'Journey Stitching' and station search
November 6, 2026·3 min3 min read
SAP Concur is expanding its European rail offering, integrating more operators into its Concur Travel platform and introducing new AI-powered features designed to make booking cross-border journeys easier for business travellers.
The latest addition to the network is Austrian rail operator ÖBB, which joins a growing list of carriers accessible through the platform as SAP Concur looks to address the fragmentation that has historically made rail a more difficult option for corporate travel.
Working with Trainline, SAP Concur is building an integrated rail booking platform that allows travellers to search, book, pay for and manage journeys across multiple European operators in one place.
The challenge has traditionally been particularly pronounced for cross-border journeys, where different operators have separate booking channels, ticketing rules and points of sale.
SAP Concur said its Journey Stitching functionality addresses this by combining rail segments operated by different carriers into a single itinerary and booking.
Paul Dear, VP Concur Travel EMEA at SAP Concur, said the company wanted to make rail a more accessible and viable option for corporate travel programmes.
"We're building the market-leading rail platform for business travel in Europe. With more carriers and self-service capabilities for travellers along the booking process coming next year, rail stops being a nice-to-have for travellers and becomes a firm, bookable option that companies can enforce in their travel policy," he said.
Since its partnership with Trainline began, SAP Concur has integrated rail operators across five European markets, including UK Rail, covering all UK rail companies through Trainline, Switzerland's SBB, Spain's Renfe and Iryo, France's SNCF and now Austria's ÖBB.
The platform supports domestic journeys, inbound rail bookings for travellers arriving in Europe from elsewhere, and cross-border itineraries combining services from different operators.
For travel managers, the expansion is intended to bring more bookings into managed travel programmes, improve visibility of employee journeys and give companies greater scope to encourage rail over air where appropriate.
SAP Concur said the impact was already evident in the UK, where rail bookings doubled within a year of the platform's move in February 2024.
Alongside the network expansion, SAP Concur has introduced two AI-powered features to improve the rail booking experience.
AI-assisted station search allows travellers to find the correct station when using multilingual or misspelt search terms, or when searching by city or landmark.
A new 'Best trains for you' section also recommends connections based on individual requirements, including journey duration, number of changes and price.
Further self-service capabilities are planned for next year, allowing travellers to change departure times, exchange tickets for another day and request partial refunds, building on existing functionality to book, pay for and cancel rail itineraries.
The network is also set to expand further with Italian operator Trenitalia currently in pilot and will add Italy as a new market once integrated. Its subsidiary Trenitalia France will also be included, providing an additional operator on routes such as Paris to Lyon.
It also has BeNe Rail on its roadmap, which would extend coverage into Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
