To Compete With The Car, Multimodal Door-To-Door Bookings Using Ground-Based Public Transport Must Be Possible
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.
The EU Green Deal Needs to Make Train Tickets Easier to Find and Book
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.
ALLRAIL and EPF: The EU Green Deal needs to make train tickets easier to find and book
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.
Germany: in a judgement, Court recognises the dominant position of incumbent Deutsche Bahn’s in-house online rail ticket vendors
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.
Passengers Can Book Rail Journeys Much More Easily in the UK than in the EU – It’s Time for EU Transport Commissioner Vălean’s New MDMS Proposal to Put Passengers First
In the United Kingdom, All Rail Tickets Are Sold at All Rail Ticket Vendors.Yet Deutsche Bahn (DB) and its lobby refuse this in Germany and the EU – Why Are They Restricting the Operators that Passengers Can Book?