With effect from today, 1 April 2025, major parts of RFC Orient/East-Med have been fully integrated into RFC Rhine-Danube as a consequence of the revision of the TEN-T Regulation. The revised Regulation integrates the eleven Rail Freight Corridors and the formerly known nine TEN-T corridors into nine European Transport Corridors. The former Orient/East-Med Corridor (RFC OEM) has ceased operations and most of its lines are now forming part of RFC Rhine-Danube.
The participating Infrastructure Managers and Allocation Bodies decided at an early stage for this transition in order to maximise the potential synergies of the two RFCs, which already have had joint activities, working groups, and meetings for three years now. This former close and fruitful cooperation has enabled a smooth and early transition ahead of the legal deadline.
What does this geographical alignment mean for the business of our customers?
The gradual transition of the C-OSS service for managing PaP and Reserve Capacity requests had already started in autumn last year.
– As a first step, the C-OSS of RFC RD offered Reserve Capacity for timetable 2025 also on most of the lines of RFC OEM (except lines in Greece and Bulgaria, which have not been integrated into RFC RD).
– As a second step, the C-OSS of RFC RD is offering PaPs on the lines of RFC OEM for timetable 2026 (except lines in Greece and Bulgaria).
The Management Board of the geographically aligned RFC RD is looking forward to cooperating with its customers and stakeholders further on. In order to use synergies with other RFCs, similarly as done between RFC RD and RFC OEM before, the Management Board of RFC RD will continue convening joint meetings with the Railway Untertakings and Terminal Advisory Groups (RAG/TAG) of other RFCs. This year, the Management Board is already organizing a meeting on 14 May in Nagycenk/Sopron jointly with RFC Amber and RFC Baltic-Adriatic, and will also organize a meeting on 22 October in Vienna jointly with RFC North Sea-Baltic.
A map of the new RFC RD alignment you can find here: https://rfc-rhine-danube.eu/who-we-are/