European Commission modernises rights for European Rail Passengers

The European Commission has updated the European rules on rail passenger rights to provide adequate information for passengers, improve rights for disabled passengers, and protect rail operators from compensating passengers under strict circumstances. The Commission has outlined five key areas in its proposal to the existing rules of passengers. Firstly, that long-distance domestic and cross-border regional services
September 29, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

The 1690 European Commission has updated the European rules on rail passenger rights to provide adequate information for passengers, improve rights for disabled passengers, and protect rail operators from compensating passengers under strict circumstances. 

The Commission has outlined five key areas in its proposal to the existing rules of passengers. Firstly, that long-distance domestic and cross-border regional services are no longer exempt from a unified application of passenger rights. In addition, Passengers must know whether rights apply to a whole journey when using connected services with separate tickets. Secondly, for disabled passengers to have the right to assistance on all services and full compensation for loss or repair of mobility equipment. Also, an enforcement on complaint handling with clear deadlines, and finally, a force majeure clause exempting rail companies from having to pay compensation to passengers for delays caused by natural catastrophes.

Karima Delli, chair of parliament’s transport said: “Only truly enforceable passenger rights and compensation in case of delays can help increase the popularity of trains and boost low-carbon multimodal travel.”

She added that MEPs will carefully examine which exemptions for the force majeure exemptions will be granted.

Enforcement

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Siemens’ acquisitions allow ‘door-to-door mobility’
    June 7, 2018
    Siemens says its recent acquisitions will provide travellers with a complete set of tools to improve mobility. “It’s about re-imagining the way people travel, not just from A to B but from A to Z,” Marcus Welz, president and CEO of Siemens Intelligent Transportation Systems, told Daily News. “We are using technology as an enabler to get on top of the various challenges people face: individual transport, public transport, the first and last mile – and everything in between.” Siemens has added three software
    Read More
  • Transportation hub the centre of sustainable urban development
    November 21, 2012
    A marriage of transit, technology and culture is taking shape in Minneapolis, with ITS systems vital to hopes for a sustainable development centred on a hub of public transportation. Construction started in July this year on ‘The Interchange’ – a station in the Midwest US city of Minneapolis claimed as the most spectacular expression yet of the fast-spreading North American concept of transit-oriented development (TOD). Due for completion in 2014, the Interchange is designed as a multi-modal public transpor
    Read More
  • Siemens to modernise railway network signalling in Egypt
    April 11, 2016
    Siemens has been awarded a contract by Egyptian National Railways (ENR) to modernise 260km of railway network in Egypt with advanced technology for signalling, level-crossings and communications. The upgrades, which are part of a national plan to modernise Egypt’s rail system, will increase safety levels and allow the railway’s maximum speed to be raised from 140km/h to 160km/h, boosting throughput of passenger trains and freight services. The routes between Benha and Port Said to the north east and Zag
    Read More
  • Legalities of in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures
    February 1, 2012
    Paul Laurenza of Dykema Gossett PLLC discusses the paths which lawmakers may go down on the route to making in-vehicle systems and cooperative infrastructures a reality. The question of whether or not to mandate in-vehicle systems for safety and other applications is a vexed one. There is a presumption on some parts that going down the road of forcing systems' fitment is somehow too domineering or restricting. Others would argue that it is the only realistic way of ensuring that systems achieve widespread d
    Read More

Highlighted Content