UK railway undertaking GNER has achieved the best results: free bicycle carriage is possible on all GNER long-distance and high-speed trains and the compulsory reservation can be realized online. GNER is followed by the Swiss SBB/CFF/SFF and by three other UK companies (Hull Trains, Midlands Mainline and Virgin Trains).

In the carriage offer parameter, the four national UK railway undertakings reach the maximum score, since they allow free bicycle carriage on all long-distance services. The minimum score is reached by CP, SJ, Renfe, Eurostar (UK), Thalys and OSE, where bicycle carriage is not allowed on any long-distance service.

Deutsche Bahn has the most bicycle friendly website but is penalized by the impossibility to carry bicycles on ICE high-speed trains. This has brought a 60% reduction of bicycles transported on long-distance trains in Germany since 1995 (ca. 630,000 bicycles transported in 1995; ca. 250,000 in 2005).

The reduction of possibilities for customers with bicycles due to the introduction of high-speed trains is one of the most alarming trends in the EU. GNER, Midlands Mainline, Virgin in the UK but also SNCF in France (TGV) and CD in the Czech Republic (Pendolino SuperCity) - demonstrate, however, that bicycle carriage on high-speed trains is possible and realistic and that there is no reason for the bicycle ban on German ICEs or on Italian and Spanish intercity trains.

On the other hand, railway operators claim that the railway industry has not considered bicycle carriage in the design of modern long-distance and high-speed trains. The automotive sector is in the meantime clearly going in the direction of flexible interior design allowing rapid transformation of seats into luggage and bicycle spaces and vice versa.  A similar trend in the railway industry is still hardly recognizable.

This study shows that railway undertakings and railway industries alone are not able to consider customers with bicycles.

The European Commission should recognize this and stimulate a bicycle friendly approach requiring facilities for bicycle carriage on all EU trains in the frame of the Third Railway Package that will be approved in 2007.

The European Parliament on the 18th of January 2007 has already voted in the frame of the Third Rail Package that "all trains should provide a specially designated area of the train for baby carriages, bicycles and sports equipment."

Railway undertakings would maintain decisional power over the operative conditions of the bicycle carriage offer. This is not about carrying bicycles on full trains at peak hours, but customers with bicycles are a rapidly growing market niche in the EU that could bring economic and image benefits to railway undertakings.

The first printed copies will be spread at the pre ECF Annual General Meeting Workshop ‘Bicycle and Public Transport’ in Berne, Switzerland, 17 May 2007