The 'Magistrale for Europe' is a 1,500-km long rail link connecting Paris, France with Budapest, Hungary, via Strasbourg, Stuttgart, Munich and Vienna. The quality of the infrastructure on the line is variable. Upgrading the line would require investment of €15,000 million, but would reduce average overall journey time by 30%, increase the average speed from 90 to over 130 km/h and improve accessibility. The benefits of the upgrade were assessed in an EU project entitled INTERREG IIC and were confirmed by the High Level Group on the trans-European transport network (TEN-T). In 2004, the EU decided to incorporate the rail link into the 30 TEN-T priority projects. The upgrading progress within France, Germany, Austria and Hungary is outlined. For the covering entry of this conference please see ITRD E132365
Samenvatting