EESC info question: This year has been designated European Year of Rail. The main purpose of this project is to contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the European Green Deal in the field of transport, specifically focusing on the role of rail transport.
With this in mind, what is your view about a dynamic approach to increasing the use of rail transport?

Baiba Miltoviča, TEN section president

The European Union has declared this year the European Year of Rail to encourage citizens to make more use of train services in their daily lives. The main reasons that prevent people from choosing train services on a daily basis differ from one European country to another, the key reasons being uncompetitive ticket prices, a lack of comfort and connections, as well as long travel times.

Despite hopes of rail being central to the green recovery, and the 2021 European Year of Rail, EU decision-makers have made only small improvements in the last few years, and have not granted consumers strong and enforceable rights, applicable to all types of rail services across the EU. Therefore there is much work ahead of us.

For example, according to the European Consumer Organisation BEUC, when passengers buy a combined ticket sold by a railway undertaking or its 100% subsidiaries, they will benefit from passenger rights for the whole journey. This is an improvement, as currently rail operators tend to sell tickets for segments of a journey only, which allows them to bypass obligations relating to compensation, re-routing and assistance, to the detriment of passengers. However, although this is an improvement, its scope will be limited as railway undertakings will benefit from loopholes to exempt themselves from the obligations to provide through-tickets. The new rules state that affiliated undertakings must be 100% owned by the parent company to be subject to this obligation. De facto, this excludes many connected tickets (i.e. a combined journey Lyon>Paris - Paris>Brussels, respectively operated by SNCF and Thalys, will not be covered).

Regarding current national exemptions granted by Member States to rail companies, two thirds of rail services in the EU are exempt from the application of the EU passenger rights legislation, mainly suburban and regional services. These exemptions are unacceptable and a real obstacle to making train travel more attractive.

The COVID-19 crisis has shown that rail can ensure rapid transport of essential goods such as food, medicines and fuel in exceptional circumstances. The sector has been hit hard by the crisis, with passenger numbers going down substantially due to measures restricting travel. The experiences from the COVID-19 crisis must be used to develop a more resilient and effective rail system. Resilience planning needs to be adopted in close consultation with the social partners and civil society organisations.

The European Year of the Rail 2021 provides an excellent opportunity to take stock of developments up until now and set objectives for the future. In this regard, the EESC TEN section is working on an exploratory opinion at the request of the Portuguese presidency on ''The Single European Railway Area'' and is planning a conference at the EESC in the autumn of 2021.