EU Proposes Simplified Cross-Border Rail Ticketing Rules

The European Commission has proposed sweeping rules to simplify cross-border rail travel across the 27 EU member states, requiring rail operators to make their tickets available on any online platform and compelling dominant national operators to display and sell competitors' services on their websites.

The initiative, unveiled this week, aims to enable passengers to plan, compare and purchase multi-country journeys with a single ticket transaction. "Freedom of movement is one of Europe's greatest achievements. Today, we are taking it a step further by making travel across all 27 member states simpler, smarter and more passenger friendly," said Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the EU commissioner for transport and tourism.

Currently, passengers often must buy separate tickets from multiple national operators to assemble cross-border trips, a process critics say fragments the network and inflates costs. EU data shows nearly 400 million intra-bloc international air trips in 2024, compared to about 150 million cross-border rail journeys. Rail accounts for just 0.3 percent of the bloc's transport-related greenhouse gas emissions, versus nearly 12 percent for aviation.