The new EU Single Ticketing legislative package could finally make booking connecting trains between major hubs convenient. Europe’s rail renaissance will never reach its full potential unless passengers are able to book connecting and international trains in a few clicks. That’s the conclusion of new research by T&E which finds that on almost half of the EU’s busiest international air routes, booking the same journey by train is difficult or impossible. T&E looked at the 30 busiest international air routes within the EU to see if the rail alternative was easy to book. On 20% of these routes, none of the rail operators allowed passengers to buy tickets for the whole journey. On a further 27% of the routes, passengers could only obtain such tickets from one of the train operators involved [1]. Similar trends were found on a broader set of 50 international routes [2]. This finding is concerning as rail passengers tend to primarily buy tickets on the booking engine of their national incumbent operator [3]. The convoluted booking experience is deterring all but the most committed. A recent YouGov poll for T&E found that 61% of long distance rail travellers have at least once avoided journeys because the booking process is a hassle. Research by the University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten in Austria finds that on average it takes people 70% longer to book a train ticket than a flight [4]. The new T&E research suggests this could be due to popular journeys being impossible to book from any rail operator’s website, such as Lisbon to Madrid or Barcelona to Milan from any rail operator’s website, while others such as Paris-Rome and Amsterdam-Milan are only bookable from one operator’s platform [5]. Finding competitors’ tickets It is also difficult for passengers to discover where competing operators have entered the market. On almost nine out of 10 legs (86%) where competition exists, the incumbent operators’ websites don’t sell new entrants’ tickets. On almost six out of 10 legs (59%), they don’t even display them [6]. This hits passengers’ wallets. Renfe’s tickets are on average a third more expensive than their competitors’, analysis by T&E based on data from Spain’s national competition authority shows [7]. Without showing all operator’s ticket prices, rail users may never see substantially cheaper options. The EU now has an opportunity to address these shortcomings. T&E calls on the European Commission’s forthcoming Single Ticketing Package to require major rail operators to display and sell other willing operators’ tickets under fair conditions and to share their own tickets with other operators and independent platforms. Independent platforms must also be required to sell willing operators’ tickets under fair conditions. Georgia Whitaker, Rail Campaign Manager at T&E said: “Too often passengers trying to book low-carbon international train journeys are faced with headaches due to opaque and complicated booking systems. This has to change. The European Commission needs to deliver a Single Ticketing Package that makes rail travel as simple as booking a flight. It’s time to drag the rail ticketing system out of the stone age.” The proposal for the new Single Ticketing Package is due to be published by the European Commission on the 13th of May. [1] 30 rail routes were selected based on the most frequented cross-border aviation routes in the EU. Trips to islands were excluded. Routes of over 1,500 kilometres by rail were also left out. Research was conducted on booking engines from historic rail operators from the departing and arriving countries of each route. Operators had a right to reply, 30 out of 32 responded. There is more information on this in the methodology of the report. [2] To broaden geographic coverage, T&E looked at all the rail routes among the 100 busiest air routes that met the two criteria mentioned in footnote 1 (routes over 1,500 km by rail and islands excluded) and at the busiest air routes from Member States that were absent from these top 100 routes (Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Slovenia). Research was performed between August and November 2025. Developments after this cutoff date are not considered in the report. [3] In Germany, the competition watchdog showed that 9 out 10 web visits were done on DB’s website in comparison with other rail booking platforms. In France nearly 9 out 10 digital rail tickets are sold by SNCF Connect. [4] International Rail Ticketing: Future Perspectives on Competitive Booking Procedures for European Railways – David Prenninger, University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten, 2023. [5] Neither Comboios de Portugal nor RENFE offer to book the full journey from Lisbon to Madrid. On the Barcelona-Milan route, neither RENFE nor Trenitalia do so either. On the Paris-Rome route, Trenitalia offers a single ticket to passengers booking Trenitalia trains for the whole journey. SNCF doesn’t sell tickets from the beginning to the end of the journey for this route. For Amsterdam-Milan, NS offers the possibility to book the whole journey, Trenitalia does not. [6] T&E included some national routes in its analysis of competition since passengers travelling nationally also face a problem of lack of ticket display. The national routes included (33) are those whose air equivalent routes are part of the 100 busiest air routes. On the 50 cross border routes and the additional 33 national routes, there are 51 legs where at least two operators run services. [7] T&E’s calculations result from weighted averages from prices collected by CNMC in 2024. [8] T&E looked at trains departing at similar times on operators’ booking engines and independent platforms. Prices were collected between January and February 2026. Developments after this cutoff date are not considered. Additional fees can also be added by platforms irrespective of the price sold by the rail operator. News release from T&E.