The European rail system is one of the means of transportation that has not been updated over the past decade. It is still difficult to book a ticket in another country and make the true European journey workable. France could take a leading role in changing that, but it needs to act quickly and to bring some innovative and collaborative ideas to the table.

The railway sector in France has once proven its capacity to innovate, particularly by taking over airlines’ shares on national short-distance market. Today, it has to innovate again if it wants to be able to play a role in the important task of linking European capitals and European citizens.

The stakes are high: the ability to connect major cities, business hubs and cultural centers within few travelling hours; making transportation CO2 contribution lower; and lowering truck density on European highways with a modern and more integrated freight system.

Besides the Eurostar, Thalys, Lyria and Artesia consortiums, that are pure Western European projects (think of Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam Geneva), there are no other examples of high-speed plans to link other European capitals (Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, and many more). However, we are at a time where the whole European territory needs to be well connected with a true European grid of high-speed trains.

Inter-operability is crucial in the development of a European railway system and has to come with a technical and financial consensus between countries. But this is not so easy to do in practice. For instance, airlines of the world are very well connected and have more or less the same booking system and the same operating rules. This is not the case for railway systems that are still nationally based and come very few harmonized standards.

In order to make things more efficient European railway companies have recently joined their efforts to create Railteam in 2007, an alliance between the main European railway companies. They have defined priorities and a strategy, but again there is no one to implement programs and make things work. The alliance announced in 2009 that it would begin to work on a pan-European ticketing system, but the complexity of national systems and the cost of the project stopped every effort.

The European Union is too slow to move on this topic, and it could take more than a decade to see tangible results for a high-speed Europe. In addition, we have to make a clear distinction between the passenger rail market and the freight market: they use the same railway lines but are functioning with different business models, implying different metrics and competitors.

In this context, it could be easy for the United-States and China to catch up with Europe. Both countries have more political capabilities (single economic areas, with huge scales) and space (large transit roads in the US and large rural areas in China). In fact, high-speed train once defined Europe, but it could loose this competitive advantage very quickly over newcomers.

Europeans have to work together in order to improve its railway system. France could take a leadership role, but is not ready to give up in the European rail battle. It has recently tried to block a deal made with a German company for trains designed to renew the Eurostar fleet on the grounds that these trains would not meet safety rules. It claimed that France’s rival company Alstom builds safer trains.

Hence, suddenly the French woke up and realized that they were not alone in Europe to be able to build high-speed trains and get international contracts. This could change the way we see the future of the European rail system: more industrial partnerships involving more than just one major key player.

William Spac

Membre des Cabris de l’Europe

Link, added 18 Dec 2010: le TGV va passer sous les Pyrénées dimanche

Link, added 23 Dec 2010: Despite Economic Woes, Spain Continues Investments in Trains

(retour à l'accueil | haut de page)

partager :