To support the shift to low-emission travel and achieve net-zero targets, rail needs to be at the heart of business travel policy, according to American Express Global Business Travel’s senior vice president and general manager of EMEA, Jason Geall, who participated in an online sustainable travel forum organised by eu travel tech on Friday (30 September).
Speaking as part of a five-member panel that included travel managers and EU policy makers, Geall called on rail companies to better engage with the corporate travel sector as more and more companies look for greener alternatives to short-haul flights.
“Rail companies need to be more motivated to engage with the corporate marketplace in order to make the right level of investments in product and infrastructure. For TMCs like us, we also need to be motivated to make investments and put rail at the heart of our strategy,” he said.
While acknowledging current limitations regarding cross-border rail travel in Europe, Geall referred to the rapid rise of Eurostar’s international high-speed rail service and said more companies “need to follow the Eurostar model”.
Similarly, Arcadis global travel director Nikki Parsons highlighted the need for more content to support the air-rail switch.
“We need to have rail content in the same booking channel as air in order to facilitate that switch because a lot of rail is still booked in the direct channels. We also need that rail content available outside of the domestic market so we can tackle our inbound travellers as well,” she explained.
Parity of services is another concern if business travellers are expected to shift from planes to trains.
“We need to look at disruption support, an equivalent to interline agreements that we have with airlines and business products for travellers on the train so they can be productive when they’re travelling,” Parsons said, adding that competitive price points and faster trains will also help motivate corporates to book more rail travel.
In the wake of the pandemic, Denise Auclair, manager of Transport & Environment’s (T&E) Travel Smart campaign, which helps businesses reduce travel emissions, said more corporates are moving towards “smarter” and multi-modal travel rather than travel reductions.
She believes companies need to “increase choices” for employees and said the shift to rail is “exciting”, noting plans to increase the availability of night trains.
According to Auclair, rail generates up to five times less emissions per person per kilometre than air travel, but further improvements are needed to make this option more attractive to business travellers.
“We’re working with partners who are trying to improve the policy framework for the inter-operability of trains and for common ticketing,” she said. The Travel Smart campaign is also examining how increased demand from corporate travellers can help to overcome cross-border challenges and “policy blockages”.
On this point, director for tourism and proximity at the European Commission's Directorate for the Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship & SMEs (DG GROW), Valentina Superti, said “a lot of work is ongoing” to make rail and multi-modal travel easier and more affordable.
An increase in multi-modal transport will also require the collection of additional data sets to feed into reporting tools so travellers can better track and manage carbon emissions.
Integrating data at the point of sale to empower travellers to make greener choices was another issue highlighted by panellists.
“We still can’t provide the carbon cost at the point of booking today. We’re still focused on fiscal cost,” Parsons said.
“There’s a lot of fragmentation in our distribution channels today and that fragmentation causes problems, particularly if [providers] are moving in different directions,” she said.