MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION BY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND TOURISM
All aboard!: With fuel prices on the rise, trains have become a more viable and sustainable mode of travel. However, due to longer travel times, high ticket prices and a lack of last-mile infrastructure, many Europeans still favour the plane or car over the train. What steps can the EU take to improve and facilitate European-wide railway transportation?
Submitted by: Naut Bordewijk (NL), Sem de Bruijn (NL), Féline Mac Donald (NL), Natascha Martinez (NL), Tess Tang (NL), Tommie Steenwinkel (Chairperson, NL)
The European Youth Parliament,
- Noting with deep concern that people travelling through Europe tend to choose more polluting transportation options such as travelling by plane or car due to a lack of certain customer inconveniences like inadequate luggage space, facilities, hygiene, and train capacity;
- Alarmed by the fact that European train travel is not always accessible for citizens with physical disabilities,
- Aware that the existence of national monopolies on rail travel lead to:
- deficiencies in technical and functional improvements,
- high ticket prices;
- Noting with deep concern that a lack of interoperability hinders the aim of a single European railway area because of:
- international train operators needing additional certificates for every Member State they operate in,
- Member States mostly focus on their own railway infrastructure instead of cross-border railway infrastructure,
- technical differences in infrastructure between every Member State;
- Taking into consideration that travelling by train is still relatively slow compared to other transportation options as a result of:
- long transfer times,
- certain destinations in Europe not being easily accessible or not being accessible at all when travelling by train;
- Calls upon the European Commision to create an advisory organ consisting of industry experts and lawmakers advising on:
- the drafting of guidelines for and checks on European train companies regarding luggage space, facilities, hygiene, and passenger capacity,
- the most efficient timetables for international trains travelling through Europe,
- the maintenance and upgrading of railway networks,
- create a singular international certificate for conductors operating cross-border trains;
- Calls upon Member States to invest in high-speed underground railway networks that focuses on improving last-mile infrastructure;
- Calls upon Member States to increase funding for the single European railway area financed through the reallocation of a yet-to-introduce distance-based tax on flights happening within the EU;
- Calls upon the European Regional Development Fund to increase funding for research projects on more accessible high-speed trains;
- Calls upon the European Commission to increase funding for the accessibility of railway stations in order to:
- fit every train platform with at least one customer lift,
- equip every train station with luggage drop-off systems;
- Calls upon the European Commission to facilitate the creation of a European railway deal between all European train and railway infrastructure companies that aims to:
- encourage all prospective railway infrastructure to use the same railway width, and electrical voltage, and implement the railway operating system ERTMS,
- encourage companies to reform their existing railway infrastructure to common standards,
- encourage railway infrastructure companies to collectively invest in new international railway infrastructure projects.