• This year, to coincide with the UEFA EURO 2024™ (European Football Championship), German Railways (‘DB’) is making the pompous claim that it is “One Team. For The Environment.”

• But it is time to separate fact from fiction – a new night train has come to Germany, and DB is deliberately refusing to sell its tickets.

The EU rail ticket sales market is dominated by the in-house ticket vendors of state-owned rail incumbents, with well over 90% market share. In their home Member States, they are the default channel for passengers looking to buy rail tickets, because they inherited a historic brand awareness.

At the same time, such ticket vendors are publicly owned. Then surely it must be in the public interest for them to sell all passenger rail options – and get more people onto trains – one of the most sustainable transport modes?!

But DB is deliberately refusing to sell the tickets of the new night train operator European Sleeper – whilst DB does sell the tickets of a different night train operator serving the same city pairs. This is highly discriminatory behaviour (!)

ALLRAIL Secretary General Nick Brooks says: “More night trains will help the transport sector reduce its CO2 emissions. For the sake of Full Transparency for citizens, All Rail Tickets Must Be Sold At All Rail Ticket Vendors.”

mofair Managing Director Dr Matthias Stoffregen continues: “The market dominating DB portals bahn.de and the DB Navigator app must open up to all train operators who wish to sell there. Otherwise, all talk of more passengers travelling by rail is just talk.”