Beyond the “bundling vs unbundling” controversy: What is at stake for the French railway?

Emmauel Bougna Tchofo () and Yves Crozet ()
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Yves Crozet: LET - Laboratoire d'économie des transports - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - ENTPE - École Nationale des Travaux Publics de l'État - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: This paper uses qualitative and comparative analysis to reveal two important findings. First, in France, if the aim of reform announced by the Minister is to re-build the SNCF's monopoly, our fear is that, instead of stimulating French railways, this will cause a downward slide in the sector by threatening its production and costs. In this context, the key aspect of the reform required by the fourth railway package is to create a real separation between the rail operator and the infrastructure manager. Second, our comparative analysis of the performance of the French and German railway systems shows the financial indicators in the two countries to be almost identical, except that Germany has higher productivity indicators than France. This result shows that France, instead of focusing on reducing transaction costs - which only represent 2% of the total costs, should give priority to productivity gains. It is imperative to implement a programme in France that aims to revive productivity in the railway sector, for example by reducing the workforce.

Keywords: Regulation; Transaction costs; Production costs; Productivity gains (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-12
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Research in Transportation Economics, 2014, 48, pp.393-400. ⟨10.1016/j.retrec.2014.09.072⟩

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Journal Article: Beyond the “bundling vs unbundling” controversy: What is at stake for the French railway? (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-02116066

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2014.09.072

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