The proposed strategic investment in rail infrastructure in the recently announced Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) grants will only be optimised if there are modern, interoperable trains that can use it. However, modern, interoperable trains come with very high acquisition and upgrading costs. Therefore, it is crucial that the EU enables sufficient non-discriminatory funding to support the implementation of the latest interoperability technologies.

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.

Potential passengers need easy access to timetable information and quick access to tickets. Recent legal rulings have shown: The EU and its Member States finally need to make trains easier to find and book for the citizens who are paying for it.

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.

The Hamburg Regional Court, in its judgment of 1 December 2023, fully upheld a lawsuit filed by an independent operator, prohibiting the in-house online rail ticket sales vendors of the state-owned rail incumbent Deutsche Bahn (DB) from using certain filter options which led to misleading search results.

It confirms that DB's in-house online rail ticket sales vendors are market-dominant in Germany - and by deliberately suppressing competing long-distance competitors this has had a direct and lasting negative effect on competition - because booking a train ticket requires the search and comparison of visible offers.