A number of amendments are to be made to Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council (3) in order to enhance protection for passengers and to encourage an increase in rail travel, whilst having due regard in particular to Articles 11, 12 and 14 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In view of those amendments and in the interests of clarity, Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 should therefore be recast.
(2)
In the framework of the common transport policy, it is important to safeguard users’ rights for rail passengers and to improve the quality and effectiveness of rail passenger services in order to help increase the share of rail transport in relation to other modes of transport.
(3)
Despite considerable progress having been made in protecting consumers in the Union, further improvements to the protection of rail passengers’ rights still need to be made.
(4)
In particular, since the rail passenger is the weaker party to the transport contract, rail passengers’ rights should be safeguarded.
(5)
Granting the same rights to rail passengers taking international and domestic journeys seeks to raise the level of consumer protection in the Union, to ensure a level playing field for railway undertakings and to guarantee a uniform level of passengers’ rights. Passengers should receive as precise information as possible on their rights. As certain modern formats of tickets do not physically allow information to be printed on them, it should be possible to provide the information required by this Regulation by other means.
(6)
Rail services offered strictly for historic or touristic use do not usually serve normal transport needs. Such services are usually isolated from the rest of the Union rail system and use technology that may limit their accessibility. With the exception of certain provisions which should apply to all rail passenger services throughout the Union, Member States should be able to grant exemptions from the application of the provisions of this Regulation to rail services offered strictly for historic or touristic use.
(7)
Urban, suburban and regional rail passenger services are different in character from long-distance rail passenger services. Member States should therefore be allowed to exempt such services from certain provisions of this Regulation on passengers’ rights. Such exemptions should however not apply to essential rules, in particular not to those provisions relating to non-discriminatory conditions of transport contracts, to the right to purchase rail tickets without undue difficulty, to the railway undertakings’ liability in respect of passengers and their luggage, to the requirement that railway undertakings be adequately insured and to the requirement that adequate measures be taken to ensure passengers’ personal security in railway stations and on trains. Regional services are more integrated in the rest of the Union rail system and the journeys concerned are longer. For regional rail passenger services, possible exemptions should therefore be restricted even further. As regards regional rail passenger services, exemptions to the provisions of this Regulation that facilitate the use of rail services by persons with disabilities or persons with reduced mobility should be completely phased out, and exemptions should not apply as regards provisions of this Regulation promoting the use of bicycles. In addition, the possibility to exempt regional services from certain obligations as regards the provision of through-tickets and re-routing should be limited in time.
(8)
It is an aim of this Regulation to improve rail passenger services within the Union. Therefore, Member States should be able to grant exemptions for services in regions where a significant part of the service is operated outside the Union.
(9)
Furthermore, to allow a smooth transition from the framework established pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 to the one under this Regulation, earlier national exemptions should be phased out gradually to ensure the necessary legal certainty and continuity. Member States which currently have in place exemptions pursuant to Article 2(4) of Regulation (EC) No 1371/2007 should be allowed to exempt domestic rail passenger services only from the provisions of this Regulation that require significant adaptation and, in any event, only for a limited period in time. Member States should also be allowed, for a transitional period, to grant an exemption from the obligation to distribute traffic and travel information among operators, but only where it is not technically feasible for the infrastructure manager to provide real-time data to any railway undertaking, ticket vendor, tour operator or station manager. An assessment of what is technically feasible should be made at least every two years.
(10)
Member States should inform the Commission when they exempt rail passenger services from the application of certain provisions of this Regulation. When providing this information, Member States should explain the reasons for granting such exemptions and the measures taken or envisaged to comply with the obligations under this Regulation when the exemptions concerned expire.
(11)
Where there are several station managers responsible for one station, Member States should have the possibility to designate the body tasked with the responsibilities referred to in this Regulation.
(12)
Access to real-time travel information, including that on tariffs, makes rail travel more accessible to new customers and provides them with a wider range of journey possibilities and tariffs to choose from. Railway undertakings should provide other railway undertakings, ticket vendors and tour operators that sell their services with access to such travel information and give them the possibility to make and cancel reservations in order to facilitate rail travel. Infrastructure managers should distribute real-time data relating to the arrival and the departure of trains to railway undertaking and station managers, as well as to ticket vendors and tour operators in order to facilitate rail travel.
(13)
More detailed requirements regarding the provision of travel information are set out in the technical specifications for interoperability referred to in Commission Regulation (EU) No 454/2011 (4).
(14)
Strengthening of the rights of rail passengers should build on the existing international law contained in Appendix A – Uniform rules concerning the Contract for International Carriage of Passengers and Luggage by Rail (CIV) – to the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail (COTIF) of 9 May 1980, as modified by the Protocol for the modification of the Convention concerning International Carriage by Rail of 3 June 1999 (1999 Protocol). However, it is desirable to extend the scope of this Regulation and protect not only international passengers but domestic passengers too. On 23 February 2013, the Union acceded to the COTIF.
(15)
Member States should prohibit discrimination on the basis of the nationality of the passenger or the place of establishment within the Union of the railway undertaking, ticket vendor or tour operator. However, social tariffs and the encouragement of wider use of public transport should not be prohibited, provided that such measures are proportionate and independent of the nationality of the passenger concerned. Railway undertakings, ticket vendors and tour operators are free to determine their commercial practices, including the use of special offers and the promotion of certain sales channels. In light of the development of online platforms selling passenger transport tickets, Member States should pay special attention to ensuring that no discrimination occurs during the process of accessing online interfaces or purchasing tickets. Furthermore, regardless of how a certain type of a ticket is purchased, the level of protection of the passenger should be the same.
(16)
The increasing popularity of cycling across the Union has implications for overall mobility and tourism. An increase in the use of both railways and cycling in the modal split reduces the environmental impact of transport. Therefore, railway undertakings should facilitate the combination of cycling and train journeys as much as possible. In particular, when acquiring new rolling stock or making a major upgrade to existing rolling stock, they should provide an adequate number of places for bicycles unless the acquisition or upgrade concerns restaurant cars, sleeping cars or couchette cars. In order to avoid a negative impact on the safety performance of the existing rolling stock, that obligation should only apply in cases of a major upgrade requiring a new vehicle authorisation for placement on the market.
(17)
The adequate number of bicycle places for a train composition should be determined taking into consideration the size of train composition, the type of service and the demand for transport of bicycles. Railway undertakings should have the possibility to establish plans with concrete numbers of bicycle places for their services, after consulting the public. Where railway undertakings choose not to establish plans, a statutory number should apply. That statutory number should also serve as guidance by railway undertakings when establishing their plans. A number which is below the statutory number should be considered adequate only where it is justified by special circumstances such as operation of rail services in winter time where there is clearly no or low demand for the transport of bicycles. Furthermore, in some Member States demand for the transport of bicycles is particularly high as regards certain types of services. Therefore, Member States should have the possibility to determine the minimum adequate numbers of bicycle places for certain types of services. These numbers should prevail over the concrete numbers as mentioned in any plans of the railway undertakings. This should not impede the free movement of railway rolling stock within the Union. Passengers should be informed of the space available for bicycles.
(18)
The rights and obligations regarding carriage of bicycles on trains should apply to bicycles that can be readily ridden prior to and after the rail journey. Carriage of bicycles in packages and bags, as applicable, is covered by the provisions of this Regulation relating to luggage.
(19)
Rail passengers’ rights to rail services include the receipt of information regarding the service both before and during the journey. Railway undertakings, ticket vendors and tour operators should provide general information on the rail service in advance of travel. That information should be provided in accessible formats for persons with disabilities or persons with reduced mobility. Railway undertakings and, where possible, ticket vendors and tour operators should provide the passenger during the journey with further information required by this Regulation. Where a station manager has such information, he or she should also provide the information to the passengers.
(20)
The size of ticket vendors varies substantially from micro to large enterprises and some ticket vendors offer their services only offline or only online. The obligation to provide travel information to passengers should therefore be proportional to the different sizes, and therefore the different capacities, of the ticket vendors.
(21)
This Regulation should not prevent railway undertakings, tour operators or ticket vendors from offering to passengers more favourable conditions than those laid down in this Regulation. However, this Regulation should not lead to a railway undertaking being bound by more favourable contractual conditions offered by a tour operator or ticket vendor, unless an arrangement between the railway undertaking and the tour operator or the ticket vendor provides otherwise.
(22)
Through-tickets allow seamless journeys for passengers and therefore all reasonable efforts should be made to offer such tickets for long-distance, urban, suburban and regional rail passenger services, whether international or domestic, including rail passenger services exempted under this Regulation. It should be possible, for the purpose of determining the total delay for which compensation is available, to exclude periods of delay that occurred during the parts of the journey relating to rail services exempted under this Regulation.
(23)
Regarding services operated by the same railway undertaking, the transfer of rail passengers from one service to another should be facilitated by the introduction of an obligation to provide through-tickets, since no commercial agreements between railway undertakings are needed. The requirement to provide through-tickets should also apply to services operated by railway undertakings belonging to the same owner or which are wholly-owned subsidiaries of one of the railway undertakings providing rail services comprised in the journey. The railway undertaking should have the possibility to specify on the through-ticket the time of departure of each rail service, including regional services, for which the through-ticket is valid.
(24)
Passengers should be clearly informed whether tickets sold by a railway undertaking in a single commercial transaction constitute a through-ticket. Where passengers are not correctly informed, the railway undertaking should be liable as if those tickets were a through-ticket.
(25)
The offer of through-tickets should be promoted. However, correct information concerning the rail service is essential also when passengers buy tickets from a ticket vendor or a tour operator. Where the ticket vendors or the tour operators sell separate tickets as a bundle, they should clearly inform the passenger that those tickets do not offer the same level of protection as through-tickets and that those tickets have not been issued as through-tickets by the railway undertaking or railway undertakings providing the service. Where ticket vendors or tour operators fail to comply with this requirement, their liability should go beyond the reimbursement of the tickets.
(26)
When offering through-tickets, it is important that the railway undertakings take into account realistic and applicable minimum connection times when originally booked, as well as any relevant factors such as the size and location of the respective stations and platforms.
(27)
In light of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in order to give persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility opportunities for rail travel comparable to those of other citizens, rules for non-discrimination and assistance during their journey should be established. Persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility have the same rights as all other citizens to free movement and to non-discrimination. Inter alia, special attention should be given to the provision of information to persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility concerning the accessibility of rail services, access conditions of rolling stock and the facilities on board. In order to provide passengers with sensory impairment with the best information on delays, visual and audible systems should be used, as appropriate. Persons with disabilities should be enabled to buy tickets on board a train without extra charges where there is no accessible means to buy a ticket prior to boarding the train. However, there should be a possibility to limit this right in circumstances relating to security or compulsory train reservation. Staff should be adequately trained to respond to the needs of persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility, in particular when providing assistance. To ensure equal travel conditions, assistance should be provided to such persons at stations and on board or, in the absence of trained accompanying staff on board the train and at the station, all reasonable efforts should be taken to allow access to travel by rail.
(28)
Railway undertakings and station managers should actively cooperate with organisations representing people with disabilities in order to improve the quality of accessibility of transport services.
(29)
In order to facilitate access to rail passenger services for persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility, Member States should have the possibility to require railway undertakings and station managers to set up national Single Points of Contact to coordinate information and assistance.
(30)
In order to ensure that assistance to persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility is provided, for practical reasons it is necessary to notify the railway undertaking, the station manager, the ticket vendor or the tour operator in advance of the need for assistance. While this Regulation establishes a common maximum time period for such pre-notifications, voluntary arrangements providing for shorter periods are valuable where they improve the mobility of persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility. To guarantee the widest possible distribution of information concerning such reduced time periods, it is important that the Commission includes in its report on the implementation and results of this Regulation information on the development of reduced pre-notification arrangements and related dissemination of information.
(31)
Railway undertakings and station managers should take into account the needs of persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility, through compliance with Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament and of the Council (5) and Commission Regulation (EU) No 1300/2014 (6). Where this Regulation refers to provisions of Directive (EU) 2019/882, those provisions should be applied by the Member States from 28 June 2025 and in accordance with the transitional measures laid down in Article 32 of that Directive. With regard to rail passenger services, the scope of those provisions is set out in point (c) of Article 2(2) of that Directive.
(32)
Certain animals are trained to assist persons with disabilities to enable them to be independently mobile. For such mobility it is essential that those animals can be taken on board trains. This Regulation establishes common rights and obligations as regards assistance dogs. However, Member States should have the possibility to conduct trials using other mobility assistance animals and to allow them on board trains in their domestic rail services. It is important that the Commission monitors the development regarding this matter in view of future work on mobility assistance animals.
(33)
It is desirable that this Regulation creates a system of compensation for passengers in the case of delay, including in cases where the delay is caused by a cancellation of a service or a missed connection. In the event of a delay of a rail passenger service, railway undertakings should provide passengers with compensation based on a percentage of the ticket price.
(34)
Railway undertakings should be obliged to be insured, or to have adequate guarantees, for their liability to rail passengers in the event of accident.
(35)
Strengthened rights of compensation and assistance in the event of delay, missed connection or cancellation of a service should lead to greater incentives for the rail passenger market, to the benefit of passengers.
(36)
In the event of delay, passengers should be provided with continued or re-routed transport options under comparable transport conditions. The needs of persons with disabilities and persons with reduced mobility should be taken into account in such an event.
(37)
However, a railway undertaking should not be obliged to pay compensation if it can prove that the delay was caused by extraordinary circumstances such as extreme weather conditions or major natural disasters endangering the safe operation of the service. Any such event should have the character of an exceptional natural catastrophe, as distinct from normal seasonal weather conditions such as autumnal storms or regularly-occurring urban flooding caused by tides or snowmelt. In addition, a railway undertaking should not be obliged to pay compensation if it can prove that the delay was caused by a major public health crisis, such as a pandemic. Furthermore, where the delay is caused by the passenger or by certain acts of third parties, the railway undertaking should not be obliged to provide compensation for the delay. Railway undertakings should prove that they could neither foresee nor avoid such events, nor could they prevent the delay, even if all reasonable measures had been taken, including appropriate preventive maintenance of their rolling stock. Strikes by the personnel of the railway undertaking, and actions or omissions by other railway operators using the same infrastructure, infrastructure manager or station manager, should not affect the liability for delays. The circumstances in which railway undertakings are not obliged to pay compensation should be objectively justified. Where a communication or a document of the railway infrastructure manager, a public authority or other body independent from the railway undertakings, indicating the circumstances on which the railway undertaking relies in order to be exempt from the obligation to pay compensation, is available to railway undertakings, they should bring such communications or documents to the attention of passengers and, where relevant, to that of the authorities concerned.
(38)
Railway undertakings should be encouraged to simplify the procedure for passengers to apply for compensation or reimbursement. In particular, Member States should have the possibility to require that railway undertakings accept applications by certain means of communication, such as on websites or by using mobile applications, provided that such requirements are not discriminatory.
(39)
In order to make it easier for passengers to request reimbursement or compensation in accordance with this Regulation, forms that are valid throughout the Union should be established for such requests. Passengers should have the possibility to submit their requests by using such a form.
(40)
In cooperation with infrastructure managers and station managers, railway undertakings should prepare contingency plans to minimise the impact of major disruptions by providing stranded passengers with adequate information and care.
(41)
It is also desirable to relieve accident victims and their dependants of short-term financial concerns in the period immediately after an accident.
(42)
It is in the interests of rail passengers that adequate measures be taken, in agreement with public authorities, to ensure their personal security at stations as well as on board trains.
(43)
Rail passengers should be able to submit a complaint to any railway undertaking involved, to the station managers of certain stations or, where appropriate, to ticket vendors and tour operators regarding their respective fields of responsibilities on the rights and obligations conferred by this Regulation. Rail passengers should be entitled to receive a response within a reasonable period of time.
(44)
In the interest of efficient handling of complaints, railway undertakings and station managers should have the right to establish joint customer services and complaint-handling mechanisms. Information on the complaint-handling procedures should be publicly available and easily accessible to all passengers.
(45)
This Regulation should not affect the rights of passengers to file a complaint with a national body or to seek legal redress through national procedures.
(46)
Railway undertakings and station managers should define, manage and monitor service quality standards for rail passenger services. Railway undertakings should also make information on their service quality performance publicly available.
(47)
In order to maintain a high level of consumer protection in rail transport, Member States should be required to designate national enforcement bodies to monitor closely the application of this Regulation and to enforce it at national level. Those bodies should be able to take a variety of enforcement measures. Passengers should be able to complain to those bodies about alleged infringements of the Regulation. To ensure the satisfactory handling of such complaints, the bodies should also cooperate with the national enforcement bodies of other Member States.
(48)
Member States which have no railway system, and no immediate prospect of having one, would bear a disproportionate and pointless burden if they were subject to the enforcement obligations as regards station managers and infrastructure managers provided for by this Regulation. The same applies to enforcement obligations as regards railway undertakings for as long as a Member State has not licensed any railway undertaking. Therefore, such Member States should be exempted from those obligations.
(49)
Processing of personal data should be carried out in accordance with Union law on the protection of personal data, in particular with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (7).
(50)
Member States should lay down penalties applicable to infringements of this Regulation and ensure that these penalties are applied. The penalties, which might include the payment of compensation to the person in question, should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
(51)
Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely the development of the Union’s railways and the strengthening of rail passengers’ rights, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, and can therefore be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.
(52)
In order to ensure a high level of passenger protection, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission to amend Annex I in respect of the CIV Uniform Rules and to adjust the minimum amount of the advance payment in the event of death of a passenger in view of changes in the EU-wide Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making (8). In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.
(53)
In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council (9).
(54)
This Regulation respects fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in particular Articles 21, 26, 38 and 47 concerning, respectively, the prohibition of any form of discrimination, the integration of persons with disabilities, the ensuring of a high level of consumer protection, and the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial. The Member States’ courts must apply this Regulation in a manner consistent with these rights and principles,
