Towards EU-wide multimodal ticketing and payment systems

The attainment of seamless multimodal door-to-door mobility has emerged as a clear priority on the EU policy agenda. Having declared 2018 as the ‘Year of Multimodality’, the European Commission has over the past year put together a number of legislative and policy initiatives relating to better infrastructure, connections, incentives and digital solutions, with a view to promote the shift towards a fully integrated, multimodal and sustainable transport sector.
Achieving this goal, however, will largely depend upon creating favourable conditions for transport users, which, among other things, include the creation of ‘multimodal ticketing and payment systems’. In practical terms, this means that the purchase of tickets in one go would enable passengers to travel using different transport modes provided by numerous operators. Different approaches to ticketing and payment systems have been observed to date across the different EU Member States, and, in some instances, even across different regions of the same country. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that an overarching EU framework may be needed for the successful implementation of multimodal transport especially in cross-border contexts.