My main task in Bruxelles: to launch a report I’ve written about rail ticketing and what’s missing in the EU legal framework to address problems
One issue: lack of enforceable rights if you miss a connection
What’s likely for my trip today? Exactly that. Miss the connecting ICE in Köln, need to take a Eurostar (ex-Thalys) and am at the whim of Eurostar if they’ll take me - I have no passenger rights
@jon I enjoyed the DB app offering me alternatives to my cancelled train with a "please check your ticket is valid on these trains before travelling". I mean come off it, it knows what my ticket is, so it must be able to answer that question better than I can!
@demoographics the crux “Zugbindung aufgehoben” - not even sure how to say that in English. Basically means your inflexible ticket is now a flexible one. Within Germany that works. Internationally in a bunch of places it doesn’t.
@jon You're pinpointing exactly what worries me about long-distance trains in Europe: miss a connection and you find yourself on your own extremely quickly. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.
@jon What's pretty interesting to me as a dual citizen EU+US is that crossing state borders in the US is considered domestic (and is ruled by federal law since it involves multiple states), while doing the same in the EU is considered international.
@jbqueru Sure. But with my EU hat on - look at the integration of telecoms or energy markets in EU law and it’s much more developed than rail or public transport in general. You’re not lacking legal powers to act - but the will, the advocacy to do so.
@jon Without a doubt for energy. There are areas where the EU is more unified than the US, but rail transport isn't one of those.
At the same time, in the US, we see those exact same problems for bus transport across county lines in metro areas, each county does its own thing, and, if you want to go across counties, good luck. Worse, the transit agencies that cross county lines usually each set up their own jurisdiction, so that make things even more complex instead of simplifying tham).
@jon How strong are passenger rights in Switzerland? Asking because if you passenger-rights your way into making DB pad the schedule even more than it already is, instead of having the engineers and schedulers write timetables that let the trains run on time with 7% and not 25% pad, this isn't really an improvement.
@Alon Padding isn’t relevant here (even though I know you’re obsessed by it). If you’re in DE or CH you can just raid the next train. The problem is when the next train is compulsory reservation and run by another firm (that’s supposedly in an alliance but de facto isn’t) and hence they can choose to not let you on it.
@jon Best of luck! Traveling to Brussels today fron Utrecht. Pretty lucky that all my trains were delayed so I made both my connections in spite of every train being late. I wish you the same luck 👍
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