Rail managers pledge to work on easier, cheaper train travel through Europe
Booking a cheap train journey through Europe is quite the challenge. Cheap tickets are swooped up months ahead, and then you still have to navigate the intricacies of the different rail systems in each country. At a trade fair in Utrecht, European rail companies came together to strengthen ties and exchange innovations, pledging to make train travel through Europe easier and cheaper.
Travelers want to buy a ticket and know that they’ll get from point A to B without issue, but carriers still fall short there, Alexander Molendijk of the rail website SpoorPro told NOS. For example, what happens if one train is delayed? “If you transfer, you just have to hope the other train is still there,” Molendijk said. “There should really be a single, all-in-one package for European train tickets for travellers, so you don't have to shop around with different carriers.”
“Even I sometimes have a bit of a search,” Jeroen Wesdorp, the program manager of international rail traffic at ProRail, told NOS about booking an affordable train trip that crosses member states. “We don’t have any real discounters on the rail network yet,” he said.
He hopes that will change soon, with several new train companies that have signed up to create new international connections, often connecting with local rail services. “With few seats, the price will be high to generate good revenue for carriers,” Wesdorp said. “But with more trains, there will be more choice.”
And most rail networks in Europe are up for taking on extra train traffic, according to Wesdorp. “Only in Eastern Europe do you still have the old Soviet gauge. But all new rail projects there meet European requirements. This also applies to those in Spain and Portugal.” Innovations, like the European safety system ERTMS that tracks which trains are running where and at what speed, also allow more trains to run on the same stretch of track per hour.
Even the already busy Dutch railways have capacity available, ProRail believes. “With the current infrastructure, we can accommodate twice as many trains as we currently have. That’s possible int eh sort term. I think within three to five years,” Wesdorp said. “It can be done with rail investments that are already planned.”
He mentioned the extension of the Noord-Zuid subway line in Amsterdam. “That’s good for travelers in the Amsterdam region and Schiphol, of course. But with this metro, we can also free up track space for intercity and international trains.”
“There are more examples like this,” Wesdorp said. “There are often calls for more high-speed lines. But fundamentally, we have good infrastructure. We need to use it more intelligently.”
And at the trade fair, the rail companies promised to do just that.
