A new report has called on European countries to seize the opportunity to boost European rail services in order to meet the EU’s goal of being climate neutral by 2050.
The report, Hop on the train: A Rail Renaissance for Europe, says a strengthened European rail system could better connect people and businesses in Europe, reduce transport emissions by creating alternative options to road transport and aviation, and give a green boost to the European economy post-Covid-19.
However, there are many challenges to getting such services operating, it says.
Of the 365 cross-border rail links that once existed, 149 were non-operational in 2018, and today not even all European capital cities are linked by direct rail services, the report says.
“Most rail services stop at the border, or end just on the other side of the border. Travellers often need to change trains several times to get from one capital to the other,” the authors write.
The idea of resurrecting cross-border Trans Europe Express (TEE) services that were popular in the 1960s and 1970s is given much credence in the report and follows the German government’s launch of a TEE 2.0 strategy in September 2020.
The report's authors recommend launching new direct services on a test route such as between Warsaw and Paris or between Amsterdam and Barcelona.
The report calls on the EU to require rail operators to share all necessary data for easy booking of international rail trips. It says that currently “rail operators are reluctant to share all the necessary data with other operators or with independent ticket vendors”.
The authors points out that it is currently impossible to book a ticket from Frankfurt to Barcelona online and different operators provide different information on the services available.
The EU also needs to establish rules to guarantee that international rail passengers arrive at their final destination and can hop on the next train in case of missed train connections, the authors say.
“Rail passengers often need to buy individual tickets from different rail operators for a multi-leg journey – and under current rules passengers bear the risk if a connection is missed.”
The report has been produced by the Europe on Rail network, which brings together a number of environmental organisations from Poland, Germany, France, Spain and Brussels.