In her Political Guidelines for the Next European Commission, the re-elected President of the EU Commission Dr Ursula von der Leyen correctly identifies the fragmentation of ticketing as the biggest problem in EU passenger rail.

ALLRAIL supports her fully on this ambition. We would like to thank all political stakeholders in recent years for their support in identifying this problem too.

The next 5 years of the new EU Commission will be crucial to legislate and introduce solutions – it is Now or Never.

On page 9 of her Guidelines, President von der Leyen writes:

“To achieve our climate objectives, we also need to make it easier for people to shift to more sustainable options. This is notably the case with mobility.

Cross-border train travel is still too difficult for many citizens. People should be able to use open booking systems to purchase trans-European journeys with several providers, without losing their right to reimbursement or compensatory travel.

To this end we will propose a Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation, to ensure that Europeans can buy one single ticket on one single platform and get passengers’ rights for their whole trip.”

ALLRAIL Secretary General Nick Brooks says: “Special thanks go to MEPs, EU Commission officials and increasingly EU Member States for listening to ALLRAIL and other like-minded stakeholders who support these political goals.

Now, the new EU Parliament and the new European Commission must deliver and implement these changes over the next 5 years – for the sake of the future survival and growth of the EU passenger rail system.