The 2024 edition of the European Mobility Expo (EuMo Expo 2024) has been a success, with +11.000 participants from +100 countries. For three days, EuMo Expo 2024 transformed Strasbourg into the European capital of mobility and public transport. EPF’s President, Michel Quidort, participated in a session on ‘How digital technology is transforming passenger relations’ on 2. October.

The panel (here) considered how digitalisation is playing an increasingly important role in the implementation of everyday transport services: booking platforms, information applications, ticketing, etc. What are the optimisations and benefits offered by these new solutions for passengers? What are the latest innovations in this area? Is this trend right for everyone? What alternatives are being put in place for people who are far removed from digital technology?

EPF President Michel Quidort: “Digitalisation means easy multimodal and integrated information and booking for passengers”

Other speakers included Christophe Fanichet (CEO of SNCF Voyageurs), Giorgio Travaini (Europe’s Rail Executive Director), Giovanni Eandi (Gruppo Torinese Trasporti) and Florian Maitre (GART: Groupement des Autorités responsables de transport).

Michel Quidort: “Among conditions to be fulfilled in order to reach the Green Deal’s ambitious objectives, the issue of simplifying ticketing to access public transport is key. Otherwise the expected modal shift will not happen. Digitalisation can help to achieve this, but only if it makes information, booking and payment accessible and simple for customers, who should be able to get integrated and multimodal tickets in one click at a one-stop-shop.”

This intervention gave the opportunity to EPF to insist on essential measures to be implemented with a view to a customer-friendly digitalisation and to confirm its support for a future Regulation on Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS) and the expected European Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation (SDBTR)  announced in July by Ursula von der Leyen, to make it easier to book cross-border train tickets in the whole EU.

The session was also the place to remind EPF’s position on the objectives of digitalisation (see EPF’s position paper):

• Passengers should have access to unbiased, dynamic journey information, enabling informed choices, both when planning and making their journeys;
• Buying multimodal tickets should be easy, affordable and offer protection in terms of passengers rights in case something goes wrong;
• Data sharing and readiness to conclude distribution agreements between operators and Multimodal and Digital Mobility Services should be the norm.

Michel Quidort