EU rail ticketing reform proposal is out next week: this is what to look out for

In the Newsletter this week
Analysis: EU rail ticketing reform proposal is out next week: this is what to look out for
Bullshit Meter, retrospective: Berlin-Warszawa with Flixtrain
Good week: Record PKP IC fleet for the summer season
Bad week: Inaugural run of the ComfortJet Praha - København goes very badly
Very bad week: Leo Express international service collapses
Photo of the week: Régiolis carrying passengers in Germany
Calendar: Ionian line to re-open 30th June

Newsletter 016, Friday 8th May 2026.
Subscriber-only newsletter, sent every Friday at 14:00 CET.

EU rail ticketing reform proposal is out next week: this is what to look out for

We are finally, nearly, almost there - the Regulation on Rail Ticketing (SDBTR) will be published on Wednesday 13th May, as part of what is now to be known as the "Passenger Package", as there will also be a targeted amendment of the Rail Passenger Rights Regulation, and something on multimodal journeys as well.

I will begin my analysis of the proposal on Mastodon first of all - follow the tag #PassengerPackage there (works even if you are not present on that network). There will be additional analysis throughout the day on this site, and on LinkedIn as well, and if you are a journalist reading this and want comment, you're welcome to contact me.

But what are the things to look out for?

There are two main ones.

The first is obligations. Essentially who obliges whom to share and re-sell what tickets. There are two main ways this could go, although the European Commission could possibly propose both. One option (and the one I personally favour) is to oblige all railway companies (DB, SNCF, Flixtrain etc.) to make available their entire ticketing inventory for third parties to re-sell their tickets, and on fair terms. This would mean that, as a passenger, I could buy my tickets from the operator directly, or from someone else (be that a platform like Trainline, or some other rail company - imagine DB selling Renfe tickets for example). A customer would have a site or sites where they can compare the prices of everything, even cross border and for trips involving multiple operators.

There is another option (that I am less keen on): obliging incumbent ticket sales platforms that have a quasi-monopoly position in their national markets to sell the tickets for all operators in their territory. This would mean, for example, that Flixtrain tickets would be sold on DB Navigator, or Trenitalia tickets would be sold on SNCF Connect. While this might help price transparency in national markets with multiple operators, it will not help achieve the sort of "platform that can sell everything, Europe wide" that the ticket data sharing obligation above would.

The Commission could of course propose both of these obligations.

The second major issue is ticket or tickets, and one or multiple purchase transactions.

If you want one ticket to anywhere you have to force railway companies to bundle their tickets together, meaning a passenger has one ticket for their entire trip, regardless of how many operators or changes of trains are involved. This is an immensely complicated thing to do, but would respect the word of Ursula von der Leyen's political guidelines (PDF) that state "ensure that Europeans can buy one single ticket on one single platform and get passengers’ rights for their whole trip". This would also mean all railway companies would have to have the same booking horizon, to allow everything be purchased concurrently.

The alternative would be for passengers to have multiple tickets for their journey, but providing minimum connection times are respected, would still have guaranteed passenger rights - an easier way to solve the problem in my view. This would mean that railway operators would have to then compensate each other for the costs they each bore for helping out customers stranded in times of disruption, but that is easier than forcing one ticket.

A halfway house, but not a desirable one I think, is to force passengers to book all their tickets in one transaction - multiple tickets booked together. That passengers can book everything in one transaction is obviously beneficial, but that they must strikes me as excessive, not least as this complicates matters for regular travellers who might have passes and reduction cards that ticket sales channels cannot account for.

So those are the issues at stake this coming week. Let's see what the European Commission comes up with!

All my articles about this topic can be found here.

Bullshit Meter, retrospective: Berlin-Warszawa with Flixtrain

It's important for my accountability that I go back over old Bullshit Meter posts and check whether they proved to be correct. This is the first such retrospective.

This was from 13th January 2025, post about it here:

This one proved to be spot on. Despite the story, Flix was not capable of running trains from Warszawa to Berlin, and the paths were not used, and now, in spring 2026, Flix is still not running to Poland. Given fellow private company RegioJet's experience in the Polish market, perhaps Flixtrain's decision makes sense.

All previous Bullshit Meter posts can be found here.

Good week: Record PKP IC fleet for the summer season

Ready for the busy summer period, PKP IC has announced that its fleet is already 100 carriages more than summer last year (1600 carriages now versus 1500 then), and that the first carriages bought second hand from DB are already in service, as reported by Rynek Kolejowy. Delivery of at least 300 more new carriages from FPS Poznan however is delayed until next year. Long distance rail transport in Poland is growing strongly, and this is the latest sign of it.

Bad week: Inaugural run of the ComfortJet Praha - København goes very badly

Nothing seems to go right with Germany - Denmark train services. The entry into service of the new Talgo trains has been fraught with problems. And then, just as a different option is available - České dráhy's Siemens built ComfortJet - the inaugural run went very wrong, as this video from Simply Railway documents:

Overall though, if you get the chance do take one of these ČD ComfortJet trains on this route - once the teething problems are sorted out these trains are massively better than anything Talgo makes.

Very bad week: Leo Express international service collapses

Should you run an international train service that needs 3 trains to operate when you have a fleet of just 3 trains, and no spares? No. Obviously. And particularly so when those three trains are decades old Talgo sets secondhand from Spain.

But that is precisely what Czech private operator Leo Express did - running services Praha - Bratislava, and Praha - Prešov.

But with 2 of the 3 Talgo trains already out of service, they have been cancelling trains over and over, including on the busy 1st May holiday weekend.

Who could possibly have foreseen this?

Photo of the week: Régiolis carrying passengers in Germany

It was the Calendar story in last week's newsletter - that the long saga of the new Régiolis trains not being able to run France - Germany might finally be reaching its end. And so on 4th May I went to Strasbourg and Offenburg to see things with my own eyes. And there it is, a Régiolis in Offenburg, having carried public paying passengers from Strasbourg!

While overall I am not the biggest fan of Régiolis among modern EMUs on the market, here they mark a major step up in quality compared to the Stader RS1 and Alstom X73900 diesel railbuses they replace, not least as these trains are electric on the whole route.

Now we just need to wait and see when all the Strasbourg - Offenburg services use these trains (the SNCF operated ones do, the SWEG operated trains still use diesel railbuses), and when roll out to other lines at the France - Germany border can begin.

Calendar: Ionian line to re-open 30th June

Rail improvements are ongoing in southern Italy, and a major step is due to be achieved by 30th June - the re-opening of the Ionian line between Sibari and Crotone, closed since October 2025. Signalling and electrification works have been completed, and tracks repaired. Read more from Ferrovie.info

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Photo Rights

All photos in this edition are taken by Jon Worth, except PKP IC carriage - photo by Superalbs Travels, used with permission. Bullshit Meter images always have photo rights listed directly on the image.