Justin Scholz, a thoughtful friend of mine, sent me a link to this post by Anil Dash, entitled “Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does” – do read it in full. Let’s have a go applying this to international railway ticketing, and use what – superficially – […]
Analysis
The Stadler RS Zero: the new solution to save the smallest branch lines
Harrachov, Czechia Adorf (Vogtland), Germany Černousy, Czechia Selb-Plößberg, Germany Holzhau, Germany Bayerisch Eisenstein, Germany On the smallest branch lines in Germany and Czechia (and even just into Poland on one line) you will find them – Stadler RS1 railbuses, with their characteristic trapezoid shaped […]
Deutsche Bahn has an amazing opportunity in ticket sales, but is too blinded by Flixtrain to seize it
While clearing old belongings here (pre-move to France) I stumbled across a 2003 Interrail diary of mine, and in it were timetables for trains in Italy and Romania printed out from the website of Deutsche Bahn. Today, 21 years on, I am still using Deutsche Bahn’s website to plan my […]
Peel back the rhetoric and state railways are naked on Europe-wide ticketing – only EU law is going to fix this mess
For the past few years the state owned railways in Europe – represented in Brussels by Community of European Railways (CER) – have been working on their “Ticketing Roadmap” (yes, don’t laugh, railway companies really have a roadmap). This roadmap is the railways’ response to customer and political demands to […]
So long Berlin. I’m off to a Bourgogne village
On 27th September, a removal truck will pull up outside the building in Berlin Neukölln I currently call home, and into it will go my belongings. My time in Berlin will be over. I’ll race ahead of the truck in a train, and from that evening Ravières (population: 719) in […]
Note to the new EU Transport Commissioner: fixing cross border rail ticketing will help millions of Europeans, and can secure your legacy
Dear 2024 nominee for European Commissioner for Transport, Congratulations on your nomination. Being Transport Commissioner is a massive challenge, and an enormous privilege. As pretty much all of us living in the EU use some sort of transport every day, what you do is going to have an impact on […]