ALLRAIL’s new Position Paper demonstrates how dominant rail groups still control both train operations and national ticket vendors, creating a structural TRIPLE Lock-In that restricts transparency and distorts competition.
Survey data shows that 61% of long-distance rail journeys were avoided due to booking difficulties. The issue is not technological. It is market structure.
Operations
Market-dominant operators control their own ticket vendors and block the visibility of independent operators.
Data
Access to real-time ticketing data is filtered through vertically integrated distribution systems.
Passenger Protection
Protection remains tied to legacy arrangements between incumbents.
“Passengers don’t know what they don’t know. If they are not shown all available rail options, how can anyone claim they are satisfied with the market? The visibility of new entrants is being hampered by vertically integrated ticket vendors with Significant Market Power, which benefit from exclusive marketing in stations they manage and from historically high market shares in rail services that were not earned through competition on the merits. This distorts the level playing field before competition can even begin.”