PURPOSE: to develop the Union’s market for multimodal passenger transport and establish passengers’ rights in the context of multimodal journeys.

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: a key element of making transport more sustainable is achieving effective multimodality, where passengers who wish to travel long distances can do so by combining several modes of collective transport, thereby using the most sustainable and efficient mode for each leg of the journey. Protecting passengers along the way, in particular during travel disruptions, is key to enhance the attractiveness of such multimodal travels. Moreover, a failure to provide this protection could itself affect market growth for multimodal travel, with some passengers choosing to travel by car instead of collective transport (judging car travel to be both more convenient and more reliable).

The Union law on passenger rights already raises the standards of protection for passengers when they travel by air, rail, sea and inland waterways, and bus and coach. In particular, these Regulations contain provisions on information and assistance to passengers which apply to each of these transport modes considered separately. This proposal aims to complement these existing rules by ensuring that passengers enjoy a similar level of protection where they switch between these transport modes during a journey.

CONTENT: the Commission’s proposal on passenger rights in the context of multimodal journeys sets out new rules to protect passengers using different types of transport, like buses, trains, and planes, all in one trip.

The proposal:

- contains provisions on transport contracts and information to passengers by carriers, intermediaries and multimodal hub managers. It describes the information to be given to passengers before and during their journey (in real-time), and the modalities for exchange and cooperation on the matter between different types of undertakings involved;

- contains provisions on the assistance of passengers (reimbursement, re-routing, care) having a single multimodal contract in the event of a missed connection of a subsequent transport service. In addition, it spells out the reimbursement process where such contract was acquired with an intermediary. It also clarifies the liability of carriers and intermediaries offering combined multimodal tickets. Lastly, it introduces a common form for reimbursement and compensation requests;

- outlines rules for the protection and assistance of persons with disabilities and reduced mobility (PRM) in the context of multimodal travel. Next to detailing the right to transport and the assistance of PRM having a single multimodal contract, it introduces the establishment of Single Points of Contact at multimodal passenger hubs. These hubs correspond to the multimodal passenger hubs that have to be developed in every urban node of the TEN-T network by 2030 under the proposal for a Regulation on Union guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network;

- contains rules on service quality and on the handling of complaints by carriers, intermediaries and multimodal hub managers;

- contains provisions on information to passengers on their rights as well as the enforcement of the Regulation. Regarding the latter, it includes rules on the designation of a national enforcement body, the risk-based approach to the monitoring of compliance with passenger rights, the sharing of information by the relevant undertakings with national enforcement bodies and cooperation between Member States and the Commission.