With the Climate and Cost of Living Crisis, the EU’s Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS) Proposal Must Convert Car Drivers to Rail | ALLRAIL

With the Climate and Cost of Living Crisis, the EU’s Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS) Proposal Must Convert Car Drivers to Rail

Brussels, 12th September 2023

• Heatwaves and floods shows that we face a major climate crisis.
• Meanwhile there is also a spiralling cost of living crisis.
• At the same time, transport is Europe’s biggest climate problem.
• Yet one of the least sustainable transport modes – the car – still enjoys 80% market share – because cars are perceived to be cheap and convenient.

But there is a solution:
Collective ground-based public transport has far lower carbon emissions and – thanks to market opening – there are now more attractive fares that can compete against the cost of petrol.

Furthermore, the technology already exists to provide door-to-door ground-based public transport options – with rail as the backbone – between any two places in the EU. This will compete against the convenience of the private individual motor car.

Consequently, these options need to be available wherever car drivers go to look for tickets – and not a subset of ticket vendors. Otherwise, you will simply not manage to convince large numbers of people to convert.

Therefore, the EU Commission’s upcoming Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS) Proposal must push for *multichannel* sales – All Tickets Sold at All Ticket Vendors – and with this 100% Transparency For EU Citizens.

Much time and activity with the MDMS proposal so far has been spent focusing on converting airline passengers to rail. But less than 5% of EU passenger traffic is on flights. Nice to have, but very niche.

“Let’s focus MDMS efforts instead on the vast majority (80%) of EU citizens that use the private individual motor car.

The EU Must Put Passengers First – Nobody Should Restrict What They Can See, Based Purely Upon Where They Go To Book”.
EPF, mofair and ALLRAIL

MDMS must lead to All Tickets Being Bookable At All Ticket Vendors, otherwise it will achieve little.

ALLRAIL, the Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants, represents private independent passenger railway companies. ALLRAIL advocates for faster market opening in passenger rail transport in Europe in order to accelerate modal shift to rail and reduce transport-related emissions.

EPF, the European Passengers’ Federation, campaigns for passenger rights throughout Europe by conducting research, publishing reports, holding conferences and working constructively with transport operators and decision-makers.

mofairis the the German Association of Independent Passenger Rail Operators. It advocates for transparent and fair framework conditions for competition in Germany.