Long-Distance Rail + Beyond – Cross-Border Networks, Connectivity + Changing Distribution Structures
Summary
This panel discussion at ITB Berlin 2026, moderated by Dr. Markus Heller, examines the state and future of long-distance and cross-border rail in Europe, with particular focus on night trains, distribution challenges, and multimodal connectivity. The session opens with a keynote from Dr. Ingo Kucz (Managing Director, Octopus GmbH), who presents findings from a scenario-based night travel foresight study commissioned by the City of Turku and its environment and health protection department, involving approximately 50 European experts from mobility, travel, and politics. The study explores night travel as a holistic user experience horizon to 2040.
Kucz highlights innovation potential in train capacity — the new-generation Austrian Nightjet accommodates 254 passengers, while Berlin-based startup Luna Rail's modular concept could theoretically scale a single train to 1,500 users (compared to today's maximum European train length of roughly 740 meters accommodating about 740 passengers). A second startup, Twilighter, showed that replacing the Nightjet's 255 passengers would require only 12 buses, underscoring multimodality as a complementary solution. Kucz also raises the provocative concept — drawn from philosopher Benjamin Barber's book 'If Mayors Ruled the World' — that cities, rather than gridlocked nation-states, could become the key innovators and alliance-builders in cross-border night travel.
Kurt Bauer (Head of Long-Distance Passenger Services and New Rail Businesses, WESTbahn/ÖBB) stresses that Europe's rail bottlenecks are primarily infrastructural: not the high-speed lines themselves, but major stations and nodes such as Cologne Hauptbahnhof and Berlin Hauptbahnhof, as well as stabling and maintenance facilities. He argues that genuine modal shift requires massive infrastructure investment, not just digital distribution improvements. He also draws an important distinction from aviation: rail must handle extreme ticketing complexity — groups with Klimaticket passes, disabled travelers, children of different age brackets, regional passes — whereas airlines price purely on a per-seat basis. This complexity, embedded in regulatory obligations for state operators, explains why incumbents appear slow to modernize their distribution systems.
Veronica Diquattro (President B2C and Supply Chain, Omio) reports a 50% year-on-year increase in multimodal choices made by Omio users, reflecting rising demand for combined transport journeys. She advocates for fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory data access (fares, schedules, availability) as mandated by EU passenger rights regulations, which is essential for third-party platforms to provide truly integrated booking. She notes that Omio actively sells European Sleeper tickets and invests in rich content — images and detailed descriptions — to build awareness and conversion for unfamiliar products like night trains.
Björn Bender (CEO and Executive Chairman, Rail Europe) frames the market size: European rail travel is a €70–100 billion annual industry, but international rail represents only 7–8% of that, compared to aviation where 60% of European flights are cross-border. He notes that 80% of Rail Europe's customers are non-Europeans, and 80% of people traveling to Europe do not even consider taking a train. He pre-announces on stage that Rail Europe will begin selling European Sleeper tickets at the end of March. Bender argues that distribution — which he distinguishes from mere aggregation — is the highest-impact lever: awareness, inspiration, search, booking, payment, and after-sales must all be seamless for international travelers.
Elmer van Buuren (Managing Director and Co-Founder, European Sleeper) provides an operational perspective from a startup night train operator. European Sleeper currently runs Brussels–Prague via Amsterdam and Berlin; Paris–Berlin via Hamburg launches in three weeks from the panel date; and Brussels–Cologne–Zurich–Milan is announced to launch in September. He reports approximately 15% business travelers on their routes — notable given the basic product offering. He criticizes incumbent rail operators for being 'reluctant, volatile, or hostile' to integrating startup operators into their distribution platforms, despite member states having legal obligations to foster sustainable travel alternatives. He highlights the physical reality of night train operations: trains need overnight stabling locations and waste servicing — a problem when cities want the service but have allocated land for housing. He also notes that even corporate booking tools (side-trips/SBT platforms) have not integrated Austrian Night Jet due to product complexity: passengers must choose between seat coach, couchette (4-berth or 6-berth), or sleeping car (single, double, or triple), and gender must be selected for shared compartments — a level of complexity that business travel tools find uneconomical to build for a niche product. Bauer (ÖBB) reports a 20% increase in night train ticket sales year-over-year despite concerns that the Greta Thunberg/climate narrative was fading, suggesting travelers now have broader motivations than sustainability messaging alone.
Key Takeaways
- •European international rail is a dramatically underserved market: while rail is a €70–100 billion annual European industry, cross-border rail accounts for only 7–8% of that total, compared to aviation where 60% of European flights are cross-border. Björn Bender (Rail Europe) attributes this partly to the fact that 80% of Rail Europe's non-European customers do not even consider taking a train — making awareness and distribution the primary growth lever rather than supply.
- •Infrastructure nodes, not high-speed lines, are the binding constraint for European rail growth. Kurt Bauer (ÖBB) specifically cited Cologne Hauptbahnhof and Berlin Hauptbahnhof as examples of station-level bottlenecks that restrict train frequency more than the lines themselves. Stabling and maintenance capacity are equally critical limiting factors that digital distribution improvements cannot substitute for.
- •Night train capacity could theoretically be scaled dramatically through modular train design. Dr. Ingo Kucz presented Luna Rail's concept, which could scale a standard formation from 254 passengers (new-generation Nightjet) up to 740 passengers at current European maximum train length, and potentially to 1,500 with full modular assembly — representing a roughly 6x capacity increase over today's Nightjet, though requiring assembly at origin and splitting at destination.
- •Omio is seeing a 50% year-on-year increase in multimodal journey choices by its users, according to Veronica Diquattro (President B2C, Omio). She emphasized that end users do not think in terms of national routes or operators — they think in terms of seamless journeys — and that single-app, single-currency, single-transaction booking experiences are critical to unlocking this demand at scale.
- •European Sleeper announced three concrete network expansions during the panel: Paris–Berlin via Hamburg launching in approximately three weeks from the panel date, Brussels–Cologne–Zurich–Milan launching in September, and Rail Europe beginning to sell European Sleeper tickets at end of March. Elmer van Buuren also noted approximately 15% of European Sleeper passengers are business travelers despite the startup's basic product offering.
- •Night train year-over-year ticket sales for ÖBB's night train services grew 20% compared to the prior year, according to Kurt Bauer. He noted he had worried that the fading of the Greta Thunberg/climate change narrative would hurt demand, but passengers have proven to have multiple motivations for night train travel beyond sustainability — positioning the product's appeal as more durable than previously feared.
Transcript
Give me a quick chance to to explain a little bit what we are talking about. It's uh the outlook of longd distance rail and beyond crossber networks, multimodal connectivity and changing distribution structures. So many topics we have. Uh I think yes we can as you lined up already now um I would like to ask you to to get on the stage and honestly I I think today I have to start with the ladies. So ladies first um very well welcome to Veronica Duato president B2C and supply chain at Omio. So you ...
