On Tuesday, 21 June the Dutch Ministry for Infrastructure and Environment and Train2EU hosted a sector summit on international passenger rail services during the TEN-T days at the Van Nelle fabriek in Rotterdam.
Erasing Borders
The aim of the afternoon was to bring together innovators, front-runners and actors from across the rail sector who are working to make cross-border travel by train as easy as possible for passengers. In interactive sessions, we identified challenges and opportunities to accelerate the next steps to create a more seamless travel experience for passengers.
Benelux countries and Germany take the initiative
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Before the Passenger Rail Summit, ministers from Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany signed a joint statement, announcing closer co-operation and calling for new ways to organise cross-border travel for passengers. State secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment mrs. Sharon Dijksma announced the joint statement in her opening speech at the Passenger Rail Summit and called on railway businesses to really pout passengers first, open up, co-operate and 'think outside the box'.
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Railway businesses: welcome initiative, but more is needed
A business panel debate moderated by Rogier Elshout welcomed the initiative and ambition of State Secretary Dijksma and expressed their agreement that co-operation is key. At the same time, more is required, although opinions are divided. Keith Bastow of the European Passenger Transport Operators acknowledged that the railway sector is 'a dinosaur when it comes to putting passengers first', but stressed that public investment in rail is still required. Libor Lochman of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure companies (CER) agreed that enough quality and capacity of infrastructure are needed. Gareth Williams of Eurostar asked for political sponsorship for passenger rail, to which Nick Brooks of Captain Train agreed that it is up to government to create a level playing field between rail and other long-distance transport modes. Marjon Kaper of NS International highlighted the fact that railway companies are already offering good customer services to passenger, but the sector needs to up its game.
New energy for international train travel
Next, a round table interview revealed an exciting amount of initiatives that are being taken to make international train travel easier for passengers.
Royal Haskoning DHV presented surprising news: their research has shown that approximately 25% more passengers can be transported by rail, even without building additional infrastructure capacity. Plenty of opportunities of course, as long as the European rail network becomes less fragmented. The preliminary results are available at www.train2eu.org/research. Royal Haskoning DHV and Train2EU call upon all interested parties to contribute and flesh out the data from the first results. “There is yet still much to research to fully understand the wishes of the international passenger and here collaboration contributes best to these goals,” says Geertje Hegeman, associate director sustainable mobility at Royal Haskoning DHV.
Royal Haskoning DHV presented surprising news: their research has shown that approximately 25% more passengers can be transported by rail, even without building additional infrastructure capacity. Plenty of opportunities of course, as long as the European rail network becomes less fragmented. The preliminary results are available at www.train2eu.org/research. Royal Haskoning DHV and Train2EU call upon all interested parties to contribute and flesh out the data from the first results. “There is yet still much to research to fully understand the wishes of the international passenger and here collaboration contributes best to these goals,” says Geertje Hegeman, associate director sustainable mobility at Royal Haskoning DHV.
Putting new initiatives in the spotlight
Travel Information Group 9292 announced their ambition to develop a travel information app to service all of Europe. "We're very good at servicing national passengers and making their life easier, but we need to start looking across the border," said director Stefan Hulman. Together with Arco Groothedde of TransLink Systems, he is looking to integrate payment and travel information into one good service.
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Helmut and Lasse Brall of Rail Travel Shop already help passengers find their tickets, but wants to make this even easier. Which is why Lasse Brall is setting up Happy Rail, an online tool that makes booking any train in the world as easy as booking an airplane. The beta-version will be launched over the summer.
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Fleur Gräper of the province of Groningen in the North of the Netherlands explained how her region closely co-operates with their German neighbours in Niedersachsen. This co-operation doesn't stop at the political level, but involves businesses, city councils and service providers as well. The success of this is visible in the Wunderline, a train line and ticketing scheme connecting the two regions together.
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The provinces of Limburg and Noord-Brabant, bordering on Belgium and the German state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, are also co-operating closely. Their ambition: Eurekarail, a train connection crossing two borders, connecting the three cities of Liège (Belgium), Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Aachen (Germany). Mike Lücker of the province of Limburg explained that a lot of details still needed to be ironed out, but negotiations are underway.
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Susanne Auinger of project MASAI offered help to Eurekarail with a platform, enabling anyone to create apps and services for passengers. Any type of service can be made possible by exchanging information on real-time time-tables, facilities at train stations, payment, ticketing, or connecting public transport services.
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The European Travellers Club can also help by bringing together the different payment systems that exist for trains and other forms of public transport across countries. Roel Testroote explains that it is a relatively simple matter to bring all different services together in an online cloud. NFC-chips in your bank card, OV-chipcard or even your mobile phone help identify you and any subscriptions you have anywhere in Europe.
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David Eerdmans and David Kramer then explained that Train2EU will work to create a platform bringing all these initiatives together with research, governments, passengers and the existing railway business. 'Governance is a key issue here, because there are real challenges in matching different levels of government, transport authorities and even cultures,' said David Eerdmans.
The passengers panel were quite critical in choosing the winner of the first Erasing Borders award.
Happy Rail wins the first Train2EU Erasing Borders award
Next, the jury of experienced passengers had the final word. They applauded all the initiatives that were pitched and felt encouraged to learn that so many have passengers' interests at heart. They awarded Happy Rail with the very first Train2EU Erasing Borders award. “This makes international train travel far easier and simpler for passengers, and that is what we of course want to achieve,” said jury chair Elmer van Buuren. Happy Rail director Lasse Brall: “I’m thrilled to receive this award and I invite everyone here to work together with us to continually improve Happy Rail,” said Brall.
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It's only getting started!
We wrapped up the Passenger Rail Summit with (literally) a 6m by 3m shared picture of the way forward. Hellen van Dongen, director of public transport and rail at the Dutch ministry of Infrastructure and Environment, expressed her excitement of everything that is already being achieved. She invited everyone to gather again in a year to exchange all the progress that has been made and to scale up.
On the mega-drawing, Train2EU has been drawn as the engine in front of all the carriages with great ideas and opinions. This is how Train2EU will bring forward a platform where innovators, researchers, businesses, governments and passengers will continue meeting.
On the mega-drawing, Train2EU has been drawn as the engine in front of all the carriages with great ideas and opinions. This is how Train2EU will bring forward a platform where innovators, researchers, businesses, governments and passengers will continue meeting.
