One trip, one ticket: New EU rules aim to ease train travel

"The EU plans to force railway companies operating across the bloc to sell rivals' tickets on their websites and share data with booking platforms, under new rules that are intended to boost train travel. Brussels said the move, which is fiercely opposed by operators, would make journeys more seamless, helping passengers to find, compare and buy tickets in one go."

"To change that the commission proposed obliging rail operators to make their tickets available to all online platforms that want to sell them. Undertakings that hold at least 50 percent of a national market would also have to display on their websites all services run in their country by competitors - and sell the related tickets if clients want them."

"The European Commission wants to improve rail connection across Europe to cut carbon emissions from air transport. But the goal has long rubbed up against a fragmented network broken into national systems that critics say create hurdles and push up costs. Passengers often have to buy tickets from different operators to patch together a multi-country trip."

"The Community of European Railways (CER) lobby group slammed the idea as an 'unprecedented' regulatory overreach. "I'm not aware of any case where somebody is obliged to sell the product of a competitor. Think about Lufthansa obliged to sell Ryanair," flights, CER head Alberto Mazzola told AFP."

EU plans would require railway companies operating across the bloc to make competitors’ tickets available on their websites and to share data with booking platforms. The rules aim to let passengers find, compare, and buy tickets for journeys across all 27 member states in one place. The European Commission links the effort to improving rail connections and cutting carbon emissions from air travel. A fragmented rail network with national systems often forces travelers to buy tickets from multiple operators to complete multi-country trips. The proposal would also require undertakings with at least 50% of a national market to display competitors’ services on their websites and sell related tickets if customers request them. Operators oppose the plan, calling it regulatory overreach.

Read at The Local Germany