mining sector is employing fewer people. Industrial heritage sites are now workplaces for designers, artists and the advertising industry. The Ruhr region has – since the 1960s – undergone a significant structural change away from coal mining and steel industry. Many rural parts of Eastern Westphalia, Bergisches Land and the Lower Rhine ground their economy on "Hidden Champions" in various sectors. As of June 2014, the unemployment rate is 8.2%, second highest among all western German states. In October 2018 the unemployment rate stood at 6.4% and was higher than the national average. Transport With its central location in the most important European economic area, high population density, strong urbanization and numerous business locations, North Rhine-Westphalia has one of the densest transport networks in the world. Regional rail network The regional rail network is organised around the main in towns in Rhein-Ruhr: Bonn, Cologne, Wuppertal, Düsseldorf, Essen and Dortmund. Some public transport companies in this region are run under the umbrella of the Verkehrsverbund Rhein-Ruhr, which provides a uniform ticket system valid for the entire area. The Ruhr region is well-integrated into the national rail system, the Deutsche Bahn, for both passenger and goods services, each city in the region has at least one or more train stations. The bigger central stations have hourly direct connections to the bigger European cities as Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Vienna or Zürich. The Rhein-Ruhr area also contains some of the longest tram system in the world, with tram and Stadtbahn services from Witten to Krefeld in the VRR zone and Cologne to Bad Honnef and Siegburg via Bonn within the VRS zone. Besides the local public transportation there is an interconnected commuter rail network, with the Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn network serving the Ruhr area as well as Düsseldorf and the S-Bahn Köln serving the area around Cologne. , the VRR network alone consists of 978 lines, of which there are: in regional rail transit 11 S-Bahn lines (see: Rhine-Ruhr S-Bahn) 15 RegionalExpress lines (see: List of regional railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia) 24 RegionalBahn lines (see: List of regional railway lines in North Rhine-Westphalia) in local rail transit 19 Stadtbahn light rail lines (see: Rhine-Ruhr Stadtbahn) 45 tram (Straßenbahn) lines 1 Schwebebahn line (in Wuppertal) 2 H-Bahn peoplemover systems made up of three lines (two H-Bahn lines in Dortmund, and the Düsseldorf SkyTrain at Düsseldorf airport) in bus transit 906 bus lines, including 33 express