RNE Business Conference 2009
Opening of the ConferenceThe conference was opened by the welcoming words of the RNE President, Luc Vansteenkiste, and the RNE Secretary General, Joachim Kroll, who was delighted to welcome more than 160 guests at the conference. Then the floor was handed over to the RNE Managing Board members who presented a compact and interesting update on RNE activities and also gave an outlook for the future work of RNE.
RNE Activities
The session was opened by Dagmar Haase (RNE Vice-President and Member of the Managing Board for Marketing and Sales) who presented the development of the One Stop Shop (OSS) philosophy and the OSS network, which currently handles more than 1000 customer requests per week. In connection with the OSS, Mrs Haase presented the RNE project “ONE Europe ONE Service” which focuses on an improvement of the OSS network & services. This shall be achieved by three means:
- a clearer OSS setup
- a “Caretaker” function of the first contacted OSS
- and the definition of OSS functions and service levels.
All these means, Mrs Haase concluded, shall support RNE’s activities and strengthen the competitiveness of international rail.
The session was continued by Mr Harald Hotz (RNE Vice-President and Managing Board Member for International Timetabling) who presented the achievements of the RNE Pathfinder tool in 2009 and presented a major step forward for international timetabling – the “Click & Ride” project. The update on Pathfinder focused on the new features implemented in the latest Pathfinder release:
- a new and simplified workflow which combines path studies and orders into one workflow and,
- the implementation of ad-hoc path requests into the application.
The second part of Mr Hotz’ presentation was dedicated to the “Click & Ride” project. This RNE project was initiated at the beginning of 2009 following the speed-dating feedback of the RNE Business Conference 2008 and the detection of a strong market need for instant capacity. The project shall result in a path ordering system which will be comparable to the systems available for booking flights or hotel rooms, and which will make it possible to order a train only a few hours before the actual train run. In the first quarter of 2010 two pilot projects for “Click & Ride” will be started on RNE Corridors 4 and 7.
Next Michel Dupuis (RNE Vice-President and Managing Board Member for Operations) took the floor. Mr Dupuis gave an update on EUROPTIRAILS and showed the guests that new Infrastructure Managers (IMs) have joined the system, which increases the annual number of trains in EUROPTIRAILS to almost 1 million. After informing the audience on the involvement of RNE in the areas of the European Performance Regime (EPR) and Train Performance Management (TPM), Mr Dupuis also presented the RNE Corridor Approach on behalf of RNE Managing Board Member Boris Zivec. He reminded the audience that RNE Corridors were introduced to increase the efficiency and competiveness of rail transport. This year, corridor brochures for all 11 RNE Corridors have been created. These contain basic information on the corridor, such as average transport times between main corridor hubs and access charge estimates for corridor infrastructure use. Mr Dupuis concluded his presentation with the most recent development regarding RNE Corridors, which is the establishment of Corridor 11 from Munich to Istanbul, which is still in progress. All brochures can be found in our download area following this link.
Then Miroslav Kanclerz (RNE Vice-President and Managing Board Member for Legal Matters and Network Statements) presented the major achievements of RNE in his area of responsibility in 2009. These are as follows:
- proposal for European General Terms and Conditions
- RNE Railway Network Statement Glossary – a glossary of approximately 450 terms (used in Network Statements) and their definitions in English
- joint paper of CER, EIM and RNE in response to the European Commission Benchmarking Study on Network Statements.
The presentations on RNE activities were concluded by Harald Reisinger ( RNE Chief Information Officer), who focused on the following two topics:
- communication between traffic control centres
- Train Transport ID.
In his presentation on the communication between traffic control centres Mr Reisinger presented several projects tackling the improvement of communications. Solutions for the short, medium and long terms were specified and explained.
The second part of Mr Reisinger’s presentation described a three-step solution towards a unified Train Transport ID:
- short-run: existing international identifiers
- medium-term solution: to develop a unique TT ID (Train Transport ID) and to use it as a “master” ID.
- long-term solution: to introduce the unique Transport ID for every train within one year.
All RNE Business Conference Presentations can be found here.
Managing Board Speed Dating and Corridor Manager Area
After this compact information update, the interactive part of the conference programme started. A Corridor Manager Area with all eleven Corridor Managers – supported by their OSS representatives – had been created and Speed Dating with the RNE Managing Board had been organised.
The Speed Dating gave attendants of the conference the opportunity to talk to the RNE MB Members of their choice.
Both interactive areas were very popular and the networking area was also strongly attended.The Speed Dating area was characterized by questions on very specific topics in the Board Members’ fields of activity.
Special Focus Presentation – Impact of the Financial Crisis
RNE had the pleasure of welcoming Heinz Dürr, former CEO of Deutsche Bahn and entrepreneur, as the special focus speaker of the RNE Business Conference 2009. In his presentation on the ubiquitous financial crisis, Mr Dürr guided the audience from a short overview of the roots of the crisis and explanations as to how and why such a crisis was possible, to its implications for the railway business. Finally he recommended that IMs should refocus on their core competences and make infrastructure more competitive in order to re-increase government spending in the sector.
Panel Discussion
After a lunch break, the conference programme continued with a panel discussion on a related topic: “How is the rail industry reacting to the financial crisis?”. Participants to the discussion were:
- Mr Karl Michael Mohnsen, CEO of TX Logistik
- Mr Dirk Steffes, COO, MRCE Dispolok
- Mr Grzegorz Jagielski, Deputy Director of Investment Planning Department, PKP PLK
- Mr Julien Morizet, Chief Strategy Officer, ERS Railways
- Dr Johannes Ludewig, Executive Director of CER
- Mr Michael Robson, Secretary General of EIM
- Mr Martin Burkhardt, Director General, UIRR
- Mr Thomas Kaufmann, Policy Officer, DG-TREN, European Commission
After short introductory presentations on the companies’/associations’ own situation, a discussion was launched and several questions from the audience were answered. Two main points can be concluded from the questions of the audience. First of all, there is clear discontent about the level of access charges and the extreme differences between EU Member States.
Secondly, high expectations exist towards the Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen. Both the audience and the panellists expect an internalisation of external costs for road transport, which would strongly increase the competitiveness of railways.
The Speaker presentations which were authorized for publication can be found in our download area by following this link.
Speed Dating Feedback 2009
During the Speed Dating, RNE received a lot of positive feedback on Pathfinder, EUROPTIRAILS and RNE’s work in general. The IT applications are highly appreciated and several guests stated their support and strong wish for a further rollout of the RNE IT applications. An issue for further RNE involvement was addressed: the harmonization of cancellation deadlines and access charges – with a wish for more flexible cancellation conditions, as high cancellation fees only lead to more ad-hoc requests. Also RNE involvement in the TAF/ TSI was welcomed and involvement in other TSIs was recommended. Regular updates of the annual timetable and stronger communication by IMs and RNE were requested; companies were strongly in favour of a single European timetable and support in this matter was offered.
Closing Remarks by the President and Farewell Winter Punch
After closing remarks by the RNE President, the Conference was closed with a Farewell Winter Punch. The positive feedback received from the participants immediately after the conference tells us that the conference concept is proving successful and that participants are very much in favour of the interactive approach chosen by RNE.
RNE would like to thank all speakers and participants for their contributions and attendance and we hope to see you again next year.