The UIC meeting of EWT Steering Committee was held from 4 – 6 July 2017 in Vilnius - Lithuania, on the symbolic bridge between eastern and western part of Europe.
The objective of the EWT Steering Committee is to ensure through ticketing (East-West Traffic Tickets) for passengers between railway undertakings which apply the CIV Uniform Rules and those which apply the Convention for International Passenger Transport SMPS in the interest of passengers. It is to achieve substantial harmonisation of the conditions of carriage and of sale and thus to ensure the opportunity to respond to the current competitive situation in the market for transport.
The original OWT (Ost-West-Tariff), which was replaced by the SCIC-EWT, was created in 1994 under the leadership of DB until 2015, replaced by current leading railway CD (Czech Railways). EWT Steering Committee belonging under UIC Commercial Group is closely cooperating with “brother” bodies NRT and IRT Working Groups, as well as with CIT and OSJD. The EWT Steering Committee is convened once a year and consists of main Tariff Group and EWT Accounting Group. The working languages of the group are English and Russian.
The meeting in Vilnius had a high attendance with various carriers from eastern and western Europe: BC, CD, CFR, DB, FPC, LG, MAV-START, OBB, PKP IC, RZD, UZ and ZSSK. Professional background was provided by representatives from UIC (Marc Guigon), CIT (Tetyana Payosova), OSJD (Jelena Antonevic) and David Sarfatti (Avancial/SNCF) with their expert contributions during the meeting.
The group addressed its regular agenda, i.e. amendments of special conditions of carriage SCIC-EWT and accounting rules for EWT and with special topics also being important for EWT carriage: transportation of persons with reduced mobility (PRM), including PRM booking tool and current hot topic regarding MERITS (time-table data) – its usage and passing data to the third parties. The fruitful work was added by contributions from speakers from Russia regarding the new railway connection Moscow – Berlin and from Ukraine presenting new daily train connection from Kiev to polish town Przemysl.
Many thanks go to all active participants and speakers of the Vilnius meeting as well as to Lithuanian Railways (LG) which addrsesed practical questions and helped us to arrange our meeting.
