Barclay Davies, Bus Users Director for Wales, has been awarded an OBE (Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in The Queen’s 2022 New Year Honours list. Bus Users is one of EPF’s member organisations based in the United Kingdom. As Director for Bus Users in Wales, Barclay has facilitated over 200 events bringing passengers…
Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU-Rail) is established by Council Regulation (EU) 2021/2085 of 19 November 2021. It is the new European partnership on rail research and innovation established under the Horizon Europe programme (2020-2027) and the universal successor of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking. The vision of EU-Rail is to deliver, via an integrated system approach, a…
Thalys and Eurostar have announced the wish to merge into one company. Is this merger beneficial for passengers? In general competition is good for the consumers. EPF has seen that the competition on the HSL from Turino to Napoli in Italy has led to lower prices and more passengers. The same can be said about…
CER published a Ticketing Roadmap on 20. September. The following concrete actions are planned until 2025: More up to date timetables (available to any interested party) Being able to buy train tickets at least 6 and up to 12 months in advance More up to date tariff exchange, enabling through tickets European wide standardized API…
The EC is exploring a new initiative dealing with “multimodal digital mobility services”. Delegated Regulation (EC) 2017/1926 already covers multimodal travel information services; payment and booking will be covered by this new initiative. EPF’s feedback to the Inception Impact Assessment roadmap (submitted on 2. November) is available here. EPF welcomes the EC’s proposal for a Regulation…
On 7 October, the Connecting Europe Express reached its final destination of Paris after 36 days travelling across Europe – West to East, North to South, and visiting neighbours outside the EU. The train made more than 200 stops, crossed 26 countries and 33 borders, travelling on three different gauges along the way. The final…
Following the Covid-19 crisis, many transport companies have received state aid. The financial support of operators impacted by the crisis is certainly welcome. However, such aid should be justified so that it is not endangering competition – neither between operators, nor between modes. EPF stresses that decisions taken today must be considered in a broader, long-term…
Have you ever tried to buy a single train ticket to travel across different European countries? Most people have not. And even if they did, they would have realised that it’s much easier to book a flight between two European capital cities than the same trip with a train. It’s a pity, when you know…
Regulation (EC) N° 80/2009 on a Code of Conduct for Computerised Reservation Systems (CRS CoC) is currently being reviewed. The past months, EPF has been participating in the impact assessment study and accompanying public consultation. For EPF, this Regulation is important because it intends to safeguard consumer access to neutral and unbiased information about available…
On 25. June, Christopher Irwin, EPF Board Member, took part in a panel debate on “Unleashing rail distribution to make rail travel more attractive”. The webinar was organised by eu travel tech as part of the official European Year of Rail programme and discussed challenges and opportunities of making rail travel more accessible. Rail travel has…
For the past year, EPF has been co-chairing the International Rail Passenger (IRP) Transport Platform’s ‘mirror group’ which consists of representatives of railway undertakings (CER/ALLRAIL/UIC/CIT), infrastructure managers (EIM/CER/UIC), railway suppliers (UNIFE), passenger and consumers’ organisations (EPF/BEUC), travel companies and distributors (EU Travel Tech/ALLRAIL/ECTAA) – who are committed to developing a joint action plan/agenda to support…
The month of May brought some changes to our team, as we said farewell to our colleague Evelien, we welcomed our new team member, Katie Bulanowski, to our secretariat. Effective June 2021, Evelien Marlier has left EPF. She has been instrumental in the development of EPF for almost 5 years. Her commitment and enthusiasm will…