The issues in the capacity management area differ from region to region, but the urgency to tackle them and find market-orientated solutions remains the same. No region should be put on the second track. Over autumn/winter of 2023, Forum Train Europe tried to support the needs of its members in the feasible selected meetings in Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Firstly, it is essential that their regional issues are reflected in European projects, the voice of central-east European stakeholders are heard and secondly, that the rail market conditions also improve there in the upcoming years.
The CEE region has some specifics, shared by all countries, this being a quite high share of ad hoc traffic, extensive and often late Temporary Capacity Restrictions planning, and finally missing long-term funding for infrastructure development and maintenance. FTE as the European RU association tries to increase awareness of the problems and motivate the stakeholders to work on joint European solutions.
TTR Day CZ
Sprava Zeleznic, the Czech IM, organised the TTR DAY on 23 September 2022 in Prague. The IM presented the TTR project to RUs, PSO authorities and the Ministry of Transport. FTE contributed by sharing the experience with TTR implementation from other European countries and overall RU expectations towards the project management and priorities. The issue and urgency were afterwards stressed by ZESNAD and SVOD, two local RU associations representing freight and passenger RUs. The representative of ŽSR (Slovak IM), presented the state of the project in Slovakia, and the participants were able to take real lessons from a country which shares a similar background. The presentations can be downloaded here.
Railway Congress PL
On 17 November 2022, Forum Train Europe had a presentation at the greatest annual railway conference in Poland, Kongres Kolejowy. The urgency to start with updates of the capacity management processes was highlighted, e.g. TTR has not started yet in Poland, and the PKP PLK had not nominated a national project manager. FTE stressed that Poland is a large and important network and cannot stay away from the process redesign, partially because the countries around are moving ahead, but certainly also because PKP PLK has a lot of good experience in some areas of capacity visualisation and ad hoc allocation, this experience should be shared and be part of the joint European solutions. The session was also enriched by the presentation of the FTE partner European Rail Freight Association (ERFA), which highlighted the upcoming European law revision and a great opportunity for Polish stakeholders to be part of the changes. At the end of the session, a panel discussion was organised where ERFA, FTE and the Polish Ministry of Infrastructure, tried to exchange on the topic, answering questions of IGTL (Land Transport Chamber of Commerce).
TTR Days SK
Last but not least, FTE and RNE accepted the invitation of ŽSR, and took part in the national launch of the TTR project in Slovakia. ŽSR presented work done over 2022 and what RUs can expect from TTR implementation in the upcoming years. While RNE presented the overall EU implementation stated, FTE tried to enrich the event with the good and bad practices from other countries and recommendations on how such a big project can be handled in a mutually effective and transparent manner. The event included fruitful discussion from both the RU and IM side, and was concluded by a market survey, where RUs had the opportunity to be involved in the creation of the national TTR cost-benefit analysis.