EPF was represented at the Plenary meeting of the intergovernmental Platform on International Passenger Rail (the IRP) in Oslo at the end of November by Arriën Kruyt and Christopher Irwin. The meeting was hosted by the Railway Directorate of the Norwegian Ministry of Transport. Chris made a presentation on EPF’s current approach to rail ticketing.
Noting that rail travel accounts currently for only a disproportionately small share of cross-border journeys, Chris Irwin said that the evidence suggested that, in no small part, this reflected the deficiencies of the rail sector’s approach to ticketing. Getting ticketing right is a priority for EPF. Many potential passengers find it too complex when they seek to plan and book a trip involving rail. Research data indicates that the ‘drop-out’ rate for rail trip bookings in Europe is ten times higher than for booking a flight (see here).
In addition to officials from national administrations, the meeting was attended by representatives of other key sector players. These included CER, AllRail, EU TravelTech, the European Railway Agency and technical experts from Entur AS. Entur is the government-owned company in Norway that was created to offer sales and ticketing solutions for railways and a travel planner for public transport throughout Norway. Its system is essentially based on CEN’s NeTEX standard and is non-discriminatory between service providers.
NeTEX is a standard for the exchange of public transport schedules and their related data such as fares. It is transparent (i.e., non-discriminatory), and works well in a multimodal context as is evident in the limited operational case of the Norwegian ticketing market. Its cross-modal application is strongly endorsed by AllRail. It is not favoured over OSDM by CER. OSDM is a standard developed by UIC with CER’s support, and is designed to accommodate the operational as well as the commercial priorities of the rail sector in a multimodal context. This has resulted in a stand-off amongst the interested parties in progressing a much-needed, user-friendly, multimodal ticketing system.
A comparative analysis undertaken by the ERA of the TAP-TSI (Technical Specifications for Interoperability, Telematics Applications for Passenger Services, see here), OSDM and recent competition rulings identified significant question marks about the anti-competitive potential of OSDM. Despite CER’s assertion that OSDM remained the technical solution most-favoured by many of its key members, Arriën and Chris gained the clear impression from the meeting that, given the impetus provided by Ursula van der Leyen’s Political Guidelines and her proposed new Single Digital Booking & Ticketing Regulation, it should be possible for the ERA to reach a solution that builds on a NeTEX-based transmodal API – which accommodates planning for the use of all modes of public transport – whilst taking the best features of the more rail-focused OSDM.
In doing so, it would avoid use of those aspects of OSDM that might theoretically enable its application in the ticketing distribution market in an anti-competitive manner. Participants recalled the statement to which all the members of the Platform’s advisory Sector Stakeholders’ Mirror Group had subscribed at an early stage in their deliberations. This said that all distributors should have full access to the content relevant to ticketing distribution on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.
Chris concluded in his presentation that urgent progress is needed on simplifying the planning and booking of cross-border rail journeys with improvements in journey continuation arrangements. Passengers need the assurance that, even when there is disruption, arrangements will be made to get them to their planned destination at the earliest opportunity, irrespective of operator, location, or tickets held – and at no additional cost. Without very substantial progress rail will fail to recapture growth in market share from air and road and the rail sector could find itself marginalised increasingly, despite its current sustainability advantages.
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