More ‘through fares' this year
Eurostar is set to increase its ticketing partnership with other European rail companies including high speed operators from this year.
Richard Brown, Eurostar's ceo, told a press conference today new ‘through fares' would make ‘greener' train travel easier to more European destinations.
Mr Brown announced plans to work more closely with Dutch train operator NS when it begins its high speed service between Amsterdam and Brussels next year.
"We're steadily extending the ability to travel using more than one train company to get to destinations, and we're seeing strong growth as a result," Mr Brown said.
From June this year, Eurostar customers will be able to buy tickets from the UK to destinations in Switzerland.
The new tickets will result in more high speed European destinations for Eurostar customers, putting further pressure on airlines both in terms of service and emissions.
Mr Brown today revealed the results of a Eurostar environmental report and its efforts to reduce emissions.
Mr Brown said: "We are seeing passengers switch from plane to train. We estimate, in the last year alone, those that passengers that have switched have saved 40,000 tonnes of CO2, which is very close to our emissions in a year."
Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins told the press conference that high speed rail was "the best alternative to flying."
"Research suggests that the average journey to the continent by Eurostar only takes one tenth of the emissions of the equivalent journey by air," he said.
"Anybody serious about reducing CO2 emissions has to be thinking about getting people off planes and on to trains."
But Eurostar's emissions are expected to increase this year as the recession lessens demand resulting in more CO2 per passenger, Mr Brown admitted.
"We do expect to go backwards a bit, but because we have exceeded our target already we've actually raised it further and set ourselves the goal of reducing our emissions per passenger by 35% by 2012," he said.
www.eurostar.com