Ticketing fragmentation identified as biggest problem in EU passenger rail

Credit: Campaign for Better Transport

In her Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission (EU), the re-elected President of the EU Commission, Dr. Ursula von der Leyen, announced that she has identified the fragmentation of ticketing as the most significant issue in EU passenger rail. ALLRAIL fully supports this initiative and extends gratitude to all political stakeholders who have acknowledged this problem in recent years.

The upcoming five years under the new EU Commission will be pivotal in legislating and implementing solutions to address this challenge – it is a Now or Never moment.

On page nine of her guidelines, President von der Leyen states:

• “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.”

ALLRAIL Secretary General Nick Brooks said: “Special thanks go to MEPs, EU Commission officials, and increasingly EU Member States for listening to ALLRAIL and other like-minded stakeholders who support these political goals. Now, the new EU Parliament and the new European Commission must deliver and implement these changes over the next five years – for the future survival and growth of the EU passenger rail system.”