Non-Contractual Liability for Railways, Buses and Aeroplanes

Abstract

Abstract This article offers a comparative overview of extra-contractual liability for means of mass transport (trains, buses, aeroplanes) in Europe. A distinction is thereby drawn between two fact patterns: liability for transported persons and property, and liability to third parties. Whilst the former is, at least for cross-border transport, extensively regulated by international conventions and European Directives, liability to third parties is very variably regulated at the national level. The paper highlights some of these differences and in so doing emphasises the importance of risk-based liability in the majority of European jurisdictions. There is, moreover, discussion of quite new liability questions raised by the liberalisation of the rail transport market and the introduction of self-driving cars.