A transport association is a cooperative organisational grouping of public authorities and/or transport providers, either based on public or private law. The main aim is to establish integrated tariff zones with harmonised tickets and fares. They may also be entrusted with other tasks such as joint ticketing and passenger information systems, the distribution of fare revenues between the participating transport operators and even with the joint planning and ordering of passenger transport services. Such associations are more widely known in Austria, Germany and Switzerland than in other European countries. These associations may be beneficial for CBPT:

• If they are existing on one or both sides of a border: transport associations reduce the number of partners for negotiations to agree on joint fares and tickets without neglecting the interests of different partners and providers. Thus, they can reduce complexity of cross-border contracts for CBPT.
• They can help to increase transparency and simplicity of ticket offers and fares.
• As they bring together many partners involved in public transport provision, they are a useful vehicle to adapt services to the needs of residents in border regions.

As mentioned in previous posts, several case studies illustrate these benefits of transport associations. This includes, for example, the upgrading of the Maribor-Bleiburg (Slovenia-Austria) railway connection to better meet the demand of commuters, the tariff zone extension for the Aachen-Maastricht (Germany-Netherlands) bus connection, the tariff integration of the ‘Saarbahn’ (France-Germany) and the Innsbruck-Brenner (Austria-Italy) railway links in the corresponding transport authority fare system or Unireso cross-border transport association in Greater Geneva bringing together French and Swiss transport operators.

The toolbox developed by the study includes further illustrations and different approaches to making use of transport associations for the benefit of CBPT.