EMTA sent a letter to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Commissioner for Transport Apóstolos Tzitzikóstas, to express once again the serious concerns of Europe’s metropolitan transport authorities regarding the current direction of the Single Digital Booking and Ticketing Regulation (SDBTR) as part of the passenger mobility package to be published next week.
We acknowledge the need for the regulation given the fragmentation of rail services in Europe – especially when travelling cross-border – and believe a successful passenger package is of utmost importance for sustainable mobility. That is exactly why we are very concerned with the one-size-fits-all mentality adopted by the Commission’s services that disregards integrated public transport networks in metropolitan areas and exposes organising authorities to unnecessary risks.
Transport authorities in EMTA are convinced that there is a better path. One that explicitly recognises the value of multimodal public transport networks and aligns better with the Presidents own political guidelines of better regulation, proportionality and subsidiarity: Excluding from the scope of SDBTR those regional rail services that are fully integrated into the multimodal public transport networks that form the sustainable mobility backbone of Europe’s city regions.
We share the same goal with the European Commission and will continue to constructively support this important European effort. However, this should not come at the cost of the already successfully integrated metropolitan public transport networks.