The study demonstrates how to integrate air and rail services in a way that enables seamless intermodal passenger and small freight mobility solutions in line with global best practice and future user expectations. The Study recommends that future Rail Baltica, should, inter alia:
- provide combined air-rail ticketing solutions (by promoting integrated cooperation between rail operators and airlines);
- provide fully integrated baggage services, available at the seven international Rail Baltica stations;
- seek to ensure IATA coding of international Rail Baltica stations;
- provide the necessary infrastructural configurations at all international Rail Baltica stations to ensure a unified service standard and functionality.
Timo Riihimäki, RB Rail AS CEO, emphasizes that “the integrated solutions proposed in the study are supported by key Baltic aviation stakeholders, including commercial operators, and are in line with global best practice which has been extensively benchmarked as part of the study. It is, therefore, strongly recommended that Rail Baltica capitalizes on its unique greenfield opportunity by ensuring the appropriate railway design adaptations to enable the recommended functionalities and integrated services to be performed during the Rail Baltica operational phase, following the relevant operator-level business case assessments.”
Furthermore, the study also details key infrastructure requirements to be implemented in the design of Rail Baltica stations to enable optimum air-rail intermodality, including check-in, baggage drop and baggage storage facilities; baggage transfer solutions between rail station platform and airport storage; station safety elements, including removing trip hazards and installing visually contrasting edges and grab rails; passenger information services, showing both flight and train information at airport stations, with train information made available to airports for their use, as well as specific requirements regarding future high-speed railway rolling stock design to enable optimum air-rail integration.
The study is available in full on the Rail Baltica website: http://www.railbaltica.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/RB-Airport-integration-feasibility-study-1.pdf
RB RAIL AS
RB Rail AS is a multinational joint venture of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania established to coordinate the implementation of the Rail Baltica Global Project, the first infrastructure project of this scale from Tallinn to the Lithuanian/Polish border. RB Rail AS, as the central project coordinator for the Global Project, is responsible for the development, construction and marketing of the railway project.
