DIRECTORATE GENERAL - JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE
Institute for Systems, Informatics, and Safety
Risk Management and Decision Support Unit /
30 July 2001
Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to invite you to the Workshop on Guidance for Ports and Marshalling Yards to be held at the premises of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, on 3 – 4 October 2001. The meeting will start at 10.00 3rd October and finish around 16.30 on 4 October 2001.
The main objectives of the meeting will be:
- "Emergency planning guidance for rail marshalling yards": to get an agreed version (content and status) of the CER document by the end of the day, so that it can enter into final adoption and practical application.
- to assess Member States views on handling other outstanding issues such as inspections, land use planning, external emergency plans, information to the public… on the basis of the letter from DG Environment (J. Currie) sent early 1999.
Please see the enclosed agenda for further details on the meeting.
Also, with this invitation, I am sending you the Registration Form and you will find some practical details concerning meeting arrangements below.
Location: The workshop is being held at the Joint Research Centre (JRC), Ispra, Italy. Note: To enter the site each day, you must bring your passport with you.
Registration: Attached please find the Registration Form, which you should complete and return by fax to our Public Relations Service before Wednesday 17 September 2001. If you send in your registration after this date, we cannot guarantee a hotel room will still be available.
Accommodation: Once it has received your registration form, the Public Relations Service will reserve a hotel room for you. We have provisionally booked a number of rooms in both the Hotel Continental in Biandronno and the Hotel Europa in Ispra at the price of approximately 130.000 ITL per night (single room) including breakfast. Transportation from the hotel to the meeting site will be provided.
Transport
If you are travelling by air ...
As many of you know, Ispra is accessible both by air (Milan/Malpensa airport) and by rail (Milano and Novara railway stations). Local transport from and to the airports or the railway stations will be provided by a shuttle bus pre-arranged by the JRC.
Note on the registration form that the bus will pick-up participants at Malpensa Airport at 19.30 and 22.00 on 2 October 2001. For your departure following the meeting, the bus is scheduled to take all participants to the airport at 16.30. Because of the size of this meeting, we will not be able to arrange transport outside these scheduled times or for Milan-Linate airport. Therefore, if travelling by air, you are advised to schedule your arrival and departure to coincide with the shuttle pick-up times at Milan-Malpensa airport, if at all possible. Otherwise, you will be obliged to arrange for your own transport to and from the airport.
If you are travelling by train ...
If you plan to travel by train, please indicate clearly to our Public Relations Service, in a cover note accompanying your registration form, that you will be traveling by train. If it appears convenient for several participants, transport may be arranged to and from Milano Centrale train station. In this case, you will be notified of the pick-up time for your arrival a few days before the meeting takes place. Hence, it is very important that you provide in your cover note the precise arrival and departure schedule of your train, the corresponding train numbers, and the city of origin. This information will allow pick-up to be scheduled at an appropriate time.
Should very few participants take the train to the meeting, you may need to arrange for your own transportation to and from Milan. However, you will be informed prior to the meeting if this is the case.
Reimbursements: For those of you who are eligible for reimbursement, the travel costs will be reimbursed under the Commission’s usual rules that I have provided below. Let me draw your attention to our financial services’ rule: for air travel, you must also supply the boarding card for the outward part of the journey (don’t throw it away!).
Reimbursement Rules
Travel costs will be reimbursed in accordance with the following Commission rules:
- if you travel by air, the prepayment/reimbursement will cover the cost of the cheapest air ticket available for the journey actually undertaken.
- if you travel by rail or car, you will be reimbursed the cost of the first class rail fare, including any supplements reasonably necessary.
- taxis, car hire, and car parking fees will not be reimbursed.
The reimbursement will be made by bank transfer some 8-10 weeks after the conference. You should bring full details of the bank account to which reimbursement is to be made.
If you make travel arrangements yourself, note that reimbursements for travel can be made to yourself personally or to your organisation, whomever has paid for the ticket. For this reimbursement, you should bring your travel tickets, a receipt from the travel agency if the ticket does not show the price paid, and for air travel the boarding card for the outward journey.
Information on the Lago Maggiore region. For some of you this may be your first visit to the Lago Maggiore region of Italy. To obtain some idea of what the region offers, I suggest you consult the website
If you have further questions on practical arrangements of the meeting, please feel free to contact me (email: , T: +39 0332 78 9140, F: +39 0332 78 9007) or my colleagues in the Public Relations Service. I look forward to seeing you in Ispra.
Best regards,
Maureen Wood