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Air Transport Association (IATA), European Civil Aviation
Conference (ECAC) and EUROCONTROL, which help to draft
the rules and regulations necessary to allow aircraft to travel
around the world under a system that offers a set of
minimum standards for safety, environmental protection and
aircraft and crew certification. The same is not true to the
same extent for the road, rail and maritime sectors. Of course,
these sectors do not operate within a vacuum and are bound
by national and international law, but not quite in the same
global way as air transport.
Passenger traffic
In an effort to drive forward progress on intermodal
development, the European Commission inspired an IATA
study on air-rail intermodality, published in February 2003.
This brought together experts from both the rail and air
transport modes to develop recommendations for
encouraging operational integration of rail and air services for
the benefit of both operators and travellers. This led to the
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formation of the Rail Air Intermodality Facilitation Forum
(RAIFF) in September 2003.
RAIFF is convinced that if its recommendations put forward
in its final report were adopted, as much as 5-10 per cent of
airport capacity, currently dedicated to short-haul flights at
large airports, could be freed up. This relies, however, on
other factors, such as continued development of the pan-
European high-speed rail network – set to double in size by
2010 and triple in size by 2020. It would also need the
inclusion of high-speed rail connections at more airports, such
as Barcelona and Schiphol, and the improvement of other
existing high-speed connections at airports such as Madrid
and Milan. Furthermore, a co-ordinated and deliberate
strategy for airports to develop their feeding by long-distance
rail would need to be developed.
This is all very well, but in the words of David Henderson: “As
a general rule, airports of a significant size should have a rail
link. Such links, local and regional, can do a good job in
reducing road traffic, and they have additional benefits such as
increasing airport catchment areas. Further afield, as links are
extended to cities served by air from that airport, we enter the
realm of modal shift between air and rail, and at this point
certain parameters need to be established. This is particularly
the case on the facilitation side, as regards passenger amenity.
Our view is that we are the ones with the higher standards and
railways have to raise theirs to meet ours.”
Airlines take care of baggage in a systematic and secure
way, which, in these times of enhanced security, is an absolute
requirement. Rail passengers, on the other hand, look after
their own belongings and rarely, apart from on the Eurostar,
are they checked within the Schengen Agreement area.
“Our view is that
we are the ones with
the higher standards
and railways have
to raise theirs to
meet ours”
The airlines have also spent a great deal of time and money
developing infrastructure that gives unimpeded access to
PRMs – passengers with reduced mobility – particularly
wheelchair-bound passengers. Airlines have also clear
guidelines and support for unaccompanied minors, which are
not mirrored by rail companies. There is also a legal structure
giving rights to passengers who are delayed or who miss their
flight through no fault of their own. The rail industry needs to
take account of all this before it is able to collaborate with the
air industry on an equal footing.
Henderson goes on to say: “The intermodal shift has to be
a fair one. If it is indeed the case that it is more efficient to
carry passengers between – say – Brussels and Amsterdam by
rail, then fine. But this should not be achieved through any
distortion in the market such as state subsidies or other
economic mechanisms.”
This does not mean, however, that there is no role for
government support. The RAIFF final report itself says that a
similar programme to Marco Polo focused on the passenger
side would be welcomed. This could help create the level
playing field and to develop the infrastructure required for
rail/air baggage handling systems, reservation systems capable
of facilitating rail/air journeys, support with integrated
ticketing and product sales and, perhaps most importantly,
the co-ordination and streamlining of rail/air security systems.
This article was commissioned by AEA.
ATM: THE CHALLENGE OF GROWTH
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