2009-03-14

Annual report 2008

Introduction

How can public transport be improved and developed for present and potential customers in Europe? It is a large task, but also an interesting task, which the European Passengers' Federation and its member associations have endeavoured to fulfil during the course of 2008.

Our Federation now comprises 27 members in 16 European countries plus 2 associate members, after we accepted as members the Railway Passengers' Association of Finland.

Our sixth Annual General Meeting and Conference in London was a great success with some 70 delegates who listened to, and discussed with, five important speakers including for the first time the European Commissioner for Transport. We published and distributed a report which we also posted on our website along with a growing number of documents which are evidence of our activities and explain our opinions.

The Administrative Council met in Basle, Brussels and Paris, while the officers met once in Brussels and almost every month for a teleconference.

Activities

1. We receive with increasing frequency invitations to conferences and our representatives have given presentations on train interiors, passengers' rights, high speed rail, safety and how to make stations more user-friendly.
2. We have continued meetings with the European Commission, International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and Community of European Railways, as well as the international operators Eurostar and Thalys. New contacts have also been made with the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the operators Lyria, Cisalpino and Rheinalp.
3. The implementation of the European regulation on Rail Passengers' Rights commenced in 2008. Therefore EPF and its member associations wrote to politicians in many countries. At the end of the year, the rights of bus and coach passengers were published and we have started to study these and make our comments.
4. Our submission on the Green Paper on Sustainable Urban Mobility appeared in March. Our response to the consultative document on Integrated Rail/Air Ticketing appeared in September. We also sent a delegate to a conference on this topic in October.
5. Some members of our affiliated associations took part in the Salzburg Transport Conference in October - a very interesting event with presentations and discussion on public transport and tourism.
6. We studied the passenger charters of many train and bus operators - an example of our co-operation with UITP.
7. European Bus Systems of the Future - this is another UITP project in which we have shown our interest. We hope to contribute our ideas and comments on it.
8. The second edition of our report Journeys without Borders is due to appear in 2009. We have already done a lot of preparation for it, monitoring and collecting information on developments and good practice, but also on problems still to be resolved.
9. Our co-operation with the European Rail Agency, European Rail Research Advisory Council and Rail Market Monitoring Scheme has continued. For example, we have discussed the accidents in Bulgaria and we have pursued the telematics project.
10. To inform everyone of our activities, we published and distributed issues 3 and 4 of our electronic bulletin.

Issues

1. Where do I buy my train ticket? That is a question which has given us some concern, thanks to a trend of limiting the role of traditional booking offices, especially for international tickets. The internet must have a role, of course, in the sale of tickets; but there are also transactions where customers want to discuss with a person or at least with a human voice. This is a problem which we have discussed and an area in which it would be productive to undertake research.
2. Fast trains should gain customers from short-haul flights - but for that we need to have high-speed rail lines and therefore we have followed with interest the progress of TENs. We have however also expressed concern that priority for freight on certain routes could have an negative effect on passenger trains. This is a possible problem to be considered, because we want to see rail playing a role in both passenger and freight transport.
3. In our Annual Report for 2007 we welcomed Railteam - a team of several high speed train operators which should make international journeys easier. There is now a brochure, and the operators mention this team in their publicity; but during 2009 we hope to see more progress of a practical nature for customers.
4. It is excellent to travel fast by train from city centre to city centre - but the high speed train is often a link in a journey chain. That is why it is important for the trip at each end of the journey to be easy - for example, through the possibility of buying urban transport tickets on the high speed train. The trend is now apparent in Eurostar, Thalys and certain TGVs. There are other methods, such as harmonisation of urban transport vehicles, tickets and smartcards, which could be tried out, or tickets to zonal destinations.
5. Nowadays technology gives motorists the chance of navigating by satellite. And public transport customers? For them such systems should also be developed. Then it will be possible to find out how to do one's door to door journey as much as possible by bus, tram, underground and train. There already exist some programmes or websites in certain countries - but for Europe as a whole? This is a possible project for the next few years.
6. Let us also remember the work already done with the Green Paper on Sustainable Urban Mobility. We await developments and innovations in the coming years and we want to play a role in spreading information about good practice.

Conclusion

Following our experiences, changing circumstances and new developments, we reviewed the manifesto which we drew up in 2002/3. The EPF Council has added some extra paragraphs but has not changed very much - for the principles which we had adopted six years ago remain the same: to commit ourselves to the interests of public transport users so that trains, buses and urban public transport play a more extensive role in Europe.

I thank all colleagues who have contributed to our discussions, our research and communicating our views during 2008.

Trevor Garrod
Chairman