Railteam is an alliance of seven European high-speed rail

High-speed rail

High-speed rail is a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal speed of rail traffic. Specific definitions by the European Union include for upgraded track and or faster for new track, whilst in the United States, the U.S...

 operators. The aim of the group is to offer integrated high-speed rail travel between major European cities and to compete with airlines on punctuality, environment, pricing and speed. Coordinated departures are intended to give consistent travel. Railteam plan to offer mutual membership of customer loyalty schemes and access to business lounges.

A major plan had been for a consistent ticketing system on a single website, but this was abandoned in November 2009 because the complexity rendered it financially infeasible. (There had been industry rumours of problems earlier in the year.)

Railteam plans to increase high-speed rail passengers from 15 million a year currently to 25 million by 2010. When the group was formed, the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

 insisted that involved operators continue to compete on prices.

Hubs

The five Railteam hubs are the main connection stations between 2 or more Railteam carriers of the alliance. In the hubs, Railteam will provide services aimed to ease travel connections. This includes multilingual staff and information points to help travelers. If one misses a train because of delays, it will be possible to have a seat on the next available departure. There are plans to extend these services to all stations in the Railteam network.

List of hubs:

• Brussels
  Brussels
  Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
  
  
• Lille-Europe
• Cologne
  Cologne
  Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
  
  
• Frankfurt
  Frankfurt
  Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
  
  
• Stuttgart
  Stuttgart
  Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
  
  

Members

Railteam currently consists of seven operators from Western and Central Europe. Its website states that they are open for more operators joining.

Deutsche Bahn Deutsche Bahn Deutsche Bahn AG is the German national railway company, a private joint stock company . Headquartered in Berlin, it came into existence in 1994 as the successor to the former state railways of Germany, the Deutsche Bundesbahn of West Germany and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of East Germany...  (25%) SNCF SNCF The SNCF , is France's national state-owned railway company. SNCF operates the country's national rail services, including the TGV, France's high-speed rail network...  (25%) Eurostar UK Eurostar Eurostar is a high-speed railway service connecting London with Paris and Brussels. All its trains traverse the Channel Tunnel between England and France, owned and operated separately by Eurotunnel....  (10%) NS Hispeed NS Hispeed NS Hispeed is the rail operator in the Netherlands that operates international intercity and high-speed train connections as well as national high-speed trains over the HSL-Zuid high speed line, which are branded as Fyra....  (10%)

ÖBB ÖBB The Austrian Federal Railways is the national railway system of Austria, and the administrators of Liechtenstein's railways...  (10%) SBB-CFF-FFS SBB-CFF-FFS Swiss Federal Railways and SFR are not in official use) is the national railway company of Switzerland headquartered in Bern. Formerly a government institution, it is since 1999 a special stock corporation with all shares held by the Swiss Confederation or the Swiss cantons...  (10%) SNCB (10%)

Cross-border rail operators Thalys

Thalys

Thalys is an international high-speed train operator originally built around the high-speed line between Paris and Brussels. This track is shared with Eurostar trains that go from Paris or Brussels to London via Lille and the Channel Tunnel and with French domestic TGV trains. Thalys reaches...

, Lyria and Alleo are associate members.

Conditions for joining

Quality standards like air conditioning, width of seats, on board services, multilingual staff, etc. Another criterion is that the trains have to reach a minimum speed of 230 km/h (142.9 mph), along with minimum frequency levels, etc. and will be linked to the Railteam network are needed to become a member.

Services

Railteam's members operate (many in cooperation) several highspeed services:

Competition

The Railteam alliance is the answer of the highspeed train operators on the growing pressure of the airline alliances like SkyTeam

SkyTeam

SkyTeam, branded as SKYTEAM, is an airline alliance with its centralised management team, SkyTeam Central, based at the World Trade Center Schiphol Airport on the grounds of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands...

, Oneworld

Oneworld

Oneworld , branded as oneworld, is one of the world's three largest global airline alliances with its central management team, oneworld Management Company, based in New York City, New York, USA. Oneworld was founded in 1999 by American Airlines, British Airways, Canadian Airlines, Cathay Pacific...

 and Star Alliance

Star Alliance

Star Alliance is the world's first and largest airline alliance, headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany . The alliance was founded in 1997 by five of the world's leading airlines: Air Canada, Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines, Thai Airways International and United Airlines...

. In addition Railteam uses the same terminology in their communication like hubs

Airline hub

An airline hub is an airport that an airline uses as a transfer point to get passengers to their intended destination. It is part of a hub and spoke model, where travelers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations...

, a joint frequent traveller programme and reciprocal lounge access between carriers.

The alliance intends to focus services around five main hubs (Brussels Midi, Lille Europe, Stuttgart

Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof

is the Hauptbahnhof of the city of Stuttgart, the capital of the Land of Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany. It is the largest regional and long-distance railway station in Stuttgart, the main node of the Stuttgart S-Bahn network, and, together with the halt at Charlottenplatz, the main...

, Cologne

Köln Hauptbahnhof

Köln Hauptbahnhof is the central railway station in Cologne, Germany.The station is an important local, national and international hub, with many ICE, Thalys and Intercity trains calling there, as well as regional RegionalExpress, RegionalBahn and local S-Bahn trains...

 and Frankfurt

Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof

is the central station for Frankfurt am Main. In terms of railway traffic, it is the busiest railway station in Germany. With about 350,000 passengers per day the station is the second most frequented railway station in Germany and one of the most frequented in Europe.- Proto-history :In the late...

), with multilingual staff and lounges accessible by members of any partner's frequent traveller programme from 2008. Other hubs may open in the future.

External links

• Railteam.eu – Official website