rail

Transport for London, the authority in charge of public transport in the British capital, is facing a veritable outcry. The agency has just announced that it would like to increase fares on journeys to the various terminals at Heathrow airport. A proposal for a 'Premium Fare' on the Piccadilly route could well result in an increase of up to...

In its annual review of the French rail transport market in 2020, the Autorité de Régulation des Transports (ART) notes that the market remains attractive to new operators. Competition in rail transport services in the European Union came into effect on 13 December 2020. Alternative operators are ready to cross swords with the...

High-speed trains have become a hallmark of a country's modernity. France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden and, in Asia, Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan are all proving the point. India is also set to join the club in the near future. For the time being, South-East Asia is lagging behind, despite the growing number of projects and the symbolic line to...

According to the International Union of Railways (UIC), by 2020 there will be just over 56,000 km of high-speed rail lines worldwide. The UIC defines high speed as trains travelling at least 250km/h on new lines and 200km/h on existing lines. Asia accounts for almost...

Until now, the Dutch government - which tends to be liberal in outlook - has shown a certain reluctance to open up the network of NS (Nederlandse Spoorwege), the national railway company. In fact, it extended the NS monopoly concession for ten years in 2015, a concession that will therefore expire at the end of 2024. However, things are changing. The government has just...

It is to be one of the major infrastructure projects of Boris Johnson's government. In 2020, the latter gave the green light to a project dating back to 2006. A project that would finally show that the United Kingdom was also embracing the idea of having a high-performance high-speed rail network. Officially launched in...

Delta Air Lines is ramping up its North Atlantic services once again. Following the reopening of flights from Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Lisbon and Paris CDG, on 5 August the carrier re-launched flights from Dublin to New York JFK. The two cities have been linked three times a week since then by Airbus A330-300. The...

The Belgian rail company SNCB is testing the FTQ Lab purchase system, an innovative technology that will make travelling by train even simpler. In future, passengers will be able to use an application to check in as soon as they arrive at the station and check out as soon as they reach their destination. Thanks to GPS data, the...

It will be a sad tenth anniversary for Thello rail services, a subsidiary of the national railway company Trenitalia. Present in France since 2011, Thello has just announced that it will cease operating services between Paris, Nice, Milan and Venice from 1 July. Thello operated a daily night train service between Paris and...

It's early 2019 and the BBC is revealing to the general public a survey that should immediately set alarm bells ringing in the English political world. 79% of British passengers said they were satisfied with rail services. This is the lowest level of satisfaction since 2008, as revealed by Transportfocus. This agency is responsible for evaluating...

Germany's federal railways, Deutsche Bahn, want to promote the use of digital tickets. This means suspending the sale of paper tickets on trains. Paper tickets will be phased out by 2022. Since the end of April, passengers using Deutsche Bahn trains have no longer been able to buy their...

Brightline in Florida is the first private rail operator in the United States in 40 years. The young rail company's ambition is to extend its network, which currently comprises a line linking Miami to West Palm Beach via Fort Lauderdale. On this 105 km long line, 17 trains run every day for a total...

"European Sleeper, a cooperative rail company formed by Dutch investors, is to work with the Czech private company RegioJet to launch a new night train service. It would compete in part with the "Nightjet" network of the Austrian Federal Railways. The future line would run from Brussels to Prague, stopping between...

Ilsa is a subsidiary of Italian rail operator Trenitalia. The company was created to operate a TGV network in Spain. Italian railways hold 45% of Ilsa's capital. The remaining 55% is held by the Spanish regional airline Air Nostrum. But in an interview with...

The Rome-Milan railway line will be offering Covid-free trains from April, announced Gianfranco Battisti, Managing Director of Ferrovie dello Stato, on Monday 8 March. The head of Italy's national railway company hailed the initiative as a way of boosting travel after more than a year of fighting the pandemic. The launch...

Lufthansa and Deutsche Bahn will be stepping up their cooperation to offer more train+plane services. Lufthansa's ICE (high-speed train) network will now include five more cities. But also the introduction of a faster train, the "Sprinter", to Frankfurt airport. The new Sprinter trains will enter service in...

Since China launched its high-speed rail system in 2008, it has steadily gained market share. A recent study on the impact of high-speed rail on China's three airline giants indicates that around 80 % of China's domestic air routes will be competing in 2025 with...

Swedish railways SJ must now immobilise 50% of their train capacity. The measure came into force on Sunday 14 February. It will apply until Monday 31 May (inclusive). It applies to all journeys of 150 km or more. This decision does not, however, affect trains whose...

For many travellers, a possible arrival in Bangkok by train ended with the grandiose hall of Hua Lamphong station. Built between Chinatown and the Silom district, the station was inaugurated in 1915, inspired by Turin's central station with its neo-classical architecture. However, it will now close...

Avlo: this is the name chosen by Spanish railways RENFE for the low-cost version of the AVE high-speed trains. Avlo was originally scheduled to enter service in April 2020. But the sudden arrival of the pandemic forced RENFE to postpone the project until a better time......