the new review of the state budget for 2024 and the supplementary number to the state budget for 2025, Storting [Norway’s parliament] decided to increase discretionary spending by NOK 700 million [about US$ 70m] in 2024 and a further NOK 700 million as a permanent increase from 2025. This was in addition to the real growth of NOK 1.65 billion proposed in Prop. 1 S for 2025.

In addition, we are making targeted investments in public transport in urban areas [fine, but that’s not the issue here: the counties represent rural Norway, and most problems discussed above are found there]. In the 2025 budget, NOK 7.7 billion has been set aside for the urban growth agreements and other subsidy schemes. These funds are used for operations and investments in local public transport, helping to achieve the zero-growth target and ensure good mobility solutions in urban areas.

Emission cuts in the transport sector are central to climate policy [note the BS: transportation is a blip relative to, say, manufacturing or construction, to say nothing about the oil and gas industry or the military, for that matter]. The introduction of requirements can be an effective tool for ensuring that operators choose climate-friendly solutions when these are competitive compared with fossil-fuelled solutions [we’ve seen this before: the gov’t will make ICE cars so prohibitively expensive that people will ‘choose™ climate-friendly solutions’].

The government introduced zero-emission requirements in public procurement of city buses from 2024. Even before the government introduced this requirement, the market share for zero-emission city buses was almost 80% of sales of new city buses [so, basically, the gov’t admits that the new requirement is basically useless; they want to speed up the adoption of EV buses].

The requirements set by the government for zero-emission vehicles and ferries must be able to work in practice. Therefore, the requirements have been introduced together with a set of exemptions.

For vehicles, exemptions from the zero-emission requirement are granted if, among other things, the primary need for the procurement cannot be met by zero-emission vehicles and if sufficient charging infrastructure is not available.

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Bottom Lines

‘We’re from the government, and we’re here to help’, is not an empty threat.

What this appears to be all about is to condition the population to way higher prices for everything, bamboozle the people into acquiescence because climate, and fleece everyone.

At no point do we see that these mandates are working.

In the real world, what we see is that the gov’t agencies confirming™ that these climate regulations are working are—lying through their f***** teeth:

The Greatest Grift of All (5): Norway's Gov't Faked Energy Labels for Houses

Unless proven otherwise, I consider whatever nonsense the gov’t claims—such as the reductions of whatever amount of CO2 emissions—equally fake.

For whatever reasons, and I think this connects to the way public health™ (ahem) is run, why the secrecy? How big is the uncertainty? How integer are the data this or that is based on?

As long as there isn’t total transparency, it becomes increasingly hard, if not outright impossible, to believe anything the gov’t claims.

Yet, as long as people move along, perhaps grumble a bit or receive a few crumbs in gov’t aid for a few years, nothing will change.

Hence, the question becomes: when and how will things change?

And in these regards, my two cents are pretty straightforward: future options are delimited to the following:

• a Romanian-style revolution (1989)

• or the route travelled by the GDR in 1989/90

In other words: either sovereignty and, perhaps more importantly, accountability will be restored by whatever means—or Norway (replace with any other country) will eventually disappear in a regional system of order (the EU is the clear target here).

If you think that this fate will only befall European countries, you’re mistaken. Europe is merely at the forefront of these developments.

To conclude on a somewhat more cheerful note, I shall point to the fact that history never stops. Even if a, say, EU-spearheaded super-federation (the Galactic Republic or the like) were to emerge, there’s no guarantee that it will endure.

And out of the ashes of whatever remains, new (restored?) societies will emerge.