On Monday 13 January, a number of European professionals and political decision-makers discussed an open market for rail ticketing in Europe, at an event organised by the online train ticket sales company Trainline.
Victor Thévenet, Rail Policy Manager at the NGO network Transport & Environment (T&E), explained that more and more people are concerned about the environment and are prepared to take the train and make longer journeys. “Solving ticketing is one important part in solving the problem of cross-border rail transport”, he added.
Like the other panellists, he said that the main obstacle to ticketing was the lack of mandatory sharing of operator data. “This measure levels the playing field for the platform for a full set a data, for operators to be present on platforms and for passengers to have full protection on passenger rights”, said MEP Kai Tegethoff (Greens/EFA, German).
At his hearing for the post of European Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism in November, Apóstolos Tzitzikóstas promised that he would introduce a single reservation and ticket booking system across Europe starting in 2025, with a single ticket for cross-border rail travel, as is already the case for air travel (see EUROPE 13517/3). “We don’t have the ambition to create a single platform – it would be nice to have – but we mustn't force platforms to sell tickets outside of their geographical scope”, explained Kathrin Obst, Deputy Head of the Single European Railway Area Unit in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE).
Finally, Matthieu Marquenet, Chair of the French Association of digital ticketing platforms (ADN Mobilités), said that the market was locked in because of distribution. “Each country has a strong operator with a platform, which prevents clients from finding tickets in other countries”, he explained. “There is no single regulator, which makes cooperation more complex”, he continued. In his view, the solution would be to find a fair level of commission between operators and distributors. (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)