The RailNetEurope Timetable Technical Meeting 2008 took place in Fribourg, Switzerland, from June 23rd to 26th. Timetable experts from nearly all RNE Member Infrastructure Managers fine-tuned the international rail timetable for 2009.
The main aim of this meeting was to make sure that the national timetables are harmonized across the borders - so that rail customers are provided with a consistent and market-oriented response to their requests.
Timetable experts for both passenger and freight train business worked during multilateral or bilateral meetings to find the best possible solutions.
This year again Pathfinder usage was increased .This made it possible to further improve the coordination of international train paths. For this reason the planning of the meetings was optimized to such an extent that some meetings could be kept shorter than in the previous years. Furthermore 92% of international paths for passengers were fully harmonized after the technical meeting.
With the help of an integration platform linking national systems and Pathfinder, the efficiency of the meetings will be increased even more in the very near future.