The European Commission has proposed new rules to make it easier for travellers to book complex cross-border rail travel involving multiple operators, while also improving consumer protection rights for these journeys.
The commission said it wanted to simplify Europe-wide train booking and travel through three specific proposals within the Passenger Mobility Package, which should make it easier for travellers to compare available travel options and find the most sustainable choices.
These measures include the Rail Ticketing Regulation, designed to allow passengers to find, compare and buy services from multiple rail operators in a single ticket, which can be purchased in one transaction on a ticketing platform “of their choice”. This can be either a third-party booking platform or through rail operators’ sales channels.
Passengers will also gain full rights protection if they miss connections during a multi-operator rail journey, including the right to receive assistance, rerouting, reimbursement and compensation.
Another part of the commission’s proposals will introduce new obligations for ticketing platforms and train operators to “ensure fair access to selling tickets and the neutral presentation of travel options”, including the ability to display results by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions where possible.
“Rules will ensure that all transport operators can conclude fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) commercial agreements with ticketing platforms, and vice versa,” explained the commission in a statement.
Sustainable travel campaign group T&E welcomed the commission’s move to enhance rail passengers’ consumer rights. But T&E added that the proposed rules will not require major rail operators’ platforms to sell tickets for most multi-leg cross-border trips, which could impact the initiative’s ability to “deliver a huge increase” in international train travel.
Georgia Whitaker, rail campaign manager at T&E, added: “Today we saw a huge leap forward for rail passengers’ rights. However, the Passenger Mobility Package will not reach its full potential and encourage the majority of passengers to rail, since major rail operators are not required to sell tickets across all routes that passengers frequently fly or drive.
“Now it's up to the EU Parliament and EU Council to ensure that most of these routes are easily accessible for passengers to book by rail.”
Business Travel advocacy group BT4Europe also welcomed the proposal, describing it as "a potentially a giant step in the right direction for simpler, more connected and more sustainable cross-border mobility across the EU".
However, Lotten Fowler, chair of BT4Europe’s business impact working group, said: “Based on our initial assessment, the package contains both positive elements and areas which are likely to raise questions and concerns within parts of the travel sector.
"It will therefore be important to examine carefully during the legislative process how the measures would work in practice for travellers, operators and the wider business travel ecosystem.”
EU Travel Tech, which represents travel technology firms, said that while the commission’s proposals marked “significant progress” towards better rail ticketing, they failed to enhance multimodal travel and risked imposing “unnecessary regulatory burden” on transport ticketing platforms.
Emmanuel Mounier, secretary general of EU Travel Tech, added: “The Rail Ticketing Regulation is both a genuine step forward and a missed opportunity for European travellers.
“Imposing FRAND obligations for dominant rail operators will unlock real competition and real choice for rail travellers, and we strongly support the commission’s willingness to act.
“But the co-legislators must seize the opportunity to build on this solid foundation to instil a true multimodal ambition in the regulations, applying the same logic to rail and air travel, where the market failures are well-documented and equally damaging.”
The commission’s proposals will now be considered by the European Parliament and the EU Council, which represents the governments of the 27 member states.