Booking a rail ticket is a burdensome process
The upcoming EU Single Ticketing package should mandate commercial negotiations between rail operators and booking platforms to ensure tickets are displayed and sold across platforms
In this report we investigate the rail equivalent journeys to routes among the most heavily frequented by aviation in the EU. Our results highlight the current weaknesses of rail booking in Europe that require urgent attention in the upcoming Single Ticketing Package. The EU Single Ticketing package should mandate commercial negotiations between rail operators and booking platforms to ensure tickets are displayed and sold across platforms under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms so that passengers can buy a single train ticket from the beginning to the end of their journey across Europe with full passenger rights.
On more than half of the routes analysed, operators do not display all available journeys including competitors’ tickets. This practice not only prevents passengers from easily comparing and booking the most suitable services on the same route, but also keeps them unaware of the very existence ofthese alternatives, even though they may be cheaper than those offered by incumbent operators.
What is the Single Ticketing Package
This package provides a crucial opportunity to streamline and improve passenger’s booking experience of European railways tickets
The Single Ticketing Package includes:
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The Multimodal Digital Mobility Services Regulation (MDMS),
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Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation (SDBTR)
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and the revision of the Rail Passenger Rights Regulation (RPRR)
This package provides a crucial opportunity to streamline and improve passenger’s booking experience of European railways tickets, enabling people all over the EU to choose climate friendly transport with full passenger rights. The MDMS file regulates tickets that platforms sell and display for rail, air, sea, and road transport that is long-distance, medium-distance and regional. The SDBTR regulates rail operators sharing ticket data for long-distance, medium-distance, regional, excluding urban and metropolitan services.
This has the potential to improve and introduce:
What is the mandate of the EU Single Ticketing package?
President Von Der Leyen’s 2024 political guidelines
“To achieve our climate objectives, we also need to make it easier for people to shift to more sustainable options. This is notably the case with mobility. Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens. People should be able to use open booking systems to purchase trans-European journeys with several providers, without losing their right to reimbursement or compensatory travel.
To this end we will propose a Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation, to ensure that Europeans can buy one single ticket on one single platform and get passengers’ rights for their whole trip.”
We are awaiting a proposal on three crucial files under the Single Ticketing Package from the EU Commission imminently which will then be scrutinised by the EU’s co-legislators in the coming months. We urge decision makers to reflect on the findings of our study, and agree to an ambitious Single Ticketing package that prioritises passengers and the reduction of the EU’s transport emissions which remains the only economic sector where emissions are still above 1990 levels.
