FantasticSearch

Objectives The general objective of the European Year shall be to encourage and support the efforts of the Union, Member States, regional and local authorities, and other organisations to increase the share of passengers and freight moving by rail. The specific objectives of the European Year shall be to:

(a) promote rail as a sustainable, innovative, interconnected and intermodal, safe and affordable mode of transport, in particular by highlighting the role of rail:

(i) as a game changer helping to achieve the Union’s climate neutrality objective by 2050;

(ii) as a pillar of an efficient logistic network, capable of guaranteeing essential services, even during unexpected crises; and (iii) as a transport mode that reaches out to the wider public, especially the young, inter alia presenting rail as an attractive career opportunity;

(b) highlight the European, cross-border dimension of rail, that brings citizens closer together, allows them to explore the Union in all its diversity, fosters socio-economic and territorial cohesion and contributes to integrating the Union internal market, in particular by ensuring better connectivity within and with its geographical periphery, including through regional cross-border connections;

(c) enhance the contribution of rail to the Union’s economy, to its industry, including to its global competitiveness, to its commerce and to its society, in particular those aspects related to regional and local development, sustainable tourism, education, youth and culture, and to improving accessibility for persons with disabilities or persons with reduced mobility, and in particular paying attention to the needs of elderly people;

(d) contribute to promoting rail as an important element in relations between the Union and its neighbouring countries, building on interests and needs in partner countries and on expertise in rail transport, both within and beyond the Union;

(e) build on rail’s power to stimulate the collective imagination, particularly through rail’s history and its cultural heritage, recalling the contribution that rail has made to the creation of European prosperity and the role of the rail in developing cutting-edge technologies;

(f) promote the attractiveness of the railway professions, in particular by highlighting the demand for new skills and the importance of fair and safe working conditions and of addressing the need to increase diversity in the workforce;

(g) promote the key role of railways in international passenger transport within the Union;

(h) promote a Union night train network and encourage initiatives that underline its cross-border nature by using symbols that represent the Union;

(i) create public awareness of rail’s potential role in the development of sustainable tourism in Europe;

(j) promote the key role of railways in sustainable end-to-end mobility, connecting hubs and allowing attractive and smart transfer between modes of transport;

(k) contribute to the implementation of the Fourth Railway Package and to raising awareness of the measures required to establish the single European railway area, based on a well-functioning TEN-T;

(l) stimulate discussion on how to modernise rolling stock and on how to further develop and increase the capacity of railway infrastructure in order to facilitate the broader use of passenger and freight transport by rail, underlining in that context the importance of the cooperation among infrastructure managers, research and innovation and the role of the Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking established by Council Regulation (EU) No 642/2014 ;

(m) promote events and initiatives to disseminate information on the rights of rail passengers and to stimulate cooperation among all actors in order to improve customer information and ticketing, including the offer of through-tickets and developing innovative digital multi-modal tickets, as well as to provide information about current challenges in that respect, such as the need for data sharing among actors.