Railway capacity allocation: a survey of market organizations, allocation processes and track access charges

Abderrahman Ait Ali () and Jonas Eliasson ()
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Abderrahman Ait Ali: Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI), Postal: Dept. of Transport Economics, P.O. Box 55685, SE-102 15 Stockholm, Sweden
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Abderrahman Ait-Ali

No 2019:1, Working Papers from Swedish National Road & Transport Research Institute (VTI)

Abstract: In the last few decades, many railway markets (especially in Europe) have been restructured to allow competition between different operators. This survey studies how competition has been introduced and regulated in a number of different countries around the world. In particular, we focus on a central part of market regulation specific to railway markets, namely the capacity allocation process. Conflicting capacity requests from different train operators need to be regulated and resolved, and the efficiency and transparency of this process is crucial. Related to this issue is how access charges are constructed and applied. Several European countries have vertically separated their railway markets, separating infrastructure management from train services provisions, thus allowing several train operators to compete with different passengers and freight services. However, few countries have so far managed to create efficient and transparent processes for allocating capacity between competing train operators, and incumbent operators still have larger market-share in many markets.

Keywords: Railway markets; Vertical separation; Competition; Capacity allocation; Access charges (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2019-04-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com, nep-reg and nep-tre
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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