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."

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.

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.

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.