Brussels (Belgium) (AFP) – The EU could force railway companies to sell rivals’ tickets on their websites and share data with booking platforms under plans to be unveiled Wednesday aiming to boost train travel, sources said. Brussels wants to improve rail connection across Europe to cut carbon emissions from air transport. But dreams of seamless cross-country journeys rub up against a fragmented network broken into national systems that critics say create hurdles and pushes up costs.
Passengers often have to buy tickets from different operators to patch together a multi-country journey. The European Commission is seeking to change this with new rules aimed at ensuring that travellers can buy a single ticket on a single platform for such trips. However, the proposal is fiercely opposed by rail operators — often publicly-run national champions — which could hamper its chances to become law as it is.
“Booking cross-border train journeys within Europe is still unnecessarily complicated,” said Vivien Costanzo, a centre-left EU lawmaker. “A European rail system needs simple bookings, reliable connections, and clear rights for passengers. Only then will rail become a genuine European alternative to short-haul flights.”
Train tickets in Europe are currently largely bought from national rail operators, according to advocacy group Transport & Environment (T&E). These operators often dominate the local market and have little incentive to open up their ticketing platforms to competitors, critics say. The new law would compel them to display rivals’ offers on their websites and make their own tickets available via booking platforms, allowing passengers to compare prices and book a trip in one go, according to an EU source.
Alberto Mazzola, head of the Community of European Railways (CER) lobby group, criticised the plan as an “unprecedented” regulatory overreach by the commission. “I’m not aware of any case where somebody is obliged to sell the product of a competitor. Think about Lufthansa (being) obliged to sell Ryanair (flights),” he told AFP, drawing a comparison with airlines. Firms that invested in improving their ticketing platforms would have to open those to “free-riders,” and the requirement to hand over data would benefit US-operated booking giants, tilting negotiating power in their favour, he lamented.
Cross-border rail travel accounted for only about seven percent of the total in Europe because high-speed infrastructure was not always there, not due to ticketing issues, he said. But supporters countered that the plan would result in more train journeys. A 2025 survey by pollster YouGov for T&E found that almost two in three respondents had avoided trips because the booking process was a hassle, with studies showing that booking a train ride takes on average 70 percent longer than for a flight.
“With more competition on the railways, passengers will benefit from better service and lower prices,” said Jan-Christoph Oetjen, another centrist European lawmaker. The commission is also expected to update passengers’ rights when they miss a connection, from compensation to the ability to hop on the next train.
The move comes as the Iran war has sent aviation fuel prices soaring and raised the spectre of shortages during Europe’s peak travel season. This should provide rail operators a “window of opportunity” to “create a positive narrative” around international rail travel and invest in improving services, said Victor Thevenet of T&E. Rail accounted for only 0.3 percent of EU planet-warming emissions from transport in 2022 compared to almost 12 percent for civil aviation. The commission’s plan needs to be negotiated with the European Parliament and member states to become law, and the latter are likely to back some of the operators’ concerns.
© 2024 AFP
