Advancing EU rail passenger rights

When passengers combine several operators in one journey, they are often not guaranteed full passenger rights. Yet, more and more companies are operating rail services in the EU. The regulations proposed in the EU Passenger Package in May 2026 represent a major opportunity to fix this situation, but there is more work to do to guarantee full passenger rights are secured across the EU.

Our report demonstrates that, currently, European rail passengers are not sufficiently protected and are still exposed to financial burdens when they miss a rail connection between operators. We show that, despite European regulation and industry schemes, passengers missing a connection still have to buy expensive last-minute tickets or pay for their accommodation themselves. Harmonised EU regulation is needed to guarantee rail passenger protection across a broad range of journeys involving several operators.

The EU Passenger Package represents a major step forward in passenger rights protection. These proposals aim to guarantee protection for passengers who hold a ‘single ticket’, including assistance for food and accommodation costs, reimbursement, rerouting and compensation. This would apply to both international and domestic journeys, including those involving multiple operators. This is a major win for passengers.

However, the package has shortcomings for passengers. The proposed regulations define a single ticket as a journey booked in a single transaction. Passenger rights are therefore directly tied to the booking possibilities on ticketing platforms. The ‘hosting obligations’ from the EU Passenger Package will mandate dominant ticketing platforms to display or resell tickets from any operator running services in the country where they are dominant. Previously, we showed that booking possibilities from market-dominant platforms were currently insufficient. Our new analysis reveals that due to a limited geographical scope, the hosting obligations will barely improve this situation: 43% of the rail equivalents of Europe’s most flown routes will remain difficult or impossible to book as a single ticket on these platforms, limiting the coverage of improved passenger rights.

For these new regulations to fully deliver, we call for expanding the geographical scope of the hosting obligation from the EU Passenger Package. Expanding this scope would in turn expand passenger rights coverage and encourage modal shift. We also call on EU institutions to extend the definition of a single ticket to journeys booked via a single platform, rather than strictly limiting the definition to a single transaction. Otherwise, there is a risk that these new regulations will create unharmonised, unequal rights for passengers, depending on where and when they book their tickets.

The package is key to pushing for a broader adoption of rail, but falls short of delivering on the change the EU Commission promised.

EU Parliament and EU Council must increase the ambition. The geographic scope of the hosting obligation should be extended to include the most frequently driven and flown routes in the EU

Discounted or flat-rate passes such as Climate Tickets use different booking mechanisms due to their subscription model. It is essential that these are included in this legislation to ensure passenger rights associated with Single Tickets are enjoyed by passengers benefiting from other rail initiatives.

We welcome new proposals on booking horizons (i.e. how far in advance tickets can be bought). However, we recommend a minimum of 6 months to help passengers book a single ticket in one transaction with full rights.

If you would like to read more about our other demands regarding the EU Passenger Package, please read our report Modernising the EU’s rail ticketing regulation from April 2026.

The current European regulation in place covers passengers travelling with through-tickets with one operator, leaving passengers combining different operators unprotected. Schemes such as the AJC aim to fill this gap, but offer insufficient protection and do not cover domestic travel or key aspects of passenger rights such as assistance.

To estimate the price of a missed connection, we collected ticket prices for whole journeys for a trip departing in a month. We then collected ticket prices for the last leg of these journeys, but on the day of departure, to simulate the supplementary costs of buying a new ticket on the day of travel when missing a connection. For this analysis we did not take accommodation costs into account. Refer to the methodological note for further details.

It is undeniable that the EU Passenger Package is a huge step forward for passengers. Improvements on current conditions are worth defending as the EU Passenger Package moves through the EU Parliament, Council and Commission negotiations.

However, President von der Leyen’s commitment to improving climate friendly cross-border rail travel will not be fully realised with the limitations of geographical scope on the hosting obligation proposal of large operators. To make it easier for people to book climate friendly journeys with full passenger protection by rail, EU decision makers must first focus on the need to expand the geographical scope of obligations on major operators. Decision makers must ensure single tickets can be booked on a single platform, and avoid limiting access to single tickets to a single transaction booking. Finally, we highlight the importance of ensuring that holders of existing public transport passes such as the Deutschland ticket can book single tickets so that other modal shift initiatives are harmonised.