Passenger stations are where the railway meets its customers. They are also where the commercial product is decided — how long the train can be, how many seats it offers, whether passengers can reach it, and whether the connection they booked will still be there. Yet in capacity management, stations do not stand out. Capacity is planned, allocated and restricted on the open track; the station follows afterwards, if at all.
Between 2024 and 2026, FTE conducted desk research and semi-structured interviews with Railway Undertakings, Infrastructure Managers, a Service Facility Operator and a PSO Authority across a range of European networks. The resulting report explores a set of questions worth taking into the discussion on process improvement:
What is a passenger station in European law — and why does the answer differ from one Member State to the next?
Who owns and manages the station, and what does that mean for the RU that wants to stop there?
What does the stopping fee actually pay for, and why is it not comparable between networks?
How are RU needs taken into account in investment decisions that shape the network for decades?
What happens when a restriction hits the station rather than the line?
Which information does an RU need to plan a service — and can it get hold of it before holding a licence?
Why is the right to stop granted before anyone knows where the train will stand?
What does it take to get a passenger with reduced mobility onto a train, and why is so much of it still done by telephone?
The report maps national practice across these questions, documents where networks diverge, and sets out preliminary suggestions for the standards the sector will need.
Regulation (EU) 2026/1184 recognises the integration of Service Facilities into capacity management, and the newly established SERAF sub-group on Service Facilities is tasked with benchmarking the legal texts against real-world experience. The level of detail in the Regulation is deliberately low, which leaves the sector to define its own standards — and stations are among the areas where those standards deserve improvement.
FTE is ready to contribute its findings to the SERAF sub-group and to work with the working groups on solutions for Service Facilities.
You can find the complete report here.
Further information on Service Facilities can also be found here.