30 December 2018 | Railway Gazette International FUTURE RAIL Missing Links How to restore Europe’s missing border links SIMON MAARFIELD MSC Transport Planning & Policy, KCW GmbH, Berlin ver fewer direct connections, rapidly disappearing night trains and routes that have lost all their passenger servic- es. No trains between the capital cities ofE neighbouring Baltic countries, poor connections on the French-Spanish frontier and long detours to cross the Slovak border by rail, to name but a few issues. Yes, the picture with regard to cross-border passenger train services in Photo: Simon Maarfield Europe really does look bleak. This negative outlook has sparked A study for the European Commission finds that reinstating international several initiatives to raise awareness of services across borders may not be as difficult or as expensive as the situation and to seek improvements, not least the ‘Missing Links’ campaign previously thought. in 2015 promoted by the Greens/Euro- pean Free Alliance group in the Euro- A cross-border the status of all current and former rail and spring 2018 and has since been service to Wien and 1 pean Parliament. This was spearheaded Payerbach-Reichenau border crossings within the EU and published by the EU Commission. It by the former Chairman of the Trans- calls at Břeclav in EFTA. With pressure on the Euro- is divided into three parts: the Czech Republic. port & Tourism Committee, Michael As well as regional pean Commission growing, in spring • the preparation of an inventory of all Cramer MEP. operations, the 2017 the Directorate-General for Re- existing and former cross-border rail- The campaign, largely directed at the station is also served gional & Urban Policy commissioned way lines between the EU and EFTA by long-distance European Commission, examined 98 EuroCity, Railjet, a study from KCW and its project member states, including their clas- dismantled or otherwise closed regional RegioJet and night partners: Comprehensive Analysis of the sification as Missing Links (railway cross-border routes, singling out 15 as trains. Existing Cross-Border Rail Transport border crossings where the infra- potential candidates for reactivation. Connections and Missing Links on the structure is no longer operational) or The campaigners believed these would Internal EU Borders. The rest of this Promising Links (inadequately served represent both much better value for article discusses work carried out as infrastructure); money and offer greater potential for so- part of the study, highlights its find- • analysis of possible new services on cial cohesion than TEN-T level mega- ings and analyses its recommendations Missing Links and Promising Links projects. These routes were subsequently Fig 1. The study for action. in relation to potential demand, eco- divided Europe’s 365 reviewed in State of Play of Cross-Border rail border crossings nomic feasibility and political inter- Railway Sections in Europe, a report pub- into operational and Scope of work est, leading to a shortlist of the Po- lished by the Directorate-General for non-operational. The study covered the 26 EU mem- tentially Most Beneficial Projects for Only 156 carried Mobility & Transport in 2016. regular passenger ber states with rail networks plus Liech- further detailed examination; Until recently, however, there had services in the 2017 tenstein, Norway and Switzerland. It • the formulation of broader policy been no comprehensive assessment of timetable. was carried out between summer 2017 recommendations. Cross-border lines classified The first part of the study docu- mented a total of 365 railway border crossings which, based on the 2017 pas- senger timetable and local sources with regard to freight traffic, were classified as shown in Fig 1. The crossings and their broad classifications are shown on the map in Fig 2. In 2017 there were 156 border cross- ings with regular passenger services, representing 43% of the total or 77% of operational lines. However, when the quality of passenger services relative to the importance of the route was ex- amined, only 57 routes were deemed to Railway Gazette International | December 2018 31 Missing Links FUTURE RAIL have an adequate level of service, classi- substantially, a situation that has been Possible new services fied as Fully Exploited. exacerbated by the substitution of long- In the second part of the study, the A further 81 routes were classified as distance international services by re- classic four-step demand forecasting Exploited with Shortcomings, meaning gional trains that end at the border. model was used to construct a pan- that either speed or service frequency Examples include the border between European origin-destination matrix of were inadequate. Another 18 routes Austria and the Czech Republic at potential rail demand. This was then were designated Not Fully Exploited, České Velenice, Lichkov on the Czech- assigned to each border crossing with indicating that both speed and fre- Polish border and Forst on the border passenger services on a ‘theoretically quency were of such a low standard between Germany and Poland. fastest route’ basis. Missing Links and that services were unattractive and All this suggests that significant freight-only lines were then individual- potential demand was unlikely to be improvements to cross-border connec- ly ‘opened’ within the model to estimate satisfied. Freight-only and Not Fully tivity by rail may well be possible with- potential demand. These estimates were Exploited border crossings were then out major infrastructure investment. then compared with regionally differ- classified as Promising Links for further Taking one example, only two of nine entiated threshold levels of minimum analysis. operational routes between Hungary demand to warrant reactivation or im- These figures led to the first major and Slovakia carried passenger services provement. If a route met or exceeded finding of the study, namely that miss- in 2017, despite historic close ties be- the threshold, it was shortlisted for fur- ing infrastructure is not the only reason tween the countries and the significant ther analysis. for a lack of passenger services. Almost Hungarian-speaking population in The 38 routes in the initial shortlist a quarter of the operational lines are southern Slovakia. were then assessed as follows: freight-only, while about one-third have A total of 176 Missing Links and • an outline passenger service concept extremely poor or no regular passenger Promising Links were identified for sub- was developed on the basis of esti- services. sequent analysis in the second step of the mated demand potential and typical Adding in those lines classified as ex- study. The inventory also shows that 143 regional service standards, exploit- ploited with shortcomings, 72% of the of these do not lie on the TEN-T Net- ing synergies with existing services operational routes could be described work, to which the EU’s rail funding has and rolling stock utilisation wherever as having an inadequate level of service. so far been almost entirely focused. possible; This may well be an underestimate, as Fact sheets, including maps and in- • infrastructure requirements to en- the study did not differentiate between formation on the history, ownership, Fig 2. This map able operation of the proposed cross-border routes served by through operational status, technical data and shows the location service were examined and costed trains and those with trains that start bodies responsible for procuring pas- of Europe’s rail by KCW’s project partner Royal border crossings and or end at a border station. Forcing senger services, were produced for all their classification HaskoningDHV; cross-border passengers to change border crossings other than those clas- according to the • annual operating costs and farebox trains reduces the attractiveness of rail sified as redundant.2 study. revenues were estimated, excluding 32 December 2018 | Railway Gazette International FUTURE RAIL Missing Links rolling stock procurement, leasing ALPINE INITIATIVE and depreciation; in the short-term almost all lines could be served by MI.CO.TRA points the way legacy rolling stock held by incum- Following the withdrawal of all daytime passenger facilitate day-to-day cross-border travel in the bent railway undertakings. trains between Villach in Austria and Udine in Italy region. More recently, services have been extended Even though rolling stock costs were in December 2009, the Italian autonomous region at weekends to and from the regional capital excluded, the analysis revealed that of Friuli-Venezia Giulia launched the MI.CO.TRA Trieste. Co-funding through the Interreg A project project in 2012 with the aim of re-establishing CONNECT2CE covers a substantial part of the operating most of the cross-border routes exam- passenger services. MI.CO.TRA stands for costs of the extension for a period of one year. ined were unlikely to be self-sufficient MIglioramento dei COllegamenti TRAnsfrontalieri, Again, it is hoped that services will thrive and that and would therefore need an ongoing meaning improvement in cross-border links. the difference between costs and fares revenue can operating subsidy. This finding is con- The chosen funding vehicle was Interreg A, a be bridged once the EU funding ceases. sistent with the statistic provided by the European Regional Development Fund programme Domestic passengers in Italy also benefit from that supports co-operation between neighbouring the extension, with MI.CO.TRA trains providing Independent Regulators’ Group – Rail regions separated by national borders. A services on the Udine – Cervignano line that was that 83% of passenger train-km in Eu- partnership was established with the Austrian Land previously closed on Saturday afternoons and rope fall under Public Service Obliga- of Kärnten, Austrian national operator ÖBB, which Sundays. In addition, further travel opportunities tions, which for the most part means provided the rolling stock, and Friuli-Venezia were provided in summer 2018 by extending they are publicly funded and that mini- Giulia’s in-house operator FUC, which supplied domestic S-Bahn services in Kärnten to and the multi-system locomotives required.