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THE INTEGRATION OF AIR AND RAIL TRANSPORT IN EUROPE

In many European cities the different modes of public transport (suburban train, underground railway, tram and bus) are integrated into one system. This has the effect that any journey can be made with the optimum combination of modes, and generally on one fare, without each mode having to provide a continuity of service. This situation has not been extended to long distance interurban transport: air, rail and bus are generally operating as completely separate systems. The competitiveness of rail transport versus air has been influenced to an important extent by the introduction of high speed trains. With running speeds of 300 Km/h a train can give comparable city to city timings as air on distances up to 800 km. At the same time, traffic congestion at and around airports has made travelling by air less reliable. While a growing number of European airports is directly served by national and international long distance trains, the two modes operate completely separately, apart from a few examples: the Lufthansa airport express in Germany and some arrangements in Switzerland. There will certainly be scope for extending these systems, both by actually replacing short distance air services by trains and by making combined use of both modes easier and cheaper. The integration of air and rail is particularly important for so-called main ports or hubs, where long distance flights leave and arrive from any directions, and passengers can change from and to short distance flights. Both for capacity and environmental reasons, and in view of quality of service, it would be efficient to replace some of these flights by trains. A number of organisational and commercial conditions are essential in order to make this arrangement feasible, and these are developed in detail in the paper. Also, an indication is given of the traffic relations involved. Other arrangements will be necessary for freight. For practical reasons (local time) passenger trains can take only a limited number of small consignments. However, it is possible to operate dedicated goods trains between European airports, even high speed trains, when this is justified by volume. When some parcels carriers are able to operate large aircraft on busy routes for their exclusive use, it will also be possible to fill a train. Finally, the policy plan for the development of Schiphol, the airport of Amsterdam, is presented: the realisation of high speed rail links and the integration of air and rail are seen as prerequisites for the future growth of this airport. (A) For the covering abstract of the seminar see IRRD 853647.