The SME Playbook for EU Multimodal Compliance: Insights from Our Recent Mobility Alliance Technical Webinar

We brought together a powerhouse panel directly driving these initiatives: Victoire Champenois (DG MOVE, European Commission), Tu-Tho Thai (Co-lead of the NeTEx subgroup within CEN), and Brede Dammen (Product Owner, Entur AS).

1. The Regulatory Horizon: EU Enforcement and Multimodal Mandates

Victoire Champenois broke down the European Commission’s evolving regulatory architecture, focusing heavily on the Multi-Modal Travel Information Services (MMTIS) delegated regulation (amended in 2024).

The message from DG MOVE was clear: data must not just be digitised; it must be shared in strictly standardised formats via National Access Points (NAPs).

● From Implementation to Enforcement: While several NAPs are functioning exceptionally well, the EC noted a mixed implementation picture across some Member States. The upcoming focus will heavily skew toward compliance and enforcement of existing deadlines.

● The Telematics TSI Shift: Revised at the start of this year, the new rail regulations mandate that timetable, connection, and real-time forecast data be shared free of charge. Crucially, it touches on tariff data to support cross-border rail ticketing services subject to bilateral distribution contracts.

2. The Transmodel Blueprint: Moving Beyond Passenger Info

Tu-Tho Thai provided a masterclass on the current functional scopes of CEN standards, reminding the audience that Transmodel serves as our collective linguistic grammar—ensuring inherent compatibility between parallel streams.

While the core focus remains on NeTEx (static/schedule data) and SIRI (dynamic/real-time updates), Tu-Tho highlighted the "new baby in the family": OPRA (Observed Performance Arrived). OPRA serves as the historised data bridge between NetEx and SIRI, allowing public transport authorities to scientifically evaluate actual performance against planned offers.

Active CEN Projects to Watch:

● EFIP (European Fair Information Profile): Developing a refined subset of NetEx Part 3 to make fare modelling lean, production-ready, and easier to copy-paste into XML.

● EUDIT (European Digital Ticketing Interface): Defining an open API for travel purchase interfaces to handle cross-border multimodal booking seamlessly.

● BT4PT (Barcode Ticketing for Public Transport): Standardising the barcode/QR fulfillment architecture so any validator across Europe can read any ticket.

● Cycling Infra: A pre-normative push to give cycling infrastructure a native digital representation in routing engines, boosting safety and multimodal integration.

3. Real-World Deployment: The Nordic Federated Approach

Translating regulation into production requires robust infrastructure. Brede Dammen demonstrated how Norway's state-owned Entur acts as a national data layer, utilizing a lightweight, unified system called Bifrost to query multiple backend systems for prices, products, and bookings via the Open Sales and Distribution Model (OSDM).

Through projects like NEMU (collaborating with ITS Nordic Plus and Finnish partners), Entur successfully integrated NetEx data and OSDM APIs to execute cross-border bookings between Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark—recently onboarding operators like Flixbus, Snälltåget, and Norway Bus Express.

The Core Bottlenecks: What’s Stopping Scalability?

During the panel discussion, our experts didn't shy away from the practical engineering hurdles currently capping growth:

● Fragmented ID Structures: A recurring industry stopper is the lack of unique, stable identifiers across distinct systems. If a planned schedule ID (NetEx) doesn't perfectly match the real-time vehicle monitoring ID (SIRI), real-time apps and booking engines break.

● Profile Bloat: There are currently too many localized profiles built on top of NetEx. The panel emphasized that aligning with the NAPCOR Recommended NetEx Profile is critical for immediate scalability.

Get the Complete Technical Slides & Replay

The session sparked such an immediate wave of follow-up messages and requests for the technical slide decks from industry SMEs that we’ve put together this high-level executive summary.

Missed the live session? You can access the complete slide decks, technical frameworks, and the full video replay by registering on our portal here.