EU Commission has created an ambitious plan for streamlining the booking of train tickets in European Union countries. The Passenger Package proposal aims at allowing travelers to book a single ticket for a cross-border train journey that may include multiple rail operators. Additionally, travelers are planned to have the right to take another train or even hotel accommodation if a delayed train interrupts the journey they have paid for. Since this is still a proposal, will it really change travel by train some day?

The key points of the European Commission proposal for simplifying Europe-wide travel booking and train travel are the following.

• Travelers can book a single ticket for a train trip that takes them across borders in EU countries. The ticket may feature multiple rail operators.
• All rail operators and independent digital platforms that market train tickets have to be able to provide tickets to all – also competing – trains in their country.
• Passengers will have comprehensive rights for re-routing their journey, assistance, accommodation, or reimbursement if a delayed train interrupts their trip. These rights also apply to tickets comprising multiple rail operators.

For train passengers this may seem something that is almost too good to be true. Finally, the trouble with booking a trip that crosses borders in Europe could be significantly easier. Also, the stress of missing the next train because of railway operator would be manageable knowing that options are available for recovering from the problem.

Commission’s proposal, however, is only the first step in the EU legislation process. Next, the EU Parliament and Council have to approve it, or send it back to the Commission. Finally, each EU country will have to adopt the new laws. Whatever the final package will be we have to wait for it perhaps a year or two, rather than a month or two.

In the name of the single market, the EU has achieved a few smash hits in recent years. Free movement of people and goods among countries and mobile phone roaming from home network to a network in another country without extra fees are remarkable achievements. Yet, enforcing all rail operators to sell competitor’s tickets can be a difficult task to get done – although the background for this requirement is obvious. Big, powerful national rail operators are not happy to see competition increasing on the railways.

Perhaps the key requirement for easier travel booking, after all, is to enforce all rail operators to make their tickets available to other vendors in fair and reasonable terms. When online travel platforms, like Railfinder and its competitors have all the data they need they can focus on services that travelers want and algorithms that can find a range of routing and scheduling options.

It won’t be straightforward for the EU to pass such a significant modernization initiative to the railways as the Passenger Package is, but this is exactly why the EU matters to the European community.

France 24 reported the news about the EU single ticket proposal.