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

The Global Ukraine Rail Task Force is proud to highlight the highly commendable humanitarian efforts of Simon Cassidy, a dedicated rail sector colleague from First Group and Member of our Task Force.

Transmodel is the technical standard that is best suited for creating impartial and seamless ticketing in passenger rail. It provides passengers with all possibilities to plan their rail journey and is the only ticketing standard that is fully transparent.

A new academic study shows that falling track access charges increase societal welfare. Conversely, higher track access charges have a negative impact on it. Germany already has the highest track access charges in Europe, with a further increase of around 20% by 2025. Reducing track access charges to marginal cost level is the most economically efficient measure to increase rail transport.

The US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is concerned about the lack of improvements at Amtrak following the record levels of funding that it has received. Some comparisons were made to rail in Europe. However, high-speed rail in Europe only became affordable for most citizens and more efficient after intramodal competition was introduced.

Eine neue akademische Studie zeigt, dass sinkende Trassenpreise die gesellschaftliche Wohlfahrt erhöhen. Umgekehrt haben höhere Trassenpreise negative Auswirkungen darauf. Deutschland hat bereits die höchsten Trassenpreise in Europa, mit einer weiteren Erhöhung von etwa 20% bis 2025. Eine Senkung der Trassenpreise auf Grenzkostenniveau ist die wirtschaftlich effizienteste Maßnahme zur Steigerung des Schienenverkehrs.

Standing at the EU Parliament in Brussels today, ALLRAIL’s team expresses its commitment to work alongside the new EU Parliament and the new EU Commission over the next 5 years to ensure the successful implementation of a more competitive and sustainable rail market before 2029.

After Railcoop, yet another passenger rail start-up – Midnight Trains – has ended its activities in the face of the high market barriers to entry. This is another stark reminder that the EU passenger rail market remains much more open in legislation than it is in reality.

Après Railcoop, une autre start-up ferroviaire - Midnight Trains – a mis fin à ses activités en raison des importantes barrières à l'entrée sur le marché. Cela nous rappelle une fois de plus que le marché européen du transport ferroviaire de voyageurs reste beaucoup plus ouvert dans la législation qu'il ne l'est dans la réalité.

EU citizens should have the right to full transparency:  one single standard for distribution helps, but there must also be regulatory action: All passenger rail options sold at All rail ticket vendors. Otherwise, the EU risks spending a lot of time and money on it, but in effect, there will be no change change.

Thanks to your generous corporate and individual donations in Autumn/Fall 2023, we were able to distribute 7,500 additional food packages to rail sector workers and their families in the warzone.

Last week, the independent operator Snälltåget started a new long-distance daytime service between Copenhagen and Stockholm. There could be many more services like this – growing cross-border rail – if only the conditions to encourage more commercial-driven services were in place.

Railway operators must pay a total of approximately €170 million annually for the use of the Amsterdam-Belgium/Breda high-speed line. This amount was agreed between the Dutch government and Dutch Railways (‘NS’), and it stems directly from the Fyra concession fee offered by NS in overpriced bidding back in 2001.

Treinvervoerders moeten in totaal jaarlijks ca. € 170 miljoen betalen voor het gebruik van de hogesnelheidslijn Amsterdam-België/Breda.Dit bedrag is afgesproken tussen Nederland en NS bij de Fyra-problematiek en komt direct voort uit de in 2001 door NS geboden concessievergoeding voor Fyra.

This week, AIPRO - the US Association for Innovative Passenger Rail Operations - submitted testimony to the US House of Representatives Railroad Subcommittee. It presented to Congress a comprehensive long-term program designed to introduce competition on the rapidly expanding intercity passenger corridors.

As the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) celebrated its 20th anniversary, ALLRAIL’s team travelled to its home city of Valenciennes to reflect on the Agency’s achievements so far. The ERA plays a central role in harmonising a fragmented EU rail market, and now it should be given more responsibility and funding. 

State-owned rail incumbents continue to present themselves as financial success stories - which is deliberately misleading. This narrative fails to mention the astronomical growth in directly awarded taxpayer subsidy, without which there would be no ‘profit’.

After over 400 meetings and visiting 65 cities, the President of the Jacques Delors Institute and former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta has issued a report on the future of the EU Single Market and presented it to EU leaders.

It clearly highlights the obstacles that still prevent the Single European Railway Area from leading the way towards sustainable, affordable free movement of people across the Union.

This month, at a meeting in Brussels, European Transport Ministers called on the EU to make rail the backbone of European mobility and that “passengers can easily compare, book and pay for their door-to-door train journey in a trans-European perspective".

It must be possible for travellers to book door-to-door journeys across the EU using ground-based public transport at the same App or website – in one single transaction - with rail as the backbone of the trip.

To counter the dominance of the private motor car and reduce carbon emissions, it is crucial to enable door-to-door bookings on ground-based public transport, with rail as the backbone of the journey.

Therefore a common technical standard across all ground transportation modes must be introduced. The tried and tested Transmodel NeTEx is proven to be technically superior and flexible, and offers full transparency for travellers.

Now, just 2 and a half years after its launch, Lumo is already profitable and significantly boosting the profits of its parent company, First Group.

What is the difference to the EU?

▶ In the UK, there is impartial retail – All Rail Tickets Sold At All Rail Ticket Vendors – e.g. it is regulated that LNER sells Lumo (and vice-versa). The priority is Full Transparency for passengers.
▶ There is a vibrant rolling stock market. Despite being entirely Open Access, Lumo has a brand-new fleet, funded by a leasing company.
▶ Track Access Charges are much lower, especially for new Open Access services - unlike the 17.7% increase that is foreseen in Germany next year.

Conclusion: Open Access works – but sadly, we are still a long way from achieving Lumo-style newcomers in the EU.

The EU needs to move from annual, manual and national system to a flexible, digital and European one. There must be cooperation in a competitive market.Therefore, there are Six Key Success Factors that are necessary.

AERRL, ALLRAIL, CER, EAL, EIM, ERFA, UIP, UIRR and UNIFE support the implementation of the centralised registration function as the European Vehicle Register (EVR) defined in the Commission Implementing Regulation 2018/1614 of 25 October 2018 and the corresponding transfer of the relevant data of registered vehicles from the National Vehicle Registers to the EVR.

22 September 2023: today, the privately owned passenger rail operator Brightline will start regular, scheduled Intercity services between the two largest transport hubs in Florida: Miami and Orlando.

ALLRAIL congratulates Brightline on the milestone that it has achieved today and hopes that this will be the start of a new era of privately owned operators playing a major role in the US Intercity rail market.

ALLRAIL supports the EU Commission's new Interpretative Guidelines concerning Regulation (EC) 1370/2007 on public passenger transport services by rail and by road, that were published on 22nd June 2023.

ALLRAIL, together with the Community of the European Railways and Infrastructure Companies (CER), the European Rail Infrastructure Managers (EIM), the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA), the International Union of Wagon Keepers (UIP) and the European Rail Supply Industry (UNIFE), issued recommendations to the European Commission regarding its proposal for amending the Taxonomy Climate Delegated Act and the Taxonomy Disclosures Delegated Act.

We, the European rail sector, reaffirm our readiness to work with EU Institutions to make the EU Taxonomy successful.

The undersigned organisations, representing diverse interests from across the mobility sector (such as consumers, business travelers, rail new entrants, travel intermediaries) express their strong support for the EU Commission's upcoming initiative on a Regulation on Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS).

However, we voice our strong concerns regarding the presented scope of obligations for transport operators. To fully achieve its ambitious objectives, the MDMS Regulation must cover relevant players of all modes, meaning those with a certain degree of market power.

On 21 September 2022 at the Innotrans trade fair in Berlin, the European railway sector (including ALLRAIL) handed over the Sector Statement on Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) to the European Commission, represented by DG MOVE's Director General Henrik Hololei.

This Sector Statement on the DAC showcases the need and the advantages to roll-out this innovative device across the European railway system in an accelerated and concerted manner, presents the commitment of the European railway sector and calls the European Commission, the Members States and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) to action.

According to Nick Brooks, this is due to an important difference between air and rail transport: "It is not possible to go directly from place to place by train because there are different signal systems in Europe."

"You can't just take a train and set it down on some random tracks somewhere in Europe," he explains. He also believes that a different policy is needed - indeed he even calls it 'a revolution' - in the train area, also in the ticketing system:

"It is our wish that all train tickets can be displayed and sold at all train operators and at independent train portals so that you have a fully accessible train ticket system. Only then will train travel really flourish."

"The national train companies are satisfied with things as they are. There is very little competition. If I asked 100 people in Denmark where they would buy their train tickets, 97 would answer DSB. They have a huge market share, and therefore they have no incentive to change anything."

In January 2024, the Global Ukraine Rail Task Force delegation visited Kyiv, accompanied by representatives from WE AID and Rail Partners, to present a donation cheque of €130,000 to the rail workers of Ukrainian Railways.

This event was covered In July 2024 by PBS News.

"In the United States, competition in the intercity rail market is the answer to the almost unusable Amtrak network. The independent non-profit association, ALLRAIL, has called for the federally bankrolled operation to face competition from the private sector. The call from the association comes as the influential Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has heard that Amtrak’s accounts are almost as unreliable as their timetable".

ALLRAIL have issued a statement, arguing for full transparency when implementing a single standard for ticket distribution.

“While the lop-sided nature of the financing market persists, there must be correctional action,” says Mr Nick Brooks, secretary general of the Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants (AllRail).

“All rolling stock operators should receive the same financing terms as state-owned rail incumbents, if necessary, with a similar type of state-backed guarantee. This should remain the case until the rail financing market achieves a similar level of maturity as, say, the aviation or bus sector.”

Modal shift to rail will remain incomplete without seamless integration of multimodal ground collective public transport (otherwise known interchangeably as ‘ground‑based’ or ‘land’ or ‘land-based’ collective public transport – i.e. no flights). Contrary to car travel, rail transport suffers from a lack of visibility, granularity and reliability for day-to-day journeys.

The AllRail association of new entrants to the rail market said Midnight Trains' announcement was 'another stark reminder that the EU passenger rail market remains much more open in legislation than it is in reality'.

ALLRAIL Policy Officer Salim Benkirane said 'The fact that Midnight Trains’ project was among the cross-border pilots that the European Commission selected should serve as a wake-up call for the new EU Parliament and Commission. How many promising passenger rail start-ups must be sacrificed before action is taken to achieve a genuine Single European Railway Area?'

根強い「鎖国」主義また、こうした課題以上に、⼤きな障壁になっているのが、各国国鉄の「鎖国的姿勢」と⾔われている。欧州の旅客鉄道では各国国鉄が市場の9割以上を占め、⺠間の鉄道会社の進出は進んでいない。欧州の鉄道事業に新規参⼊する⺠間企業で構成する「オールレイル」加盟社のシェアは現在6％に過ぎない。オールレイルのニック・ブルックス代表は「各国の国鉄は顧客のほとんどが⾃国⺠という環境でビジネスを続けており、国内の路線にしか関⼼がない。既得権を守るだけで、他国の鉄道に進出したり、⾃国の路線を開放したりする機運に乏しい」と語る。

The ‘isolationist attitude’ of national railways is also considered to be a major barrier to the development of passenger railways in Europe. National railways account for more than 90% of the European passenger rail market, and private railway companies are not making inroads. The share of ‘ALLRAIL’ member companies, which is made up of new private companies entering the European rail market, is currently only 6%. Nick Brooks, head of ALLRAIL, says: ‘The national railways of each country continue to do business in an environment where most of their customers are people from their own country and are only interested in domestic routes. They only protect their vested interests and have little incentive to expand into other countries‘ railways or open up their own routes’.

"ALLRAIL believes that the Netherlands should waive the levy it charges for the use of the high-speed railway line (HSL-Zuid) from Amsterdam to Hazeldonk. As its reason, the alliance argues that the levy is discriminatory by nature."

Salim was interviewed by the British leading TV channel ITV

RegioJet launched the first Open Access fully commercial passenger rail service between the European Union and Ukraine, on Tuesday evening. The service will run daily in both directions, establishing a direct connection between the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

“Spain and Italy show that with fares having decreased and ridership having grown — similar to what happened in the EU aviation market opening 30 years ago — ‘renationalisation’ is not even on the agenda” says [Nick] Brooks.

On Thursday, March 7, at 11:15 a.m., the gloves will come off and proponents and opponents of market forces in rail will discuss all the possibilities and impossibilities, challenges, wishes and legislation. Secretary General of ALLRAIL, will probably point out that the Netherlands has been on thin ice with the private awarding of the main rail network concession to NS for the years 2025-2033.

In the new Q and A series, ‘Off the Rails’, with figures from the rail industry, Emily Budgen from the Global Railway Review spoke to Nick Brooks, Co-Chair of the Global Ukraine Rail Task Force, and Secretary General of ALLRAIL, regarding the current situation in Ukraine, why rail is important to the Ukrainian war efforts and what would reconstruction entail for the country post-war. 

As one of the 12 recognized rail associations representing the rail industry at a European level, the non-governmental organisation ALLRAIL, the ‘Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants in Europe,’ has been advocating for European Union (EU) regulation that will enable faster market opening in Europe since 2017. ALLRAIL Secretary General Nick Brooks discusses the core challenges to reaching their objective with RailTech.

Grenzüberschreitende Zugfahrten sind umständlich. Dabei gäbe es wie im Fluggeschäft Portale, die Tickets verkaufen. Doch diese beklagen sich, sie würden von den Staatsbahnen gezielt behindert. Nun schalten sich Kartellbehörden ein.

The Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants (ALLRAIL) and The European Passengers' Federation (EPF) have issued a statement, calling for the EU Green Deal to review ticket purchasing.

Concerns have been raised over the signing of directly awarded train operating contracts in several countries, shortly before the expiry of a provision in the Fourth Railway Package regulation on competitive tendering.

Pociągi międzynarodowe Praga – Gdynia dostarczają kolejnego argumentu na rzecz wybierania operatorów w drodze otwartego przetargu zamiast powierzenia bezpośredniego – uważają przedstawiciele stowarzyszenia niezależnych przewoźników pasażerskich ALLRAIL. Jak wskazują, po obu stronach granicy przewoźnicy obsługujący połączenie zostali wybrani w różnej formule, co ma bezpośrednie przełożenie na koszty ponoszone przez polskich i czeskich podatników.

In January 2024, the Global Ukraine Rail Task Force delegation visited Kyiv, accompanied by representatives from WE AID and Rail Partners, to present a donation cheque of €130,000 to the rail workers of Ukrainian Railways.

This event was covered In July 2024 by PBS News.

Salim was interviewed by the British leading TV channel ITV

ALLRAIL's Secretary General Nick Brooks introduces to our new ALLRAIL podcast series, in which we will discuss the latest policy developments in passenger rail transport in Europe.

Fair competition in the rail sector is crucial to securing EU climate change goals and sustainable recovery

Panelists: Erich Forster, President ALLRAIL & CEO WESTbahn

Christian Schreyer, Vice-President ALLRAIL & Transdev CEO for North & Central Europe

Nick Brooks, Secretary General ALLRAIL

• Link to the press conference - YouTube

• Aleš Ondrůj, Senior Director Communications, RegioJet
• Carl Adam Holmberg, Head of Snälltåget
• Nick Brooks, Secretary General ALLRAIL
• Barbora Mičková, Policy Officer ALLRAIL
-> Recorded 17th June 2020

Links:
• YouTube
• Podcast (Spotify)

After COVID-19 webinar in April 2020 ALLRAIL issued a discussion on YouTube and Podcast channels.

First episode on the impact of COVID-19 on our members:
• YouTube - Key points (10min.)
• YouTube Full version (50min.)
• Podcast (Spotify)
• Podcast (Apple)
• Podcast (Google)

We consider the future of passenger rail in the 2020s. There can be little doubt that the coronavirus pandemic has shaken faith in public transport, but rail remains fundamentally attractive for its ability to move people efficiently with minimal land take and an extremely low carbon footprint. This discussion will assess the outlook for passenger operators and how they might adjust to a ‘new normal’.

Arthur Kamminga presented ALLRAIL vision on the topic of "How to stimulate international passenger rail?" at the Hearing on European support for international passenger rail transport at the Commission for Mobility of the Belgian House of Representatives, taking place on 17th December 2019 at the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium.