A group of travel organisations, including the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), have urged the EU to ensure that airlines and train operators are required to share their data with third parties, as part of the new Multimodal Digital Mobility Services (MDMS) regulation.

The proposed MDMS regulation aims to make it easier for travellers to plan, compare and buy tickets digitally for journeys combining different modes of transport in the EU. It has the stated goal of ¡°better integrating¡± public transport to achieve ¡°seamless¡± multimodal travel and make journeys more sustainable.?

The regulation should make booking international rail travel in Europe easier and MDMS has also been highlighted by BT4Europe as one of the most significant new pieces of EU legislation to affect business travel in 2023.

The European Commission set out its latest ¡°impact assessment¡± of its MDMS plans at a virtual workshop for key stakeholders last week. The initiative is due to be adopted by the commission imminently following the closure of a public consultation period on 23 February. It will then have to go through the European Council, which represents the 27 member states, and the European Parliament.

Following this workshop, a group of seven travel organisations, including the GBTA, EU Travel Tech and ECTAA (European Travel Agents¡¯ and Tour Operators¡¯ Association), said they had ¡°strong support¡± for MDMS and said it could be ¡°a real leap forward for European mobility¡±.?

But the groups expressed their ¡°strong concerns¡± about the EU¡¯s planned rules requiring transport operators to share their data with third parties.

¡°To fully achieve its ambitious objectives, the MDMS regulation must cover relevant players of all modes, meaning those with a certain degree of market power,¡± they said.?

¡°In our view, this specifically includes obligations for large airline groups and municipal and long-distance public transport operators?to facilitate long-distance travel but also door-to-door connections.?

¡°Such players must not be able to evade their obligation to share data. We therefore urge the European Commission to reconsider its intention to carve them out of the scope of the proposed legislation by introducing thresholds of application which would omit every single airline and many public transport operators in the EU.¡±

In their statement, the travel organisations added that facilitating ¡°modal shift towards more sustainable transport modes is essential¡±.

¡°The MDMS regulation will provide tools for consumers to travel greener, breaking one of the most frustrating barriers to multimodality,¡± the groups said. ¡°The regulation will further help Europe break out of closed ecosystems making optimal use of our world-class transport system.¡±