European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen promised single-ticket rail travel across the continent in her re-election pitch to the European Parliament, but a similar initiative in her previous five-year term never saw the light of day.
Alberto Mazzola, CER’s executive director, said that while the rail industry supports measures to improve international ticketing, this “shouldn’t be at the expense of the transport operators”.
“Railway undertakings operate on small margins with high fixed costs, so any regulatory intervention that decreases those margins will potentially result in diminishing services, with a negative impact on passengers,” he said at the time.
I am 100% confident that improvements to international ticketing would increase ridership, so even if they’d get a smaller slice of the pie, the pie would still be bigger. But that’s probably too much long-term thinking / less certain than the status quo, so I’m sure they’re lobbying against it :/
I am 100% confident that improvements to international ticketing would increase ridership, so even if they’d get a smaller slice of the pie, the pie would still be bigger. But that’s probably too much long-term thinking / less certain than the status quo, so I’m sure they’re lobbying against it :/