The NRT (Non Integrated Reservation Tickets) working group held its annual meeting in Clervaux, Luxembourg, kindly hosted by CFL. Representatives from CD, ZSSK, MAV START, SV, DB, NS, CFL ATTICA GROUP, SBB, ÖBB, SNCF, TRENITALIA and NMBS/SNCB were present, along with the CIT and a number of representatives of the UIC working groups whose work affects or is affected by the NRT activities. Natascha Hooft, who was elected as president last year, chaired the meeting. Luis Casado, senior advisor of this working group, represented UIC.
The meeting started with a warm welcome from the chairwoman of the group and from the host of the meeting. The first session was a joint session between the Night Trains Group, which held its own meeting the day before. The Special Conditions of Carriage were discussed in those articles concerning the Night Trains, and a new version was approved in which the text in English will be the master version. The new version of Leaflet 106 in those aspects concerning NRT was approved, although it still has go to through the EWT and the IRT working groups, given that it deals with aspects from those fields of work. The aim is to present the new version on the Commercial Group next autumn, which will be a product of all the Commercial Working Groups. The session finished with an overview of the activities of the IRT (Integrated Reservation Tickets) working group, presented by chairman Laurent Pollet.
The second day started with an overview of the activities of the CIT given by Jan Svensson, and a summary of the latest meetings and initiatives from UIC, given by Mr Luis Casado, with special attention to the Commuter and Regional Train Systems Training to be held from 28 – 30 September in Rome. This was followed by a discussion about the Rail Plus offer, chaired by Mr Sascha Oberbüscher (DB) who summarised the discussions and results of the experts group that has held three meetings during the last months to come up with a new offer for this product, to be approved at the next Commercial Group. Mr Oberbüscher also announced that they will start to work in a digital version of the Rail Plus pass. During the afternoon, the group revised the SCIC NRT, and some changes were introduced. Other topics related to the Special Conditions of Carriage were also addressed.
The last session started with an overview of the pilot project of DB and SNCF in Alleo trains regarding penalty fare notice for border crossing journeys, given by Christiane Kraus (DB) who also talked about commercial policies. Later, Mr Jan Svensson (CIT) to reduce the timeframe for the submission of applications for refunds. Mr Ruetger Fenkes, president of the Commercial and Distribution Forum, reported on the state of the art of the MERITS/PRIFIS project (he explained the separation of both projects and the reasons to do it), and then he gave a presentation of the current status of the TAP TSI and the structure and roles of the TSGA. Federica Follesa (TRENITALIA) gave a presentation regarding the new anti fraud policies in Italy and the NRT regional traffic, and the meeting ended with Mr Peter Maleux (NMBS/SNCB) giving an overview on the ticketing activities.
TRENITALIA will host the next meeting from 16 – 18 May 2017.
