Much of the literature on traveller demand is optimistic about the potential of international rail transport, in terms of stated preference research and transport demand modelling. However, international rail transport in Europe is developing, but arguably not at the pace that the literature on traveller demand suggest. In what follows we report on the main findings (with a strong emphasis on bottlenecks) that emerged from the consultations and expert meetings of representatives of traveler organisations and international travel sectors. We give an overview of the bottlenecks from the passenger's point of view (5.1), and of the bottlenecks related to the four-layer model (5.2).
5.1 Bottlenecks from the passenger’s perspective
The main goal of the European policy to improve international rail services is to optimise the use of the existing railway infrastructure. This is reflected in the two pillars of the European policy: open access and technical harmonisation. The aim of the railway packages is to contribute to the improvement of the quality, competitiveness and efficiency of the European railway sector, the idea being that this will serve the interests of the international rail passenger. However, the assumption that this policy would lead to a large increase in international rail passenger transport has not materialised. In fact, the relative share of rail in the European transport market has actually declined in recent years. This is understandable from the perspective of the international rail traveller, as they still face numerous bottlenecks. It is therefore only logical that travellers do not currently regard the train as a realistic alternative to the car or plane. International travellers are independent and make their own decisions about how to travel; governments can influence that choice by responding to travellers' needs—but have not yet done enough in that respect.
The problem is clearly not limited to the lack of infrastructure alone. International travellers have an extensive European rail network at their disposal. For example, passengers from the Netherlands have direct access to the railway network in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom via the high-speed HSL trains, and to the German railway network via the high-speed ICE trains to Frankfurt and the Intercity to Berlin. These connections give the traveller access to the whole of Europe, albeit with one or more changes. Yet the potential of the train for travellers in Europe is not fully exploited due to at least four major bottlenecks:
5.1.1 Journey time: too few fast connections by train
Travel time is an important factor when choosing a mode of transport. The train is more attractive if the travel time is competitive with alternative options. The greatest time savings are achieved when trains run on dedicated tracks, allowing for limited stops and high cruising speed. Many European countries already have such high-speed lines, but on large parts of the infrastructure trains cannot yet run at their maximum cruising speed, either through line speed limitations or additional stops. Moreover, the rail networks have been planned and built to serve national interests, making choices that make perfect sense from a national point of view (such as additional stops to harmonise train speeds and prioritising national services on the line), but resulting in longer travel times for international travellers. A good illustration can be found in the slower operating speeds for high speed trains in the intensively used rail networks of Ile de France, London, Flanders, and the Ruhr area. This means that the travel time savings to international travellers that the European high-speed network provide are curtailed, despite the billions that were invested (including from EU funds).
5.1.2 Journey cost: the train is considered/perceived to be expensive
The second barrier experienced by the traveller is the price of the train ticket. Many people consider the price of a train ticket to be high compared to the price of air travel. However, it is by no means certain that this is the case (leaving aside the dumping practices in the low-cost airline sector as a result of COVID-19). It is difficult to accurately compare the cost of train and plane tickets because the prices of the tickets on offer vary so much, but a Consumer Association sample of ticket prices (8) shows that the train is often cheaper than flying for destinations Berlin, London, Prague, and Copenhagen from different cities in the Netherlands. Moreover, travellers often do not take into account the additional costs of travelling by plane, such as airport parking fees and the cost of travelling to and from airports [26].
5.1.3 Journey comfort: too few direct train services
Having to change trains during a journey is one of the biggest sources of stress or discomfort for travellers [33]. Changing trains makes a journey more uncertain in many ways. Will I make the connection? What happens if I miss my connection? How will I get from one train to another? Will I be able to wait comfortably for my next train, or will I have to stand on a cold platform? Will the platform be easily accessible [30]. Is it safe or do I have to keep a close eye on my luggage? Moreover, a change almost always involves extra waiting time, making the total travel time from door to door longer than with a direct connection. For some travellers, these objections are so severe that they prefer a longer journey without transferring to a shorter journey with transfer.
Another reason why international travellers are reluctant to choose train journeys with one or more changes is that they feel that passenger rights are inadequate when changes are involved. For example, if your train is delayed and you miss a connection, can you take the next train without having booked a seat? And if there is a delay on part of the journey, can you claim compensation for the whole journey? Notably, services like RailTeam journey planner (http://www.railteam.eu) do provide fairly robust passenger rights for many international journeys with regard to missed connections, but switching from one operator to another can be risky: unlike airlines, operators of rail services have rather limited agreements on taking over each other's passengers in case of delays or cancellations and if it is there, the process to the traveller is far less supported than when missing a flight.
5.1.4 Planning and booking of more complex trips is problematic
Another barrier that travellers have to overcome when choosing to travel by train is the poor user friendliness of the booking system compared to other modes of transport. Booking an international train journey is a complicated matter. For many international destinations, it is difficult to find and book tickets. And in many cases tickets are only available three months before the journey, whereas the leisure traveller often wants to plan and book his journey much further in advance. The process leading up to a booking also has its flaws. The service needs to be visible in the set of travel options that can be chosen from, and if travellers do not know what international train services are available, they will never choose the train to get to their foreign destination. Access to the system can be summarised by four key words: knowledge, findability, bookability and security. These factors need to be improved in order to persuade more people to choose the train for their international journeys.
The bottlenecks raised by rail passengers are clearly related to travel time, cost and comfort, in addition to the ease of access to the rail system. In a sense, all these problems relate to layer 1. But since we know that layer 1 is influenced by what may or may not go wrong in layers 2, 3 and 4, we should also look at bottlenecks per layer and between layers.
5.2 Bottlenecks per layer
The passenger perspective showed that mobility services (layer 1) leave much to be desired. There seems to be a clear lack of passenger-friendly access to the system, information and tickets. Travel information (compared to other modes) is poor, booking and rebooking procedures are complicated or impossible, and timetables are unreliable.
The main bottleneck seems to be the booking system. Booking international train journeys is difficult because there is no easy and transparent system for finding and booking international train tickets. Obtaining tickets for main destinations and direct services is reasonably easy, but buying tickets for indirect services or more distant destinations is considerably more complicated. The ticket information landscape is fragmented and technically complex, and the cost–benefit ratio of developing a passenger-friendly platform has so far proved unattractive to potential providers. There are hardly any independent travel information and ticketing providers in Europe. People who want to plan and book a journey get caught up in a confusing maze of rules and information. Railway undertakings generally only offer tickets for their own trains; tickets for other companies' trains, even for connecting trains, are only offered in limited cases (e.g. for services of partner companies). Moreover, each railway undertaking has its own sales channels and digital systems, which means that some tickets can only be purchased online, by phone or at a ticket office.
Finding and buying airline tickets is now much easier, as booking one or more flights is made easy by platforms such as skyscanner, cheaptickets, gotogate, and google flights. When choosing a trip, people are influenced by how easy it is to find and book a trip. If finding a ticket proves difficult, they are likely to choose another travel option for which they can easily obtain a ticket. Airlines work together internationally in broad alliances; railway companies take a different approach. For example, NS (the national railway company of the Netherlands) is not allowed to sell the cheap tickets of Ouigo, a subsidiary of SNCF (the national railway company of France). NS International sells tickets to London and Kent, but not to other destinations in the UK. The national carriers generally do not sell tickets for services of new entrants to the railway market and vice versa. As a result, international train journeys often have to be split up into a series of shorter journeys. This is not only inconvenient to book but also affects passengers' rights in the event of delays or missed connections.
There is no uniform European reservation system for train journeys. In Europe, there are two main systems for reserving trains: In one system, the traveller buys a ticket for a certain route on a certain day, whereby different trains can be used (this flexible system is often referred to as the "German system"). This is advantageous for travellers who miss a connection. In the other system, the traveller buys a ticket for a specific train on a specific day (this inflexible system is often called the "French system"). In this system, the journey must be made at a specific time and seat reservation is mandatory. In practice, it is difficult to combine these two reservation systems. When passengers change from a French to a German reservation, they do not know for sure whether there will be a seat available for them on the connecting train, and if so, in which coach they can find it. And when changing from a German reservation to a French reservation, passengers who miss their connection are not allowed to board the next train (because they did not reserve a seat). None of the providers of tickets for journeys within their own operating area are confronted with this structural defect in the system. The passengers are left to sort it out themselves. There is no direct incentive for the providers of tickets to come up with an overarching system. However, a uniform, public-friendly booking system for international trains would encourage more people to travel by train. As such, this situation represents an indirect, but so far unacknowledged, incentive for greater coordination and cooperation. Greater uniformity of data and data systems across Europe would make access to ticket information and ticketing much easier. It could lead to a system similar to that of the airlines, working on the basis of alliances and code-sharing. However, at the moment it is not in the interest of individual ticket providers to take the initiative in creating such a unified system: the necessary investments are too large and the prospects for recovering the benefits and for third-party entry into the system are too uncertain. Therefore, an umbrella system can only be created by all parties working together.
With regard to transport services (layer 2), but also traffic services (layer 3) and infrastructure (layer 4), there seems to be a strong dominance of national interests through the dominance of national operators and network managers focussing largely on the domestic market. Although some of the first railway lines in Europe were built for cross-border transport, over the past century the rail passenger transport sector has provided value mostly in dense areas and concentrated on transport within national borders. As a result, the interests of international passengers have been under-represented in decision-making.
Over the last decades the international rail services like dwindled. And despite recent examples of a shift, like the ÖBB starting the Nightjet, most players influencing the rail transport system are still nationally oriented. In carrying out their responsibilities, they are nationally oriented: they strive to optimise the national rail transport system without paying much attention to the effects at the international level. COVID-19 also illustrated this. Strong local support for the national railway, less for international connections. They largely neglect the international dimension of the rail transport system because they are 'rewarded' primarily for their domestic performance. For these players, the benefits of international transport performance are mostly intangible and largely irrelevant to performance reviews. The national governments of the Member States underestimate the economic and other interests of metropolitan agglomerations in their decisions on international transport services. In addition, there is a worrying lack of decisive international coordination in striking a balance between the needs of national and international rail transport. This affects the quality and thus the competitiveness of international rail passenger transport.
In addition, the capacity constraints in traffic services (layer 3) are due to a) the different technical, train protection and control systems and the lack of a common language, and b) the problematic distribution of capacity on certain sections between national and international services and between passenger and freight transport. The technical differences between rail systems in Europe have been a major bottleneck for a long time. They concern track gauge, platform height, the electrical power supply and the train control and safety systems. These differences force travellers to transfer or limit operational speed. Technically, the differences between the systems can all be overcome. However, it makes things much more complex for the rolling stock. The consequences are higher costs for the whole system, longer lead times for rolling stock and greater complexity (with the risks involved in obtaining certification).
In relation to infrastructure (layer 4), speed limits are a major bottleneck due to the limited capacity and quality of existing infrastructure and stations. Because the development of the railway infrastructure in the European countries has been concentrated for years on the domestic networks, a fully interconnected international high-speed network has not been established at that spatial scale. This has led to insufficient attention being paid to the development of international high-speed corridors. In the past twenty years, the European Commission has produced four 'railway packages' of legislation for more competition and uniform technical solutions to promote the harmonisation of the railway transport system. However, these European policies have not always led to the desired improvements, either in the market pillar (aimed at open access to rail corridors) or in the technical pillar (aimed at interoperability across the European rail network). Solutions that work well for services to Germany do not work, or work differently, for services to Belgium and France. This can largely be explained by the differences in technical and other systems between the countries, but the considerable differences in culture and procedures also play a role. The railways have a long history, infrastructure managers are considered rather inflexible and operators are not particularly willing to cooperate with each other.
From travel demand research it seems that travellers are positive about international train travel. However, barriers mentioned here hamper the introduction of better services on the main links—the corridors—between Europe's major conurbations, to make good on that promise. Passengers will therefore benefit from a policy focus on making improvements to the core network (which, in principle, can be made quickly). At present, however, policy attention is not focused on these corridors but is spread over the entire network. This situation is at odds with the priorities of the European Commission, which recently set itself the target of completing the core (trans-European transport network) network by 2030 and then the comprehensive network by 2050 [12].