The VCD rail test demonstrates that you can travel inexpensively by train in Europe. However, purchasing tickets for foreign flights is sometimes overly difficult.
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| [VCD Rail Test] |
Traveling by train to other European nations is shockingly cheap if you plan ahead of time, but there are still several hazards for customers when purchasing tickets. This is the outcome of this year's rail test, which was delivered on Wednesday in Berlin by the Verkehrsclub Deutschland (VCD). "Train travel in Europe works if you know where and how to hunt for tickets," explains Kerstin Haarmann Tagesspiegel Backgrund, Federal Chairwoman of the VCD.
According to VCD train expert Bastian Kettner, the devil is frequently in the details. For example, the Italian state railway Trenitalia provides inexpensive tickets over the Internet for travels from Germany to Rome, but the tickets must be printed out at specifically built machines at Italian train stations. The information, which is crucial for German travellers, is cleverly buried on the Trenitalia website.
Six routes in six European countries were tested
The VCD searched for train tickets to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Gdansk, Budapest, Rome, and Marseille for the exam. The six routes investigated all began in Germany, in the cities of Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, and Frankfurt. The travels were always scheduled around the fall vacation.
As a result, anyone seeking for tickets six to eight weeks before their trip spends roughly 40 euros per person on most routes, with ticket costs ranging from 20 to 60 euros also being available. However, tickets for Western European routes are much more expensive a week before departure, but there are still some discounts to be obtained beyond Gdansk and Budapest. Sleeping carriages on popular night trains are frequently sold out.
The service quality of the booking sites under consideration differs substantially. According to Bastian Kettner, the Polish railway company, for example, does not issue through tickets within its own network. Passengers would have to book each leg separately, which, according to EU Commission guidelines, would soon be prohibited. Important information on the PKP website is likewise only available in Polish, and fares are only presented in zoty. As a result, the VCD cannot strongly endorse the site.
Deutsche Bahn's DB Navigator displays a plethora of different connections, but the booking portal is unable to estimate fares for any of them. Furthermore, there is no best price guarantee, according to VCD. There is also the private provider Trainline, which works with the majority of European railways.
Trainline provides exceptionally low-cost tickets on the Frankfurt-Marseille route, because the portal combines DB's saving pricing with those of the French national railway SNCF. Trainline, on the other hand, does not collaborate with the Hungarian national railway. MV is by far the cheapest option for single tickets on the Munich-Budapest route. DB tickets, on the other hand, are less expensive for families.
VCD proposes a public booking platform
Kerstin Haarmann notes that the current scenario is totally perplexing for customers. They want a ticketing tool that would guarantee them the greatest ticket price. As a result, the VCD supports for a public European booking platform. Haarmann believes that the current problem can only be resolved if railway firms are required to exchange sales data.
However, such a provision was not agreed upon during the spring overhaul of EU passenger rights. "We're not going to stop here," Haarmann declared. The VCD also intends to keep working to guarantee that passengers have the right to continuous tickets while traveling with many European train operators.
The group is advocating for additional border crossings to be electrified in order to increase trans-European train travel. Bastian Kettner underlines the need of this in order to have alternate choices in the case of road closures. In the long run, Kettner would want to see a European act that unites the continent's biggest metropolises. With the "Trans-Europ-Express 2.0," Andreas Scheuer (CSU) left little more than a proclamation of purpose for the incoming Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP).
Haarmann also urges Europe's railways to work even more closely together in order to establish additional international linkages. She considers the night train alliance agreed upon a year ago by the state railroads of Austria, Switzerland, France, and Germany to be a solid start.
Deutsche Bahn should buy sleeping cars
In the long run, however, simply supporting the Austrian BB's night train operation would be insufficient. Haarmann expects that the next federal government will persuade DB management to repurchase sleeping vehicles.
The VCD also suggests that Germany, like France and the Czech Republic, stop charging VAT on international train travel, because this law already applies to European aviation traffic. Kettner can also see decreased railway route charges for night trains or start-up subsidies for the procurement of new sleepers.
"Some night trains aren't self-contained," he explains. This type of support would also allow more private companies to operate night trains. He considers the fact that the Czech private railway Regiojet intends to operate a night train from Prague to Amsterdam and Brussels through Berlin beginning in 2022 to be a positive indicator.