A design vision towards seamless European train journeys

Abstract

Our current travel behaviour is having a detrimental impact on the environment. Especially air travel is a huge contributor to climate change, with its large amounts of polluting carbon emissions. Due to increasing concerns regarding the environmental impact of air travel, international train travel may become an increasingly popular mode of transport for European journeys in the near future. However, current European train journeys are not an integrated and supported experience from start to finish. Finding suitable tickets can be complicated due to the variety of booking platforms and irregularity of ticket prices. Moreover, train journeys themselves can be stressful because of delays in transfers and the inflexibility of departure times. As a result, many people are withheld from actually taking the train and prefer to travel by plane or car. In order to stimulate more people to choose the train as their mode of travel, this project created a design vision towards seamless European train journeys. In this future vision travellers are able to travel anywhere they want, whenever they want to. It allows you to just hop on any international train, without having to book a ticket in advance. With your personal travel account and location being updated behind the scenes, it is possible to travel across borders and pay as you go. Standard journey fares are introduced, so travellers will not face any unpleasant surprises afterwards. This project puts forward a strategic roadmap presenting the main steps, actions and developments that are needed to realise the future vision. Seamless European train journeys should take shape by incremental scale increases over time, starting with current pilots that make it possible to seamlessly travel across borders in the Netherlands. Governments, railway companies and mobility providers should collaborate to break down borders and create an integrated cross-border travel experience. The European Commission should take up a guiding role to foster this implementation and collaboration, by setting regulations on data transparency and rolling out the essential network. After implementing the future vision, it is expected that more European travellers prefer to travel by train instead of plane or car. In the longer term, the train becomes the default option for European travel and the future vision and roadmap developed in this project can positively contribute to the transition towards more sustainable transportation.