1. Eurostat Unit E.3 Conclusions
Meeting of the Working Group on Rail Transport Statistics
1-2 October 2015

2. Item 2 Amending Regulation 91/2003 Current status
-Negotiations restarted under the LU Presidency
-First informal meeting between the 3 institutions took place on 1 October 2015
Main point still under discussion:
--The EP would like to insert an article on the dissemination of ERA's data under Eurostat dissemination platform
--The EP would like to have an article imposing the obligation for the Commission to conduct a study to assess the feasibility to collect data on cross border points abandoned in the last 70 years
--Next meeting of the Council Working Group 30 October 2015

3. Item 3 Recent developments in the EU's Rail Transport policy
DG MOVE informed the participants on the most relevant Transport policy developments related to Rail, with accent on the data requirements for monitoring the White Paper targets, the 4th Railway package, the joint undertaking 'Shift²Rail, intermodal connection and funding (TEN, CEF) and the Rail Market Monitoring Survey.
The need for information on Modal Split, activity based emissions from rail, high speed trains and transit passengers was raised.

4. Item 4 Data reception and dissemination according to Regulation 91/2003
-The WG took was updated on the data transmission status for each annex as well as on issues related to data validation. -No particular compliance problems were reported and Eurostat thanked the Member States for the good collaboration. -The WG was also updated on Eurostat's dissemination plans, the update of Eurobase, Statistics explained and statistics in focus articles

5. Item 5 Quality improvements in rail freight and passenger transport
The WG was updated on the results of the mirror checks
-Differences in mirror checks persist in both freight and passenger rail transport despite the slight improvements in 2013 comparing to 2012
-Limited value of comparing overall differences, need for more contacts with partner countries
-Eurostat needs to discuss with the MS on a bilateral basis how to deal with these differences
The WG was also updated on the status and availability of the Rail Statistics Reference Manual that can be downloaded here:

6. Item 6.1 Overview of the recent rail transport analysis in DG REGIO
- DG REGIO highlighted rail transport analysis topics included in the 6th Cohesion Report
-Stressed the importance of annex G data and the link of statistics with other sources such as network geo-data, ERA and UIC data and open data, in order to improve reliability of infrastructure attributes and promote common coding
-Assess regional connectivity supported by cohesion funds

7. Item 6.2 ERA Databases and geocoding – Developments in safety data collection
-The WG was informed on the RIFN purpose and data model, the actors involved, data entities, functionalities provided to users and future plans. -Safety data collection and indicators. --The WG was informed on changes to statistical data collection (Directive 2014/88/EU) --The WG was informed on changes to statistical safety data collection foreseen in 4th Railway Package.

8. Item 7 Recent developments in rail transport statistics in the NSIs
The CBS Netherlands informed the WG on: -Bilateral agreements negotiated with enterprises for obtaining permission to publish their data. --Agreements with biggest enterprise were followed by smaller ones. --Over 4 years for written agreement -The use of train spotting information of small communities as a means to validate or complement rail statistics The Hungarian CSO presented the confidentiality issue due to the small number of data providers (above the threshold) and how solving this problem lead to break in series .

9. Item 8 Round Table discussion
Issues discussed (and short conclusions):
-Common data collection questionnaire
 Ideal solution that may be further explored (DK-NL), some MS expressed preference to stay with current practice of using a questionnaire similar to the structure of the Regulation (tables)
-Exchange of information on national data collection system
 Eurostat will explore the proposal for extending the current rail statistics manual to cover national practices in data collection
-Use of UIC codes in Annex G for simplification and harmonisation of reporting
MS may/were encouraged to use the UIC segment codes for reporting. This is also in line with the needs of DG REGIO

10. Item 8 Round Table discussion
Issues discussed (and short conclusions):
-Code of practice and data release calendar
Eurostat and DG MOVE underlined that the Commission is committed in reducing reporting and administrative and this commitment is reflected in systematically in communications issued, e.g. implementation reports.
 In some areas of statistics higher quality results can be achieved more efficiently with joint efforts among MS rather than individually
A common release calendar would be most useful to statistical users. The implementation of such calendar is difficult.
 Eurostat will examine how this issue is dealt in other statistical domains and will inform users on the data update/release calendar policy to minimise divergence from national publications
-Reduction of mirror check errors
Eurostat will communicate regularly to each MS concerned the most important differences with partner countries and MS are encouraged to examine these differences bilaterally.

11. Item 9. Intermodal Transport
-Eurostat informed the WG about the final results and recommendations of the TF that analysed options on how to collect Intermodal and co-modality data -Several recommendations made by the TF were presented to the WG for comments and discussions -The WG recognised the importance of IMT Statistics both political and methodological -Envisaged implementation can only be considered without increase in reporting burden -Grants for 2015 and 2016 may be the next step for producing intermodal statistics

12. Item 9.2 Emissions from rail transport
-The UIC presented their activities on environmental aspects related to rail transport, the Environmental Strategy Reporting System.
-Eurostat presented the main lines of the study on emissions from rail and inland waterways. The objective of the study was identify transport activity data that may be useful for a bottom-up calculation of emissions from rail.

13. Item 10 ITF and UNECE
-The ITF presented recent statistics on rail in a more international perspective as well as other analytical products and publications -The UNECE presented recent developments and activities and the e-Rail census 2015