Tag: railways

The EU’s top transport official says the troubled launch of a now-suspended high-speed rail service between Brussels and Amsterdam - christened the ‘flop train’ by angry passengers - is “not our problem” despite years of efforts to encourage such premium transnational rail service.

France’s plan to merge its railway and infrastructure operations has drawn criticism and a call for the European Commission to block the move.

The British government has torn up a deal awarding one of its biggest rail franchises to a private operator, in a humiliating U-turn that raises doubts about the government's handling of the privatised railways.

It is a project of extravagant dimensions and it has been blocked for almost 20 years by a protest of epic tenacity and occasional violence.

The European Union should reconsider its “blatant bias” for costly high-speed rail networks and instead boost competitiveness and duplicate successful plane-train links, an airline trade association said yesterday (17 November).

A delay in forging new EU legislation cannot be blamed for Monday's train accident in Belgium as national railway lines remain a national competence, said Enrico Grillo-Pasquarelli, director of inland transport at the European Commission.

French railway network company RFF is currently developing a life-cycle assessment for the carbon footprint of high-speed lines. While the final study will not be published until June, it is already clear that most of their CO2 emissions are a result of deforestation related to the construction of new lines.

Railway stakeholders have welcomed European Commission plans to reduce rail freight transportation times, improve punctuality and help rail to compete with road transport. But they underlined that member states would need to show genuine political will for the proposals to be a success.

The Commission has presented plans aimed at making freight transport in the EU more efficient and sustainable, through improved logistics and by promoting a more frequent use of cleaner modes of transport such as rail and water transport.

Arduous negotiations on opening up European rail transport to competition and establishing minimum passenger rights neared an end as MEPs confirmed a compromise deal struck in June with the Council, which would allow passengers to be compensated financially for international train delays.

After nearly three years of arduous negotiations, Parliament and Council reached a breakthrough that will pave the way to opening up European rail transport markets and guaranteeing minimum passenger rights and train-driver skills. 

International passenger routes could be opened up to competition as early as 2008 and national ones as of 2012, if Parliament gets its way against a group of reluctant countries led by France.

This briefing paper by the College of Europe (Bruges, Natolin) inspects the main economic aspects of EU rail reform. After highlighting the dramatic loss of market share of rail since the 1960s, the case for reform is argued to rest on three arguments: the need for greater competitiveness of rail, promoting the (market driven) diversion of road haulage to rail as a step towards sustainable mobility in Europe, and an end to the disproportional claims on public budgets of Member States.

Under new Commission proposals, the transportation of passengers by rail should be liberalised from 2010 and the EU rail passengers would get the same level of compensation in case of delayed trains.

On 23 October, MEPs voted to open up competition on Europe's railways for freight and passenger traffic.

On 9 September, the Parliament's committee for transport discussed its position for the second reading on the Second Railway Package.

On 14 January, the European Parliament adopted the second railway package with some major amendments, concerning mainly the extensive liberalisation of the railway market and stricter safety provisions.

On 6 December, the Transport Council reached a political agreement on the Marco Polo programme, a financing instrument aimed at encouraging the modal shift in freight transport.

On 23 January, the Commission will present a communication and five new legislative proposals to revitalise the European railway industry. This so-called "second railway package" includes proposals for opening up Member States' goods transport systems to competition, new measures on rail safety and interoperability, the creation of a European Rail Agency for safety and interoperability, and the EU's membership of the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by rail (OTIF).