Program

Vittorio Carta, FSM
Full Service Model (FSM) is a rail distribution industry initiative launched in 2013 aiming at developing an Open IT Specification und enables B2B data messages exchange along the online distribution value chain
FSM relies on and goes upon European regulation regarding distribution and ticketing (e.g. TAP-TSI), complements costly individual bilateral IT-solutions between distributors and rail service providers.
FSM follows a step-wise approach, i.e. it focuses on rail products in the beginning so as to manage complexity und considers at the same time the context of multi-modality and allows, future enhancements in the direction of other modes of transport
The distribution initiative Full Service Model (FSM) is the UNIQUE CURRENT EXAMPLE OF A COMBINED RAIL DISTRIBUTION SECTOR (RAILWAYS AND TICKET VENDORS TOGETHER!) RESPONSE to the need for an open, plug-and-play IT framework for the distribution of rail passenger services.
FSM allows operators to best manage commercial business and customer interfaces in an (intermodal) ticketing world.
FSM offers the railway undertakings a means of compliance with the requirements of the Directive 2016/2370 to establish EU-wide through-ticketing systems that needs to be fulfilled by 2021, a deadline set in the fourth railway package.
Current FSM specifications, available since end of 2016, are written in SOAP. The migration of the FSM specifications to JSON/REST into the so called “FSM 2.0”-specifications has been approved in 2019.
To recapitulate: the scope is to have a JSON/REST-based FSM API which can be implemented and tested easily. The mid-term goal of FSM 2.0 is a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP) by mid-2020 the latest, available for railways and ticket vendors to implementing / “consuming” it.

Begoña Delicado, TSGA
TSGA (TAP TSI Services Governance Association) was set up in December 2016 by DB, Trenitalia and SNCF Mobilités, as founding members, in order to build the TAP TSI regulatory services and make them available for rail stakeholders, as stated in the TAP TSI Regulation.

Begoña Delicado, TSGA
The TSGA constitutes one of the key milestones towards fully implementing the Regulation, acting as an enabler of rail businesses to step further in the field of digitalization.
Moreover, TSGA will improve the ultimate benefit of European rail travelers, by ensuring to European actors in the railway sector including ticket distributors, that basic ticketing related information are widely provided, thus indirectly, make it available to travelers in an easier way.
In particular, this will be achieved by providing access to all TAP TSI Stakeholders (Railway Undertakings and rail ticket distributors) to the following regulatory services:
• Registry Data service. It indicates where to find all types of resources requested by TAP regulation, such as timetables, fares, reservation system, public keys for print@home tickets and notifies about any changes for those resources.
• Reference Data service. It provides standardized location information and code lists for rail stations in the European Union.
• Data Quality Management service. It is a tool aiming to control the format quality of the data available in the Registry Data and in the Reference Data services.
All the above functions are related to ticketing, aiming at improving the data exchange among passenger Railway Undertakings, and between passenger Railway Undertakings and third parties, ultimately providing travellers with higher quality information.
After months of intensive work, the TSGA regulatory services were officially implemented in August 2019 and made available for TSGA members since September 2019 and to all interested stakeholders as from October 2019.
TSGA counts with 6 members now with DSB, NS, SBB, and is looking forward for other European rail stakeholders to join the association.
All the information about the terms and conditions of the license is available at TSGA web site https://tsga.eu.

Benefits of Shift2Rail and lessons learnt/UNIF vision of the potential new rail EU institutional PPP with Horizon Europe/Role of ERRAC and contribution of the European rail supply industry

Investments in high-speed railways are very costly for project promoters-tax payers and need very long times for any return on investments. It is nevertheless one solution to contribute to modal shift and reduce CO2
To be cost efficient, high-speed railways imposes very strict and optimal technical conditions for the track alignments and land topology. The operational speed design and the construction costs due to the land topography need to be optimised and in line with the corridors alignments.
If these preliminary conditions cannot be met, construction costs will explode.
They are an excellent solution for fast commuting of passengers between large cities at the condition that they are competitive in costs and travel time reduction.
If these conditions are not reached, it can easily develop in a financial disaster.
The Court of Auditors Special Report of 2018 on “A European high-speed rail network: not a reality but an ineffective patchwork” has very well illustrated the main weaknesses of what has already been built in the EU, like exaggerated costs per minute of travel time saved, the interoperability issues for international trains and the poorly use of some train stations build in the middle of nowhere (reducing operational speed and as such its efficiency).

There is no prerequisite to build high-speed lines everywhere. Instead, existing lines should be improved and upgraded in a complete interoperable technical and regulatory way. Their integration in the TEN-T Core network is of outmost importance as well as their accessibility through the comprehensive network. The construction of HSL should not be detrimental to the core or comprehensive railway networks. They should bring added value and not destroy the local lines.
Examples exists of hundreds of €million invested to gain 30-45 minutes in time on a passenger journey, that are immediately annihilated by non-sense rules existing at all levels of the railway system or by unnecessary stops in artificially imposed stops.
Railway efficiency for the passengers and for freight forwarders can also be reached by interoperability of the rolling stock, simplifying the rules, mutual recognition, harmonising operational rules between the networks and countries.
A fair internalisation of the transport costs between modes may contribute to the financing and project sustainability. HSL remains an excellent alternative to short haul flights inside the EU as well for passengers as for new ideas to transport specific freight over these lines.
The high concentration of large economical centres along the axis formed by Vienna – Budapest – Bratislava – Prague - Warsaw, all large cities located within a maximum range of 1000km may well deserve a special attention to analyse the opportunity to implement high speed trains and to connect them to the German or Italian HSL networks.

The Telematics Joint Sector Group is a group of 13 European associations (representative bodies and other rail associations) involved in TAF and in TAP RU/IM communications. The aim of the JSG is to harmonise the position of the sector towards DG MOVE and ERA for strategic topics (e.g. TAF/TAP RU/IM revision), for change control management of the TAF and TAP RU/IM technical documents, for managing the implementation and reporting process in collaboration with ERA. The Telematics JSG is also the central point of the TAF and TAP RU/IM sector governance and manages together with DG MOVE the Telematics RU/IM Steering Committee.

First part of the presentation will introduce RailData and its IT applications for freight railway undertakings (ISR, ORFEUS, CoReDa, ATTI, WDI…). Second part will explain how the cargo RUs perceive the TSI TAF, what they need and welcome and what are the issues hindering TAF roll out. At the end, RailData tools supporting the TAF implementation shall be listed.

The EU rail system needs to become fully interoperable in order to ensure smooth international rail traffic. This requires aligning the different rail systems based on the technical standards set by the relevant EU legal framework, and more specifically, by introducing the technical specifications for interoperability of telematics applications, for both freight and passengers (TAF and TAP TSIs). INEA is actively supporting railway undertakings, infrastructure managers and wagonkeepers to become TAF and TAP TSI compliant by co-funding projects that aim at implementing the TAF and TAP regulations. Mr Boschen’s intervention will cover the current role of the Agency in supporting rail interoperability projects, illustrate some examples of successful actions. He will present funding opportunities and give a short outlook towards CEF2, the successor programme to the current Connecting Europe Facility, which is expected to start off as from 2021. Stimulating rail interoperability remains a priority for the European Commission. Mr Boschen will therefore hint at possible future policy developments in the field.

The Pilot allows to test the actual results of the unique representations of train and path through the exchange of TAF/TAP messages in planning (path request) and operation (train running) and the use of the identifiers. The JSG Pilot Programme objective is to lower the risk of implementation failure of TAF/TAP masterplan functions and to test the TAF/TAP objects under the supervision of dedicated structures, defined in the governance, without changing any national rules.

During several last decades freight traffic by rail between the countries of the European Union and their Eastern neighbors, Russia and China received an enormous potential, which still has to be realized. Until today East-West and West-East freight traffic must cross an invisible frontier because of the existence of two different legal regimes: Europe applies the CIM Uniform Rules, while Russia, China and other Asian countries apply the SMGS Convention. The existence of these legal hurdles leads to interruption of movement, entailing delays, additional costs and administrative burdens for development of New Silk Road.
The CIT as an international association mainly of railway undertakings was created in 1902 and for many years is active in the sphere of cross-border international rail transportation. Although the main area of CIT’s work is practical implementation of the COTIF – the Convention on International Rail Traffic, it has been also actively working towards the creation of the uniform international rail transport law. After more than 100 years a lot has been achieved and a lot more still can be done to ensure fast and reliable rail transportation of goods and passengers with clear-cut coherent rights and obligations for all participants of the transportation process.
The start of the project “Legal Interoperability CIM/SMGS” dates back to the Conference on International Rail Transport Law, which took place in Kyiv in October 2003, where the participants clearly expressed their aim to make available a common consignment note which can be used in through transport and which is sufficient for modern requirements. It was identified as a top priority and the CIT readily agreed to take over this task. In 2004 the CIT organized the mentioned project with the support of the OSJD.
At the first stage the CIT worked out the new Common consignment note as a sum of CIM and SMGS consignment notes based on practical experiences and needs of the CIM and SMGS railways and customs representatives. The common consignment note was made available as of September 1, 2006 and accompanied by the Manual on its application. The Manual was consequently annexed to the SMGS as Annex 22 resp. 6, so that SMGS railways were also able to apply it. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the consignment note CIM/SMGS can be also used in electronic form, GS CIT together with the experts prepared the respective legal, functional and technical specifications for the paperless consignment note. After the most recent adjustments and updates, the new version of the documents for the e-consignment note CIM/SMGS will be published in July 2019.
At the second stage of the project new common Formal Report CIM/SMGS was drafted and added to the Manual. It allows for a standardized procedure for claims handling. In parallel, the GS CIT initiated activities to draft the uniform liability conditions for CIM/SMGS traffic that could be applied on contractual basis. Transport Conditions for Sea-Rail Traffic to be applied on contractual basis. The common CIM/SMGS consignment note and the standardization of the handling of claims were only the first steps towards a much more ambitious project - the creation of a Uniform body of law for freight traffic by rail between Europe and Asia. This task is being actively pursued by the GS CIT in cooperation with the UNECE. As result this cooperation a Political Declaration on EuroAsian Rail Transport Law was signed in February 2013 by 37 representatives of the participating countries, which undertook a commitment to officially start activities on harmonization of rail transport law within the UN framework. In addition, it invites all interested railway freight companies, other stakeholders and international railway organization to develop interim standard rules for EuroAsian rail transport contracts.
The common CIM/SMGS consignment note is a remarkable success story. Applied on more than 50 axes in 4 TEN corridors it ensures much more reliable and expedient international rail freight traffic that can easily compete with maritime transport. In recent years it was applied on long-distance transcontinental routes from China to Western Europe. Moreover, CIT is exploring together with its members further opportunities of utilizing the CIM/SMGS consignment note for multimodal sea-rail transportation, mainly on the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

Possibilities of rail connection between China and the European Union through Slovakia.
Slovakia - description and its geographical location on Silk Road
Slovakia - China BRI (relations, documents, ...)
TEN-T connections and terminals
EU-China connectivity platform
Statistics of transports between CN and EU and share of transports across Slovakia.