1. 16 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways HitRail - Railways@Crossover Helping European Railways Transition to the Digital Future through Cooperation European Parliament, 6 December 2011 Libor LOCHMAN, CER

2. 26 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Who we are? CER

3. 36 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Pro-active shaping of EU agenda Own initiatives Representing European rail sector in EU CER: who we are… CER stands for… 78 member companies, rail operators, infrastructure managers, leasing companies from all EU countries + accession countries + Western Balkan + Norway and Switzerland: PRIVATE & PUBLIC companies The representation of our members’ interests in Brussels towards the European Parliament, Commission and Council of Ministers as well as other policymakers and partners in transport promoting a strong rail industry that is essential to the creation of a sustainable transport system which is efficient, effective and environmentally sound.

4. 46 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways * The ERA’s main task is to draft proposals for the Commission on railway interoperability and safety CER represents the European rail sector towards the EU MEMBERS: 78 rail operators and infrastructure companies e.g. AAR, CIT, EIM, OSJD, OTIF, RNE, RŽD, UIC, UNIFE, X-Rail, etc. and… ETF World Bank, EIB, UNECE, UNIDROIT Council of the EU European Parliament European Commission Council of Transport Ministers Commissioner for Transport TRAN Committee European Railway Agency (ERA) * EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS Other railway organisations Other internat. organisations COMPANIES Infrastructure Passenger Freight High-speed Integrated National associations Leasing companies PRIVATE & PUBLIC CER – working structure Marco Polo and TEN-T Agency (EACI) ** CER Mirror Groups to ERA ERTMS Corridor (CER involved) ** The EACI executes the TEN-T and Marco Polo funding programmes (monitors projects implementation)

5. 56 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Hasn’t rail been in the digital world for quite some time, already? Help railways transition to the digital future?

6. 66 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Contrary to common belief, historically, railways have often been at the forefront of technological innovation, especially in IT. They have, in fact, been one of the first industries to move into the digital world…  BCC (Bureau Commun de Compensation) which is the rail financial clearing house works electronically since the 70’s.  1978: creation of HERMES, first electronic data exchange initiative of the European railways, using a technology later adopted for the Internet.  SNCF, first company introducing ticket vending machines using touch screen technology.  In 1999-2000, the SNCF website was the first remote sales website in the world in terms of volume of transactions and turnover.  voyages-sncf.com and bahn.de are the most visited travel websites in their respective countries  Raileurope has been the biggest vendor of European rail tickets oversees for many years, driving IT developments such as their new Euronet distribution Help rail transition to the digital future?! Hasn’t rail been in the digital world for quite some time?

7. 76 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways  With E-RailFreight, rail is the first mode to develop the Electronic Consignment Note on a large scale.  EcoPassenger, a multimodal environmental calculator & comparator for passenger transport, nominated official partner of the European Union « Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign ».  EcoTransit, a multimodal environmental calculator & comparator for freight, also nominated official partner of the European Union « Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign ». Today, railways are still leaders in IT, not followers (1) Contrary to common belief, railways remain forerunners, collectively as well as individual companies.

8. 86 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways In the end, more quality and an economic reward of up to 12€ on each consignment! A concrete example of the impact of IT usage on RUs’ business model: E-RailFreight by RailData E-Rail Freight is a joint RailData-UIC- CIT initiative, managed by RailData…  Less paper  Less manual handling  No double keying of the data  More rapid  Less mistakes € +

9. 96 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways RNE TIS (Tain Information System, former Europtirail) for real time information on running trains. RNE Click&Ride: for booking (international) train paths at short notice. RNE PCS (Path Coordination System, former Pathfinder) for international timetabling. RNE CIS (Charging Info System, former EICIS) for calculating infra fees on international routes. Today, railways are still leaders in IT, not followers (2)

10. 106 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Technologically state-of-the-art rail traffic management centres have little to envy to air traffic control towers… 55000 rail stations in Europe, against 400 airports. This means more than 1,500,000,000 combinations of rail Origin/ Destinations compared to less than 100,000 possible O-Ds for air. With 7,000 rail stations in Germany, DB can produce timetable information and tickets on almost 25,000,000 O-Ds (without counting international O-Ds)! Today, railways are still leaders in IT, not followers (3) The journey planners and ticketing systems developed by the railways are already among the most powerful that exist. Many railway journey planners even integrate local/regional timetables (including bus, tram…)

11. 116 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Railways have been the first to enter the world of mobile WIFI. Thalys is the first company to install WIFI onboard of its trains using satellite connections. Railways do use mobile applications for real timetable information, real-time traffic updates, information on railway stations… e.g. the Railteam alliance. railteam.eu, was relaunched on 02/12/2011 Today, railways are still leaders in IT, not followers (4) Railteam Mobile Stay on track with your phone

12. 126 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Mainly two “IT-specific” regulations IT-specific regulation in the field of Railways…

13. 136 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways TAP TSI (Telematic Applications for Passenger Services) set requirements on…  The systems providing passengers with information before the journey  The systems providing passengers with information during the journey  The implementation of the Passenger Rights Regulation (PRR)  Including the special treatment due to Persons with Reduced Mobility, etc.  The close alignment with TAF TSI in rail operational matters TAF TSI (Telematic Applications for Freight) set requirements on…  The real-time monitoring of the freight trains  The marshalling and allocation (train composition) systems  The reservation of train path for freight trains  The management of connections with other modes of transport  The production of electronic accompanying documents TWO main « IT-specific » regulations apply to rail: TAP TSI and TAF TSI

14. 146 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Specific sector TAP considerations  The railways have a solid understanding of customer needs; developments are focused on satisfying these  It is important to take the railways’ retail and operational management legacy systems into account  With the help of standards defined by the TAP TSI Regulation, convergence will evolve over time – a step-wise approach is preferred over big bang scenarios – Cost-effectiveness – Learning curve – Respect local/ regional/ national specificities  Analogies with airline industry standardisation approaches are inappropriate: Much wider range of rail business and functional models, significantly higher complexity (number of stations and ODs, ticket types etc.)

15. 156 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Is regulation really necessary in the field of IT? The railways and regulation…

16. 166 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Contrary to infrastructure or rolling stock, Information Technology has a faster lifecycle.  IT innovation is very dynamic.  Products and specifications are rapidly obsolete.  Amortisation cycles are shorter.  Legislation cannot always keep pace!  Moreover, IT is more and more an element of competitive differentiation. Why are the railways not so keen on legislating in the IT area? One concrete EXAMPLE… The TAP TSI regulation stipulates that fare data be exchanged based on a standard for off-line data exchange, whereas good value offers for customers - typically yield- and quota-managed fares that nowadays represent a large part of rail tickets - rely on an on-line, real time exchange of data between actors

17. 176 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways The rail market is particularly dynamic and generates IT-based customer solutions, which law cannot. In a more and more competitive world, each railway undertaking develops unimodal and intermodal IT-based customer-oriented products…

18. 186 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways On top of individual initiatives, the sector collectively decides to go beyond regulation, e.g. rail distribution. TAP TSI requires each RU to make timetable data available to 3 rd parties in TAP TSI format. It also sets the standard for the exchange of fare data… The 1 st voluntary initiative of the sector relates to TIMETABLE data, i.e.:  Before TAP TSI deadline, we provide the whole European rail timetable to 3 rd parties as a single dataset based on a single commercial agreement.  This will be based on providing the UIC-held MERITS timetable database to 3 rd parties. MERITS contains comprehensive, aggregated timetable data in a consistent format for all European railways and has been developed by railways over the last six years. The 2 nd voluntary initiative of the sector relates to FARE DATA EXCHANGE, i.e.:  We will go beyond the requirements of TAP TSI with regard to fares and develop an advanced data exchange process in order to be able to exchange real-time price data.

19. 196 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Regulation or standardisation… Looking into the future

20. 206 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Standards are necessary…  Not for everything. What’s the use of standards for domestic sales or direct fulfilment?  Not on systems. IT systems and processes should not be standardised.  But on data formats, so that data can be exchanged and understood by all. Who should set the standards? Via which means?  Is TAP TSI not going too far into one of rail’s core-business, i.e. distribution?  Is TAF TSI not going too far into railfreight processes?  Standards are usually best set by the sector What else may be needed?  Collaboration with politicians should be sought on framework aspects (see next slide giving a concrete example regarding distribution) Standards are necessary…

21. 216 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways For example, in distribution, we propose the following concrete cooperation between sector and politics.  We propose to work with the Commission and the ERA to develop and enhance TAP TSI « fare » specifications to respond to the customers need for more realtime fare information in the context of increasing liberalisation.  We propose that competition authorities are made aware of the specific political requirements in travel information and ticketing so that the stakeholder cooperation which is encouraged by politicians in this area is not later challenged under competition law.  Rail is the only transport mode which has been imposed a uniform standard for data exchange (TAP TSI). We propose to work with other information providers than rail (especially local travel planners and other modes’ planners) to encourage them to develop interfaces compatible with TAP TSI. This may also be encouraged via EU funding programmes.  The same applies to encouraging local travel planners to exchange information with long- distance planners, in order to facilitate integration of planners.  We propose to encourage the use of environmental impact calculators by all modes and all information providers in new and existing journey planners.

22. 226 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Guarantee impartial and transparent information to customers?  Today, « information » is of strategic value.  Those who are in control of the information detain the power.  Let’s avoid the emergence of private oligopoles on information.  TAP TSI puts an obligation on railways to make their timetable information available to third parties. But who makes sure that third parties are not misusing it, e.g. by playing the ones against the others and by levying fees for best visibility?  Information provision by private third parties is in no way a guarantee of transparency or impartiality. For information providers, information is money.  Information and distribution are part of the core business of our industry. We need to remain in control, whether we decide to work with 3rd parties or not.  In any case, we ask politicians to be wary and not throw transport operators too quickly into the arms of potential « information speculators ».

23. 236 December 2011CER The Voice of European Railways Thank you for your attention! For further information, visit our website: www.cer.bewww.cer.be  Libor LOCHMAN, CER Deputy Executive Director Tel: +32 2 213 08 82 Email: libor.lochman@cer.belibor.lochman@cer.be 