Word: travelled
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...opening up the market, regulators hope to give rail companies room to offer more frequent and diverse services, like special business-class cars. "Our experience has shown that choice is important to travelers, and when you increase the range of choice with new products, services and suppliers, you increase the number of clients who want to explore those new options," says Mireille Faugère, president of domestic and international passenger services for France's state rail company, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Français (SNCF). "For a company like ours - which derives...
This burgeoning of national high-speed networks is allowing trains to challenge airlines on shorter trips even before deregulation comes into force. The Eurostar service - the lucrative 21⁄4-hour route between London and Paris - already controls 70% of the travel market between the two capitals. Opened in 2007, a high-speed rail link between Madrid and Barcelona that cut intercity travel time to 21⁄2 hours has grabbed 50% of that market. Similar effects have been seen in Paris-Lyon, Paris-Brussels and Hamburg-Berlin transport links, where domination by fast trains has led airlines to reduce...
Still, no one is predicting railroads will put airlines out of business. Railteam, a ticketing consortium of seven leading high-speed rail operators, aims to boost the number of people who now use fast trains for international European travel each year from 15 million to 25 million by 2011. That compares with some 160 million who travel across borders by air in Europe every year, a number that is expected to double by 2020. The railroads' relatively modest growth expectations are grounded in some harsh economic realities: new high-speed rail lines take years to plan and build as well...
...railroads begin competing on price and quality of service, the big winners are bound to be passengers. Further deregulation is in store: in 2012, national markets, not just international routes, are slated to be opened to more competition. "Travel as we've known it recently is being turned on its head, with larger numbers of people using high-speed rail to avoid the hassles, delays and stress of taking an airplane," says Mark Smith, a U.K.-based industry expert and founder of rail-travel website seat61.com. "On routes of three hours or less, you get to your destination faster...
...after he took over, Gates summoned General David Petraeus - no favorite of Rumsfeld's - from near exile at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., where he had supervised the writing of a new counter insurgency-warfare manual. Gates was about to travel to Iraq and wanted to know what the big questions were. "The biggest question is whether we have the right strategic concept to fight the war," Petraeus told him. "Instead of concentrating all our efforts on transitioning to Iraqi control, we need to go out and secure the population." (See pictures of Basra getting back to business...