Even free transport can’t shake Luxembourg’s love of the car

Three years after Luxembourg declared all public transport free in a bid to clear its roads of jams and cut pollution, the car is still king of the congested country.

Traffic permitting, it is barely an hour's drive from Weiswampach in the far north of Luxembourg near the German and Belgian borders to Dudelange in the south, next door to France.

So the wealthy country of just 650,000 people appeared the perfect place for a bold experiment - making public transport on trains, trams and buses free nationwide.

But Luxembourg, despite its lack of long-distance motorways, has one of the highest rates of car ownership in Europe, with only Poland exceeding its rate of 681 vehicles per 1,000 residents.

Cross-border workers bring in tens of thousands more vehicles every day as commuters head to jobs in Luxembourg, and long-distance drivers often pass by to fill their tanks in a country with low fuel taxes.