Jobs & Traineeships

Currently, we have no open vacancies.

FTE offers to highly motivated university students to become part of the FTE team for several months and by this boost their career. The trainees will have the opportunity to participate in real projects and contribute to the daily work of our organisation. They will test their soft skills, but principally also develop a good basis of hard skills in the railway business. Therefore, the traineeship is very suitable for a person with a passion for railways and with the high motivation to continue the career within the railway sector. Moreover, the student might also utilise the traineeship period for the PhD/master/bachelor´s thesis (not obligatory), however, the topic has to be relevant for the FTE working program.
 

Expected profile:

• High motivation and passion for railways
• Fluency in English (B2+)
• Outstanding language skills in another language of the EU (e.g. PL, HU, SL, DE) is considered a plus
• Proficiency in MS Office
• Any of the following topics of interest are considered as a plus:
  • Railway timetabling
  • Communication and design
  • Infrastructure charges
  • Integration of railways, terminals and service facilities
  • Allocation and train priority criteria

If this raised your interest, you could find more information about the traineeship, including how to apply in our call here. Please read the document carefully and especially the traineeship conditions. This is an ongoing call, you can apply for the traineeship in any time of the year.

Open topics for thesis

The master and PhD students can contribute to the development of the future European railway processes by doing a thesis (or research) on a selected topic, which is part of the FTE working program. The conducted work can be of high interest for Railway Undertakings, since it can provide empirical/data evidence for the business improvement and thus contribute to higher competitiveness of rail. The student applies for an offered topic to info@forumtraineurope.eu, the application should include the CV and clear motivation. Upon mutual agreement, the FTE office can offer an introduction to the topic, may invite to the relevant international meetings, nonetheless, the ultimate majority of work should be done individually, including data collection. The currently open topics are:

Integration of service facilities into the capacity management process

The associations for Railway Undertakings and Infrastructure Managers FTE/RNE are currently in the implementation of the future TTR process, which focuses on railway capacity planning and railway allocation. Nevertheless, for RU business it is essential to have the right to use the tracks but also to have a reserved slot at the terminal/service facility. These two separate processes are currently integrated only to a limited extent, which shall change. The suggested research should map the current processes for selected service facility types (potentially including the gap analysis) in several selected countries, investigate the market-needs of the sector (i.e., best practices in Europe), and finally, propose recommendations (process) on how to integrate service facilities to harmonised integrated capacity/slot allocation, but also the long-term strategical railway planning.   The research methodology is upon mutual agreement, but it would certainly require at least the independent desk-research, potentially interviews with the involved stakeholders. The suggestion is to select service facilities from passenger stations, cleaning and washing facilities, and refuelling facilities.

This topic is currently open for application only for the period of September 2023 – June 2024.
 

Financial Incentives (Commercial Conditions) for Capacity Commitments

RUs rely on high-quality rail paths to be competitive in the European transport sector. Temporary Capacity Restrictions (TCRs) are massively influencing rail transport day by day. On the one hand, construction works are urgently needed to make the rail network in Europe more attractive and, on the other hand, the current capacity for rail operations must not suffer as a result. A very harmful impact are causing TCRs announced on short notice, for instance not respecting the Commission Delegated Decision (EU) 2017/2075. The research should first investigate the existing financial incentives for IMs to keep the TCR planning stable and list their shortcomings. Secondly, should propose a financial incentive framework, which would be motivating to IMs to plan TCR sufficiently in advance (plan ahead to minimise the payments), and a compensation mechanism to the RUs in cases when IMs do not keep the capacity commitment. Besides, the research might also tackle the issue of the international aspect (a TCR of one IM affecting other IMs and paths on their networks).

This topic is currently open for application.