A coalition of representatives from Europe’s mobility ecosystem, including consumers, passengers, environmental groups, independent rail operators, and ticket intermediaries, have issued an open letter to Executive Vice-President Timmermans concerning the upcoming Regulation on Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS).
The letter urges the European Commission to maintain a high level of ambition in the regulation to support the European Green Deal objectives.
The coalition emphasizes the importance of enabling convenient combination and booking of transport options to facilitate the transition towards a more sustainable mobility system.
From the beginning, the coalition has advocated for the EU to streamline the booking process for multimodal transport journeys involving different modes and operators, allowing travelers to book all relevant offers in one place.
This integrated approach has the potential to play a vital role in encouraging a modal shift towards rail and aligning with the EU’s climate goals.
However, the coalition has recently become aware of the Commission’s consideration to reduce the ambition of the MDMS proposal by discarding the central aim of integrated booking. In response, the coalition strongly urges EVP Timmermans to ensure that the Commission maintains a high level of ambition for the regulation, with the interests of European travelers and the EU’s climate goals at the forefront.
The coalition argues that if the MDMS Regulation fails to provide passengers with access to integrated booking and ticketing options, it would not achieve its fundamental objectives of simplifying consumer lives, promoting competition, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions through modal shift. Neglecting the convenience of booking all relevant offers in one place would perpetuate anti-competitive practices of dominant operators, hindering comparison and combination across operators and modes. This approach would offer low added-value and maintain the status quo, limiting the ability of travelers to search, book, and combine their travel in Europe.
The coalition highlights the growing number of ongoing ticketing cases against state-owned incumbents, emphasizing the need to address these issues.
The coalition asserts that European business and leisure passengers desire the ability to combine and book various transportation offers, including trains, planes, and coaches, in a hassle-free manner.
To encourage sustainable travel and foster competition, the EU should leverage the potential of MDMS as a modal shift facilitator by mandating booking and ticketing through third-party channels based on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory conditions.
The open letter:
Open letter to EVP Timmermans
Multimodal Digital Mobility Services – Friends of MDMS call for ambition, halfway
measures are unacceptable
Dear Executive Vice-President Timmermans,
As representatives of a significant part of Europe’s mobility ecosystem, including consumers and
passengers, environmental groups, independent rail operators and ticket intermediaries, we are
writing to you regarding the upcoming Regulation on Multimodal Digital Mobility Services
(MDMS).
To support the European Green Deal ambitions, the MDMS Regulation must enable convenient
combination and booking of transport options. Since the inception of this Regulation, we have
advocated for the EU to ease the booking of (multimodal) transport journeys involving
different transport offers across all modes and operators into a single booking. This initiative
is a crucial piece of the transition towards a more sustainable mobility system and has the
potential to play an important role in encouraging the much-needed shift to rail.
However, we now understand that the Commission is considering downgrading the ambition
of its proposal by discarding this central aim of the initiative. Therefore, we call on you to ensure
that the Commission keeps a high level of ambition for this Regulation. The interests of
European travellers and reaching the EU climate goals must remain at the heart of the
initiative.
If the MDMS Regulation were to only focus on giving passengers access to ticketing data and
then “re-linking” to transport operators’ websites, it will have failed in its fundamental objectives
of making consumers lives easier, facilitating new services and reducing GHG emissions through
a modal shift towards more sustainable transport. Solely redirecting customers to several
different portals of different operators is an insufficient solution with low added-value,
alarmingly close to the Status Quo which is unanimously considered as unsatisfying. This
approach would mean that the anti-competitive practices of dominant operators which
prevent integrated booking via independent distribution channels, aiming at limiting
comparison and combination across operators and modes, will not be addressed. This is despite
the pile of ongoing ticketing cases against state-owned incumbents , which grows larger by the
month1234 and such an approach would do little to alleviate the grip that the incumbents
currently have on the way we can search, book and combine our travel in Europe.
European business, leisure passengers and citizens want the ability to combine and book all
types of offers (including train, plane and coach) in a hassle-free manner. With the goal of
enticing passengers towards more sustainable travel in mind, the EU should unleash the
potential of MDMS as modal shift and competition enablers by obliging booking/ticketing
through third-party channels based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions.
Mr. Executive Vice-President, we count on your support.
