Overview
- The European Commission, which published a mobility package Wednesday, proposed letting passengers book multi-operator cross-border rail trips as one ticket while requiring dominant national rail firms to host rivals’ offers and share data with booking platforms.
- It creates a new “single ticket” in passenger rights so a missed connection triggers rerouting, reimbursement, assistance and compensation across the whole journey when booked in one transaction, and it bans sellers from splitting trips that could be sold as one.
- A separate multimodal proposal would make major booking sites show travel options by neutral criteria such as price, time or emissions and would limit exclusivity deals that keep operators from selling through rivals or their own sites.
- Railway companies would have to release tickets at least five months before departure, a change the Commission says will help people plan long trips and shift more travel from short flights to lower-emission trains.
- National rail groups criticized the package as regulatory overreach that forces them to sell competitors’ products and could strengthen large platforms, while the proposals now move to the European Parliament and EU countries for negotiations that could revise key rules.