Interestingly the European Rail Passengers Union (@erpu@eupolicy.social) isn’t wholly positive; see this thread: https://eupolicy.social/@erpu/116566721075134554
Apparently it’s still going to be quite a bit of work to find the best place to buy a ticket if your trip crosses more than one border, and your existing discounts are unlikely to apply.
Still, it will hopefully be an improvement over the situation today.
Finding the international itinerary and the prices is such a pain currently. If you can easily compare routes then buying them isn’t so bad.
Trainline.com is OK, but they still don’t have all of the routes so its often better/required to buy from the national provider.
Hopefully transitous.org will solve the problem of stitching the routes together and then someone will build the automated payment and ticket management on top of it.
They know this is crucial next step towards cross border competition. At that point they would have to compete with eachother on efficiency and punctuality, nightmare for national monopolists. Our national rail company is a dumping ground for C tier politicians after they’ve run their course.
There are many other crucial steps to take for cross border competition to take off. European countries often still use incompatible voltages, alarm systems and rail sizes.
Alberto Mazzola, executive director of CER, a lobbying group representing European rail operators, said the EU should focus on simplifying the delivery of infrastructure rather than simplifying ticket sales. “If you don’t have the infrastructure,” Mazzola said, “selling tickets has very limited benefit.”
That…doesn’t really seem like an either-or decision. I can believe that CER wants the EU to facilitate rail infrastructure, but I don’t see how having a one-stop way for consumers to obtain tickets spanning rail systems is in any way incompatible with rail infrastructure issues.
Because having a one-stop ticket will hurt the bottom line of people having to buy multiple tickets and paying feeds and others for each trip
That’s long overdue. It’s an absolute atrocity that booking a train journey from Zurich through Germany and Begium with a final destination in the Netherlands is a task that can easily take up an hour while booking a flight is a 2 minute affair.
My wild guess is it will stay that way because DB says no.
Alberto Mazzola, executive director of CER, a lobbying group representing European rail operators, said the EU should focus on simplifying the delivery of infrastructure rather than simplifying ticket sales. “If you don’t have the infrastructure,” Mazzola said, “selling tickets has very limited benefit.”
Japan, UK, and China are the only other countries/regions with developed passenger rail infrastructure. Your argument sounds petulant.
you missed south korea and taiwan
