Railteam

Railteam B.V. is a closed company with limited liability (B.V.) based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.[2] It operates as an alliance of European railway companies in the field of international high-speed rail in Europe, modelled on the airline alliances[3] and was founded in Brussels on 2 July 2007.

Railteam B.V.
FormationJuly 2007
TypeHigh-speed rail alliance
HeadquartersAmsterdam, Netherlands[1]
Location
  • Europe
Membership
8 operators
Websitewww.railteam.eu

Taken together, the Railteam alliance has more than 1000 high-speed trains and 44 lounges.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10] With the members of the Railteam alliance, passengers can reach over 100 European destinations on high-speed trains. [11]

Members and Network
Railteam network
  Blue lines: Lines of the Railteam network
  Large dots: Main hubs of the Railteam route network

There are full members of Railteam who hold shares in the company, as well as associate members. All participating railways act as strategic partners within the Railteam alliance and remain entrepreneurially independent. In this alliance, the high-speed trains Intercity Express, TGV, Eurostar, TGV Lyria, Thalys and Railjet are jointly operated. The transport network of the long-distance trains offered in Railteam covers about 100 cities in seven countries (Belgium, Germany, France, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland), which are connected by a network of about 15,000 kilometres.

The full members include the following companies:[12]

The associate members include:

  • Lyria (subsidiary of SNCF with 74 % and SBB with 26 %[14])

The main hubs of the route network are Brussels, Lille, Stuttgart, Cologne and Frankfurt (Main), Basel as well as Paris and Zurich.


Highspeed trains of Railteam's members

Goals

Europe's high-speed railways create added value for passengers by joining forces and continuously working to increase the capacity of the high-speed network and upgrade routes. The aim is to offer passengers seamless travel chains between many European cities, with shorter journey times and more frequent connections, as well as uniform service and quality standards. The development of a common network should thus offer a competitive alternative to car and plane for destinations within Europe.[15]

Company form

Railteam is a corporation under Dutch law, a so-called closed company with limited liability (B.V.) with its registered office in Amsterdam, comparable to a GmbH in Germany. Any railway company in Europe that meets the criteria of the alliance can become a member. The organisational structure is a mixture of normal company structure and project structure. The German and French railways each have a 20 percent share in the Railteam alliance and the other five founding members - SBB, NMBS/SNCB, ÖBB, NS International and Eurostar - each have a 10 percent share.[16]

As a first step towards unification, mutual recognition of the frequent traveller programmes with regard to access to the lounges[17] at the stations of the member companies was completed. Thus, since 1 July 2007, holders of a DB BahnCard with bahn.comfort status and holders of an SBB 1st class general season ticket have been allowed to use the lounges of the participating companies.

The individual members have set up differently designed programmes for their respective frequent travellers. These are:

  • Deutsche Bahn: bahn.comfort (since 2002)
  • SNCF: Grand Voyageur
  • Thalys: My Thalys World[18]
  • Eurostar: ClubEurostar
  • NS International: NS Business Card
  • SBB General-Abo 1st class
  • ÖBB: Österreichcard 1st class[19]

References
  1. "About Railteam B.V." Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  2. "About Railteam B.V." Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  3. "Railway Gazette: "Railteam bids to relaunch international rail travel"".
  4. "ÖBB Lounge". ÖBB. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  5. "DB Lounge". DB Vertrieb GmbH. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  6. "TGV INOUI Grand Voyageur lounges". SNCF. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  7. "Salon SNCF Grand Voyageur". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  8. "NS International Lounges". Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  9. "Eurostar Lounges". Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  10. "Thalys Lounges". Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  11. "A European high-speed rail network: not a reality but an ineffective patchwork". European Court of Auditors. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  12. "About Railteam B.V." Railteam B.V. Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  13. "About Thalys". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  14. "About TGV Lyria". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  15. "Our alliance". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  16. "About Railteam B.V." Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  17. "Railteam weitet den Service aus". DB Welt. No. July 2008. p. 7.
  18. "My Thalys World". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
  19. "ÖBB Österreichcard". Retrieved 27 September 2021.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.