Blablacar: train tickets appear among carpooling and bus travel offers

Blablacar is hitting the rails. The company announced in a press release on Thursday, May 15, that it has begun integrating train tickets alongside its bus and carpooling offerings on its website and app, thus competing with SNCF Connect and Trainline.

"We want to connect everything […]. This is the last missing building block to become the one-stop shop for long-distance travel" for Blablacar's five million active users, said the company's European director, Adrien Tahon, who is pleased to become "the only platform offering carpooling, bus and train travel." According to the director, this development "allows carpooling to be put on the same level as other means of transport."

The Blablacar website and app now offer searches, comparisons, and bookings for bus, carpool, and train journeys (TGV Inoui, TER, and trains from the Spanish company Renfe) from 350 major French train stations. Additional stations, round-trip journeys, discount cards, and Trenitalia 's offer are expected to be added in the coming months.

The company has been testing this comprehensive offering for two years in Spain, where it allows customers to compare the offers of different operators that have benefited from the liberalization of rail transport (such as Iryo and Avlo). Blablacar plans to expand this offering to Germany and Italy in the medium term.

Given the costs involved and the limited 2% commission on tickets, this train offering "is not necessarily a source of short-term profitability" for Blablacar, even if it will boost revenue, Adrien Tahon emphasizes. Blablacar customers already book an average of 13 train journeys per year, using other sites, and more than a third have already made journeys combining train and carpooling.

The SNCF app, which is a shareholder in Blablacar, already offers comparisons between train journeys, bus journeys, and carpooling. But SNCF Connect redirects customers to the Blablacar app for carpooling trips. The platform is also testing another app, Blablacar Zen, which offers drivers greater flexibility, for a higher fee, especially when using train stations.