SPAIN: The European Commission has invited comments on commitments offered by national operator RENFE to address concerns over its alleged refusal to supply rival ticketing platforms with train information and real-time data.
In April the Commission opened a formal investigation into whether RENFE may have restricted competition by refusing to provide third-party platforms with full content concerning its range of tickets, discounts and features, and full real-time data related to its services.
To address the Commission’s concerns, RENFE offered to make all current and future content and real-time data on its own channels available to third-party platforms by February 29 2024.
There would be limited exceptions covering content for which RENFE is required to launch a tender procedure to grant access.
RENFE said it would also inform third-party ticketing platforms about any new content, data or technical specifications at the same time as it informed its own Dōcō platform.
There would also be agreements around ‘look-to-book’ ratios and error rates.
Implementation of these commitments would be monitored by a trustee who would report to the Commission for 10 years.
