As Von der Leyen Commission II pursues seamless international rail, commentators are weighing up the benefits of the “One journey, one ticket, full rights” policy out of Brussels.
The aim? “To create a smoother travel experience for passengers and advance the EU’s climate objectives,” the Commission said, proposing the measures to facilitate single-ticket journeys across the bloc’s multiple rail operators.
Mark Smith, also known as The Man in Seat 61, has summed up the gap the Commission is trying to address. Speaking to Simon Calder, of The Independent, he described the problem of today’s fragmentated marketplace: “There are no through tickets from London to Rome. It’s a Eurostar ticket to Paris, an Italian or French ticket from Paris to Milan, then a Trenitalia ticket or Italo ticket from Milan to Rome,” he said.
🚆 One journey. One ticket. Full rights.
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) May 14, 2026
Travelling by train across Europe can still be complicated, especially across borders and multiple providers.
We want to change that.
Our new package will make it easier ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/8e1ProT4Om
But as early as summer 2026, von der Leyen wants to ensure that “In the event of missed connections during multi-operator rail journeys, passengers with a single ticket will benefit from new, full passenger rights protection, including assistance, rerouting, reimbursement and compensation.”
Smith blames the problem people face on the advent of budget airlines such as easyJet and dynamic pricing and their headline fares at £39 (€45) from Luton to the French Riviera. They controlled expenditure and matched pricing to demand, drawing passengers away from rail and into the skies. In the effort to compete, railways have struggled with a model that meant they needed to book out a whole train to fix a price point.
But under the new system, passengers who buy multiple tickets in one single transaction – as they would through Trainline – would effectively be in possession of a “through ticket,” as far as their passenger rights were concerned. This would give travellers the confidence that, in the event of a problem, they could switch without paying a surcharge, to the next available departure.
Smith is wary though of conflating “through tickets” with “through prices.” He notes that the cost of individual legs of the journey will still be considered in final prices offered to customers.
“A journey from Stockholm to Barcelona will still be composed of the price from Stockholm to Copenhagen, the price from Copenhagen to Cologne, the price from Cologne to Paris, and the price from Paris to Barcelona,” he warns. “But” he went on to explain: “the idea is twofold. First of all, there will be a better exchange of information, allowing you to book this series of tickets seamlessly. Secondly, it’ll be a sort of virtual through-ticket.”
At this stage, both demand for European rail travel and impatience with its systems are running high, and von der Leyen could be argued to have chosen easy pickings where ratings are concerned. Calder, has highlighted that any “rational traveller wanting to get from the “City of Kings” to the “City of Light” will probably opt to hop off a southbound stopping train at Luton Airport Parkway, and fly instead. EasyJet has a choice of two flights to Paris under £50: one at lunchtime, one in the early evening.” He damned efforts to compete by European rail as “lacklustre.”
Rising airfares and fuel costs are prompting travellers to swap short-haul European flights for rail travel, with nearly 45% of agents in a recent Travel News poll reporting increased demand for intra-Europe train journeys. pic.twitter.com/ymxqjBy6Dl
— TAG Travel Assignment Group (@TAGTravel_Za) May 29, 2026
The antiquated system has also come in for criticism from Georgia Whitaker, a rail campaigner at Europe’s Transport & Environment (T&E) thinktank. Booking equivalent train tickets is “difficult or impossible” on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, her analysis shows, with flight routes as simple and popular as Lisbon-Madrid or Amsterdam-Milan either not available, or only bookable through one operator.
Whitaker argued that the impact of the outdated rail system is undermining rail consumer confidence as well as potential climate action. “In the world we live in you can get pretty much most things, for better or worse, with one click. When you can’t do that to travel by rail – despite people’s best intentions – we are not going to see the full potential being utilised.”
Meanwhile, Brian Caulfield, a transport researcher at Trinity College Dublin, independent of the report, slammed the “stone age” process that makes it unnecessarily hard for travellers who seek alternatives to carbon heavy flights. “We are making it structurally difficult for even the most climate-conscious travellers to choose the greener option,” he said.
