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’.

International railway transportation experiences significant operational barriers compared to road and aviation through stringent language requirements which hinder the development of international travel. Significant changes to existing requirements are needed to facilitate the growth of international rail transportation. ALLRAIL and ERFA believe English should be introduced as a common language for international traffic in the revision of the Directive, whilst also maintaining existing national language requirements 

Barbara Thaler (Member of the EU Parliament), with the collaboration of ALLRAIL and ERFA (lobby association of rail freight operators), hosted a breakfast debate on the language requirements in the upcoming Train Drivers’ Directive at the EU Parliament in Brussels.

After 70 years of the fragmented current system, just 4-5% of travellers crossing borders internally within the EU use passenger rail.

Transport Minister Dr Volker Wissing has recently identified major cost drivers that cause cross-border rail to be so much more expensive than flying. One of them is train drivers changing over at the internal EU borders, which would be avoided if a single language were adopted.