DZSF – Deutsches Zentrum für Schienenverkehrsforschung beim Eisenbahn-Bundesamt · September 2025 to August 2027
A structured overview of specific recommendations for harmonising national forecasting results for cross-border infrastructure projects in the railway sector
Rail infrastructure is essential for providing equal, economical and environmentally friendly transport services to regions, both nationally and internationally. While there are initiatives at European level to coordinate transport infrastructure planning (e.g. TEN-T), the development and operation of infrastructure remains the responsibility of individual countries. Rail transport is particularly strong over medium and long distances and is already a Europe-wide market, both in passenger and freight transport. Planning is usually based on national targets and strategies, with future traffic volumes estimated on the basis of national specifications and assumptions or calculated using national transport models.
The research question formulated by the project sponsor „Deutsches Zentrum für Schienenverkehrsforschung“ (DZSF) is: ‘To what extent can traffic volumes in cross-border areas be harmonised in a methodologically valid manner within the framework of operational project planning, and how useful is such harmonisation in terms of planning procedures?
There is a need for research to analyse framework conditions, forecasting methods and their input data, to examine harmonisation processes in specific cross-border projects, to identify and prioritise influencing factors,
to derive success factors from this and to develop practical harmonisation processes.
The project is divided into 5 work packages:
Work package 1 – Research on traffic forecasts in European countries and interviews with stakeholders
Work package 2 – Comparison of planning-relevant fundamentals, SWOT analysis of harmonisation processes at project level
Work package 3 – Case studies – Analysis of existing harmonisation processes
Work package 4 – Development of practical harmonisation processes and recommendations
Work package 5 – Communication of results to various target groups: politicians, experts, ministries, railways, journalists through publications in trade journals and conferences, as well as the provision of results in an easily understandable, abstracted and visually appealing brochure for politicians and administrators, and publication on an internet platform with dashboards for the general public
The project will result in a structured overview of specific recommendations for harmonising processes in cross-border infrastructure projects in the railway sector and the development of a practical approach to harmonising forecast train numbers.
Key areas of expertise
- Analysis of macroscopic traffic modelling methods in 14 European countries
- Analysis of existing harmonisation processes relating to production volumes in real, Europe-wide, cross-border projects
- Identification of factors influencing harmonisation processes
- Derivation of a practical harmonisation methodology for coordinating and determining specific cross-border production volumes within the framework of long-term planning
Special
Contractor is PTV Planung Transport Verkehr GmbH and quattron GmbH.