This year’s meeting of the EWT Steering Group took place in Kosice, Slovakia, from 30 June to 2 July 2015, at the invitation of ZSSK. Tariff and accounting experts from the following railways attended: ČD (Czech Republic), DB (Germany), MÁV-START (Hungary), ÖBB (Austria), PKP (Poland), RŽD (Russian Federation), UŽ (Ukraine) and ZSSK (Slovakia). The focus of the meeting was on the further development of the tariff documents and the impact of EU passenger rights regulation on the conditions of carriage for East-West traffic.

Up-to-date information on MERITS (timetable data storage), PRIFIS (fare exchange), the EU regulatory framework with regard to telematics applications for passenger services (TAP) and new developments in the East–West tariff complemented the ambitious agenda. In parallel to the works of the tariff experts, the accounting experts treated their special topics in a separate meeting.

Alexander Masalowicz (DB), chairman of the EWT Steering Group, will step down from his international functions by the end of 2015. He has successfully chaired the group for 19 years, and he looks back at times when Eastern and Western railway philosophies were still in the process of growing together. The core of his activities was to harmonise as much as possible the respective tariffs and conditions and to enable a common tariff data exchange via the UIC PRIFIS platform.

The participants elected Jan Vávra (ČD) as successor to Alexander. Jan will take over the chairmanship of the EWT from January 2016.