One or several contracts of carriage?

Your ticket is the embodiment of a transport contract concluded between you and the transport company operating the journey. The law guarantees you a whole series of rights around this transport contract and also implies obligations for the railway company.

Do you travel with multiple transport companies? Then there may be multiple tickets and therefore multiple separate transport agreements.

On each ticket there is a numerical code of the responsible transport company or companies for the respective route.

One or more tickets: what does that change?

If your journey consists of several parts (several connecting trains, with a change), there are two options:

A single ticket for the different sections, where the different transport companies involved are jointly liable for the entire journey (e.g. if you travel on a series of trains without a seat reservation). In this case, you will receive compensation for the entire journey in case of cancellation/delay.
Multiple separate tickets. In that case, each carrier is only responsible for the part of the journey it operates itself. In that case, in case of cancellation/delay, each part of the journey is considered separately, without taking into account the other parts of your journey.

General rule: 1 ticket = 1 contract of carriage

In general, 1 ticket (paper or digital) represents 1 contract of carriage, even if you are using more than one train on your journey. If you have several separate tickets for your route, there are as many transport deals as you have tickets.

Example 1: Ottignies-Paris via Brussels

Example 2: Charleroi–The Hague via Breda

Example 3: Charleroi–The Hague via Rotterdam (including a Eurostar part)

Example 4: Brussels–Bordeaux via Paris

Example 5: Ghent – Zurich (via Brussels and Frankfurt)

Exceptions

In specific cases, the rule "1 ticket = 1 agreement" is not right. We have listed some exceptions for you:

Exception 1: long distance routes operated by SNCF

Exception 2: connection between 2 trains of the Eurostar group

Did you miss your connection?

The Agreement on Journey Continuation (AJC) allows you to catch your rail carrier's next available train at no extra cost with 20 European train operators.

Similarly, the HOTNAT service (Hop on the next available train) allows you to take the next available high-speed train at no extra cost if there's a broken connection between two high-speed trains of the Railteam alliance.

More about the Agreemnt on Journey Continuation and about HOTNAT >