Free tickets for passengers of train stuck in tunnel for two hours

Passengers trapped in a crowded underground train for two hours in Vienna will receive nothing but tickets worth less than 30 Euros as compensation by the city’s public transport agency.Answer Lang, a spokesman for Wiener Linien announced today (Thurs) that the company had decided to offer the eight-day rider tickets costing 28.80 Euros to the affected customers, but dismissed calls to compensate them financially.Lang said: “Passengers who can prove having suffered financial damage during the ‘imprisonment’ are asked to get in touch with us.”Around 250 passengers were locked in the U4 line train in a tunnel near Schottenring station after a power cut between 2pm and 4pm on Tuesday. According to Viennese public transport agency Wiener Linien’s error management guidelines, the evacuation of a faulty train must not take longer than 15 minutes.Lang said he was not aware of customers preparing to press charges against Wiener Linien over the recent incident.The Wiener Linien official, who explained yesterday that a “mistake in company-internal communication” forced the passengers to remain in train on Tuesday, said today that a technical error caused the electricity failure.”A set of measures has been agreed upon at a crisis meeting yesterday. These reforms rule out that a similar incident will occur again,” he added.The stuck underground was eventually hauled out of the tunnel by a diesel-powered engine.