Be Open or Competitive? Exploring the differences in the adoption of (open) data sharing in European railway public transport

Open data shape the interactions between governments, businesses, and the public. In the European railway sector, the push towards liberalisation, environmental sustainability, and a Single European Railway Area (SERA) has intensified demands for open, interoperable public transport data. Yet, railway organisations face a dual challenge: fulfilling their public service role in contributing to the transport and mobility open data ecosystem while safeguarding organisation’s sensitive and competitive information. This paper investigates how national railway organisations across the European Union and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) participate in open data initiatives, focusing on three channels: Railway Open Data Portals (ROPs), Governmental Open Data Portals (GOPs), and National Access Points (NAPs). Through a structured data collection and manual labelling approach, this study catalogues 1097 open datasets across national railway operators and infrastructure managers, categorising them by portal type, country, thematic focus, and quality based on the 5-Star Open Data Model. The results reveal a fragmented Open Data landscape of the European railway, characterised by disparities in dataset volume, thematic focus, and openness standards. Operational data lead publications such as timetables, schedules and routes, but significant gaps persist in areas such as customer experience, specific infrastructure and organisation data. Railway operators prefer ROPs and GOPs over EU mandatory mobility portals NAPs for publishing open data, raising interest about consistency and compliance with European legislative frameworks. Beyond openness, the uneven availability of railway open data across the Union raises questions of digital equity. As unequal access to transport information risks reinforcing informational disparities among EU and EFTA residents, resulting a call for action for harmonised open data policies and stronger quality controls at the European level.