About the European Commission’s proposal:
On May 13th 2026 the European Commission (EC) delivered a ticketing and passenger rights regulation proposal, following Ursula von der Leyen’s “one single ticket on one single platform and get passengers’ rights for the whole trip”.
Key elements of the EC’s proposal:
- Single ticket: Provides increased passenger rights for travellers on multi-operator journeys, provided purchasing conditions are met
- Continuation obligation: Introduces the obligation for operators with available seats to accept passengers who missed a connection, after a delay from a separate operator
- Sharing obligation: Requires that operators make all their connections and tariffs available for booking by third-party platforms at least 5 months in advance and to pay the third-party platform a fair fee for their cost and effort. This means that all scheduled trains in the following 5 months should be available to sell by any platform willing to do so
- Hosting obligation: Forces operators dominant in a member state to also sell their competitors’ tickets for all services which start or end in the dominant operator’s member state
- 12-hour-rule: Single tickets lasting longer than 12 hours do not give new rights to compensation, except if a night train is included in the ticket bundle (or the trip is provided by one operator). This limitation does not apply to other passenger rights such as assistance or re-routing, which are still guaranteed
A summary of Back-on-Track’s response:
Back-on-Track welcomes this long awaited proposal, which is urgently needed to advance the stalled transport decarbonisation agenda. The difficulty to book train tickets easily with guaranteed passenger rights is one of the main hurdles to the development of rail as an effective mode of transportation across Europe. If this proposal were to be adopted as written, it would constitute real progress for passengers, and would make more attractive journeys which today are difficult to book and are not covered by passenger rights.
However, in spite of this positive assessment, Back-on-Track still sees room for improvements over some concerns and has realistic expectations on what this proposal can achieve. Back-on-Track is open to discussion with relevant actors in order to find improvements.Besides night-train-specific barriers, two barriers currently prevent citizens from using any rail option for cross-border travel:
- International routes are fragmented across websites so that travelers must hand-craft trips by finding and booking each leg separately on the one side
- If they succeed in getting their tickets, operators along the route won’t cover missed connections from another operator potentially causing cascading delays and surprise costs for last-minute tickets or hotels on the other
These two barriers prevent the emergence of a cross-border passenger base, giving rail companies little incentive to look beyond their domestic markets. The proposal addresses both issues: it gives all distributors visibility over all forthcoming trains, and establishes a framework for cross-operator passenger rights needed to book cross-border journeys with confidence.
The regulation proposal introduces a requirement for nationally dominant operators to sell all their competitors’ tickets on their home market. For large platforms like DB Navigator and SNCF Connect, covering the full rail offer could meaningfully strengthen their position: users would no longer need to leave the platform to verify that no better connection exists, even on international routes. Their reluctance to do so is again due to their focus on the home market, leading to a defensive position in the face of domestic competition. This is a missed opportunity: state-owned platforms like SNCF Connect or DB Navigator have the scale, brand trust, and existing customer base to lead on cross-border rail distribution.
Five key recommended improvements
1. Bring back von der Leyen’s original wording of “single platform”
The current proposal introduces a single transaction requirement for single tickets, the consequence of this wording being that legs cannot be added, removed, or changed later on. This is needlessly restrictive, and not in line with the original mandate from Commission president von der Leyen: “one single ticket on one single platform and get passengers’ rights for the whole trip”. Indeed, the single platform is the real operational requirement, since while presenting the trips, the sales platform needs to ensure that connection times are respected, taking the responsibility if that’s not the case. We propose that the “one single transaction” requirement is changed into the original “one single platform”, allowing citizens to build up trips over time on the same platform and to make any adjustments needed in concordance with the individual transport contracts. This change would also allow citizens to use popular subscription tickets like the Klimaticket or Deutschlandticket, adding covered legs at no extra cost.
2. Ensure a platform that sells all train tickets across Europe
As the regulation requires nationally dominant platforms to sell all operators’ tickets only as long as their trains touch their country, this does not yet make sure you are able to book a cross-border trip with connecting trains at each side. Nationally dominant platforms like SNCF Connect or DB Navigator might fail to see a chance in selling all tickets from all operators. And private companies like Rail Europe or Trainline might choose to focus only on more simple products like seats in day trains More complicated products like reservations for travellers with Interrail tickets and particularly night trains, offering a range of special options like women-only couchettes or breakfast, might be missed out. One solution could be to make the larger ones of the dominant platforms (measured on the European scale e.g. by market share of sales) responsible to sell all tickets in all of Europe, as long as ticket and tariff data are provided according to applicable standards.
3. Re-route passengers regardless of their original route or schedule
A stranded passenger needs a pragmatic journey continuation solution to limit the impact of the incident. And operators should have a mutual interest in minimising additional costs (hotels, compensation…) for the liable operator. This is the core motivation for existing, but voluntary schemes like Agreement on Journey Continuation (AJC). To avoid that passengers need to learn when and when not operators do agree on schemes like the AJC, the regulation proposal should extend such a scheme to all operators. The scheme should include journey continuation in a night train as an alternative to an overnight stay in a hotel, provided that lying accommodation allows sleeping and to define the booking platform’s role as the main information contact for stranded passengers, to avoid unclear responsibilities when multiple operators are involved in a transfer.
4. Allow service-specific Minimum Connection Times (MCTs)
MCTs are proposed to be in the hands of station/infrastructure managers. As these times are not just about walking times between platforms (and sometimes between stations) a time buffer depending on peculiarities of service types or single services should be added in order to reduce the probability of missed connections. Particularly night train operators often need more time for a check-in when entering the train and they bear a higher risk of accumulating delays due to the longer distances they cover and due to crossing borders. This increases their liability risk, when continuing the journey with another train. This is why we propose that operators should be allowed to ask station/infrastructure managers for additional connection time buffers for their service type. Station/infrastructure managers must, of course, only consider reasonable extensions.
5. Introduce liability limits so that night train operators can cope
The regulation proposal introduces a liability limit to compensation rights (to complement the single ticket) to trips within a total travel time of 12 hours, with an exemption for trips including a night train (Re-routing and assistance rights will apply to single tickets without any limit). On the one hand this is an incentive to include night trains in longer trips with many connections. On the other hand this would lead to a structurally higher liability risk for night train operators, as they are always part of a longer journey including a night train. Higher liability risk leads to higher cost which might make using and operating night train services less attractive. To avoid this we suggest adding a larger, 36-hour limit to compensation, re-routing and assistance rights for journeys including a night train. As night train enthusiasts we would rather keep on planning multi-day journeys with stopovers than risk losing further night train connections.
The regulation is a logical step of the EU’s way to make railways a market for operators, which is disputable but a reality within which we have to find better solutions. Bearing this in mind, the proposal would definitely improve the current situation.
A longer analysis of this regulation and a more detailed presentation of our proposals can be found here: