ALLRAIL, the Alliance of Passenger Rail New Entrants

ALLRAIL, the Alliance of Rail New Entrants, brings together non-incumbent companies from the passenger rail market comprising operators like European Sleeper, RegioJet, Transdev, WESTbahn, Leo Express, NTV-Italo, Flixtrain, multimodal journey planner and online booking platform Trip.com, rolling stock lessor Angel Trains, and infrastructure manager Getlink. All our members share the belief that further market liberalisation is the only way to achieve a modal shift to rail and help the European Union (EU) achieve the ambitious targets laid down in the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement. Around Europe, it has been proven that an open rail market leads to: - innovation and improved service - lower fares - passenger growth, and - new jobs. For example, since NTV-Italo began competing against the incumbent Trenitalia in the Italian high-speed market in 2012, average fares have fallen by 41% while demand increased by 101%. The incumbent is more profitable than before, and both operators have introduced new trains. In addition, wherever competitive tendering has been introduced for publicly-funded rail services, taxpayer cost has decreased, and quality has improved. While all stakeholders - passengers, taxpayers, the rail sector and legislators - benefit from liberalisation, over 80% of EU passenger rail does not experience any form of competition, so there is a lot of work still to be done. Four points are to address in priority to encourage market opening: 1) Lowering track-access charges, 2) Ensuring a vibrant market for new and second-hand rolling-stock, 3) Fixing ticket retail (availability of all data, transparent and impartial retail, FRAND conditions for independent ticket vendors), 4) Public Service Obligations as a last resort, and only through competitive tenders.