Seven high speed rail operators in Western Europe have joined forces to create Railteam in order to facilitate seamless travel across their networks.
Eurostar UK, Germany”s Deutsche Bahn, France”s SNCF, Belgium”s SNCB, The Netherlands” NS Hispeed, Austria”s ”BB, Switzerland”s SBB and subsidiaries Thalys, Lyria and Alleo, are all involved in the scheme, which now enables travellers who miss their rail connection to board the next available train regardless of ticket type.
With increasing pressure for environmentally friendly travel, Eurostar says it is seeing an exceptional rise in travellers making connecting rail, rather than air bookings, with an increase of 39% in the first quarter of 2007.
Eurostar has also commissioned research that shows even time-conscious business travellerers are willing to travel up to four hours on rail, due to the potential of increased productivity in comparison with air travel.
”Eurostar is already seeing UK travellers moving to rail from air because of their concerns about climate change and recent problems at UK airports,” said Eurostar CEO, Richard Brown. ”For the first time ever we can now promote and sell Europe”s high speed rail network as an integrated whole.”
Railteam will introduce a phased rollout of a number of initiatives that include multi-lingual information on board trains and in stations (initially Brussels, Cologne, Lille, Frankfurt and Stutgart and later London, Paris, Strasbourg and Amsterdam), ensuring travellers know when, where and how to connect to other services.
Member operators are also investing ”30m (”20.3m) in a new distribution system, due to be rolled out in 2009, that will allow international rail travellers to book seamless tickets throughout the combined network from each member website.
When a UK traveller wishes to book a ticket from London to Frankfurt, for example, they will be able to book a complete itinerary via the Eurostar UK website; likewise for German travellers booking via the Deutsche Bahn website, French passengers through SNCF.com and so on.
Eurostar head of press, Lesley Retallack, told ABTN: ”It is a very complicated process as it involves the IS (internet solution) or IT departments from each company combining their distribution systems, but we are working together to provide seamless rail travel as the high speed network continues to grow.”
Retallack also highlighted that through interlining agreements with domestic UK rail operators, Eurostar will offer seamless ticketing not only from its Waterloo and soon-to-be St Pancras hubs, but from any UK station. ”Customers will be able to book a journey from Manchester or Brighton for travel on Eurostar and onwards to other high speed operators," she said.
Other future initiatives include developing technology to provide text messaging about timetables and service disruptions to each passenger who may be affected.
