There are 30 countries with their own national railway and ticketing and fare systems and a dozen or so independent train operators with their stand-alone ticketing systems.
Buying a cross-border train trip can be a nightmare.
Creating one railway system for Europe connecting all capitals with high speed trains would be a great project for the EU. Too bad it’s never gonna happen
Well, since summer 2020 there are 0 international trains from Lithuania.
Well EU regulations just made Norwegian rail travel more rather than less complex (used to be one government owned company that ran the trains, now there are 3-4 foreign companies that do the same depending on the line), so maybe start there?
Thing is though that air travel is more like a bus than a train at present, because you can hop from airport to airport if you get on the right plane.
Frankly if we want efficient long distance rail, we need dual track paths all over the place to allow traffic to flow more akin to roads. Because a major impact on rail travel is when say a passenger train have to sit and wait for a freight train to pass.
Is it really so complex?
From France I was able to casually buy tickets for at least Belgium, Germany and Italy. Just use Trainline. Super easy.
It’s about challenges to integrated ticketing in the EU but lots of problems with ticketing are related to other problems. If I remember correctly the most important issues are:
– local operator’s interests like control over revenue and pricing
– reimbursement
– uncountably many pricing models
EU concert: ♫ First we take the trains, then we take Berlinnnnnn ♬
EU not same as United States of America
I had no idea it was the case. For some reason they managed to make international bus trips as simple as regular bus trips though.
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There are 30 countries with their own national railway and ticketing and fare systems and a dozen or so independent train operators with their stand-alone ticketing systems.
Buying a cross-border train trip can be a nightmare.
Creating one railway system for Europe connecting all capitals with high speed trains would be a great project for the EU. Too bad it’s never gonna happen
Well, since summer 2020 there are 0 international trains from Lithuania.
Well EU regulations just made Norwegian rail travel more rather than less complex (used to be one government owned company that ran the trains, now there are 3-4 foreign companies that do the same depending on the line), so maybe start there?
Thing is though that air travel is more like a bus than a train at present, because you can hop from airport to airport if you get on the right plane.
Frankly if we want efficient long distance rail, we need dual track paths all over the place to allow traffic to flow more akin to roads. Because a major impact on rail travel is when say a passenger train have to sit and wait for a freight train to pass.
Is it really so complex?
From France I was able to casually buy tickets for at least Belgium, Germany and Italy. Just use Trainline. Super easy.
I think this analysis also sums it up pretty well. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/af05b3eb-df43-11e9-9c4e-01aa75ed71a1
It’s about challenges to integrated ticketing in the EU but lots of problems with ticketing are related to other problems. If I remember correctly the most important issues are:
– local operator’s interests like control over revenue and pricing
– reimbursement
– uncountably many pricing models
EU concert: ♫ First we take the trains, then we take Berlinnnnnn ♬
EU not same as United States of America
I had no idea it was the case. For some reason they managed to make international bus trips as simple as regular bus trips though.