Travelling seamlessly across Europe by train might soon become as easy as planning a bus or tram trip in town, thanks to Germany’s push for a new digital ticketing infrastructure and the European Commission’s plans to introduce legislation making passenger rights to rebooking and reimbursement mandatory across all 27 EU member states.
Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany’s national railway operator, has announced it is developing a new digital system to streamline international rail bookings. The aim is to simplify journeys across Europe’s patchwork of different national railway systems.
Michael Peterson, DB’s board member for long-distance transport, told the German press that the objective is to make it “as easy to book an international journey as a domestic one”. He added the initiative would bring closer to the “major goal”, of seamless cross-border rail travel across Europe, powered by a unified digital system and EU-backed regulations.
A key milestone is the adoption of the Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM), a new data-sharing standard that will allow European rail operators reciprocal access to each other’s ticketing systems. Inspired by models such as IATA’s global standards for aviation, OSDM will not (yet?) provide a fully unified ticketing system or compensation scheme applicable to all operators. Rail companies will remain sovereign entities, unlike airlines, which often collaborate through alliances and shared platforms.
Still, the model will simplify the process of combining tickets from different national providers. As railway expert Jon Worth warns, OSDM is not a “one-ticket-fits-all” solution, but rather “a better way to stitch together tickets from different railways.”
Initially, the system will link DB with Austria’s ÖBB and Switzerland’s SBB, with additional national railways expected to follow. Currently, travellers wishing to go from Germany to Spain or Portugal must book separate legs on different national platforms, making the process time-consuming, confusing, and error-prone.
To tackle this, another major benefit of the new system will be improved passenger protection. At present, travellers who miss a connection due to delays or cancellations on one leg of a multi-country trip, are very rarely reimbursed or rebooked.
In 2024, EU President Ursula von der Leyen acknowledged that cross-border [train] travel was still too complicated. “People should be able to use open booking systems to purchase trans-European journeys with several providers, without losing their right to reimbursement or compensatory travel”, she said.
Worth argues that further reform is needed including “binding rules for data sharing, commissions for ticket re-sale and better passenger rights”.
EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas is expected to propose legislation addressing these issues, including data-sharing requirements, commission transparency, and the creation of unified booking platforms.
However, Deutsche Bahn has expressed concern that introducing alternative digital standards alongside OSDM could undermine years of investment and development. According to DB, replacing or duplicating the system would be both costly and time-consuming.
Nonetheless, DB remains committed to international expansion. It recently launched a high-speed route between Berlin and Paris, and 2024 saw a 22% rise in ticket sales — the highest since before the pandemic.
