OREANDA-NEWS. During recently held “Airport in the City” conference, DME airport representatives made a relevant project presentation there, the press service of the airport informs. Domodedovo airport is the first airport in Eastern Europe that had implemented railway service with Passenger Terminal in Moscow downtown. Speed transport system Aeroexpress was set up in 2002 – more than five years ago. Aeroexpress connected Moscow Domodedovo International airport with Paveletsky railway station.

The passengers can check-in in the reconstructed Passenger Terminal in Paveletsky railway station. Nowadays train set consists of eight carriages: seven carriages for passengers wagon and one for the luggage. Average train set seats amount to 573 seats. The Aeroexpress train runs every hour and every 30 minutes in peak hours.

In 2006, 24% of Domodedovo passengers used Aeroexpress train to get to the airport. According to the forecast this index will grow up to 25% in 2007 which will amount to 4.7 mln of people. In total, 15,5 mln of people used Aeroexpress during 5 years of its operations.
Moscow DME implements "Domodedovo Air Rail Service" (DARS) project on Aeroexpress train basis. The main object of DARS is to optimize passenger time on his way to/from the airport to other cities. This project enables passengers to get from 12 cities in Russia and Ukraine to Moscow city center in guaranteed time. For example passenger will spend 225 minutes on the way from Moscow city center to Yekaterinburg and 200 minutes to Dnepropetrovsk (including check-in and customs).

In May 2006 new route from Belorusskyi railway station to Domodedovo airport with stops on Kalanchevskaya station and Kurskyi railway station was opened. Kalanchevskaya station is situated on Komsomolskaya square which grants passenger access to three Moscow railway stations: Kazanskyi, Yaroslavskyi and Leningradskyi.

Following Moscow DME, other Moscow airports began to implement corresponding projects.

Nowadays Domodedovo airport enjoys an opportunity to launch night operations of the Aeroexpress train and additional trains on DME-Belorusskyi railway station route, as well as to modernize train sets and add carriages for business class passengers. Beside that, DME enjoys an opportunity to use “e-ticket” technology for Aeroexpress train.

International Air Rail Organisation (IARO) is an international organization to implement the most effective technologies in railway links between airports and the cities. There are over 300 airports listed in the IARO database of actual or planning airport links. Currently there are over 70 up and running and further 230 planned, being developed or under construction.