4,629 research outputs found
Overview of Infrastructure Charging, part 4, IMPROVERAIL Project Deliverable 9, âImproved Data Background to Support Current and Future Infrastructure Charging Systemsâ
Improverail aims are to further support the establishment of railway infrastructure management in accordance with Directive 91/440, as well as the new railway infrastructure directives, by developing the necessary tools for modelling the management of railway infrastructure; by evaluating improved methods for capacity and resources management, which allow the improvement of the Life Cycle Costs (LCC) calculating methods, including elements related to vehicle - infrastructure interaction and external costs; and by improving data background in support of charging for use of railway infrastructure. To achieve these objectives, Improverail is organised along 8 workpackages, with specific objectives, responding to the requirements of the task 2.2.1/10 of the 2nd call made in the 5th RTD Framework Programme in December 1999.This part is the task 7.1 (Review of infrastructure charging systems) to the workpackage 7 (Analysis of the relation between infrastructure cost variation and diversity of infrastructure charging systems).Before explaining the economic characteristics of railway and his basic pricing principles, authors must specify the objectives of railways infrastructure charging.principle of pricing ; rail infrastructure charging ; public service obligation ; rail charging practice ; Europe ; Improverail
Hierarchical Passenger Hub Location Problem in a Megaregion Area Considering Service Availability
The rapid growth of the intercity travel demand has resulted in enormous pressure on the passenger transportation network in a megaregion area. Optimally locating hubs and allocating demands to hubs influence the effectiveness of a passenger transportation network. This study develops a hierarchical passenger hub location model considering the service availability of hierarchical hubs. A mixed integer linear programming formulation was developed to minimize the total cost of hub operation and transportation for multiple travel demands and determine the proportion of passengers that access hubs at each level. This model was implemented for the Wuhan metropolitan area in four different scenarios to illustrate the applicability of the model. Then, a sensitivity analysis was performed to assess the impact of changing key parameters on the model results. The results are compared to those of traditional models, and the findings demonstrate the importance of considering hub choice behavior in demand allocation
Train-scheduling optimization model for railway networks with multiplatform stations
This paper focuses on optimizing the schedule of trains on railway networks composed of busy complex stations. A mathematical formulation of this problem is provided as a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP). However, the creation of an optimal new timetable is an NP-hard problem; therefore, the MILP can be solved for easy cases, computation time being impractical for more complex examples. In these cases, a heuristic approach is provided that makes use of genetic algorithms to find a good solution jointly with heuristic techniques to generate an initial population. The algorithm was applied to a number of problem instances producing feasible, though not optimal, solutions in several seconds on a laptop, and compared to other proposals. Some improvements are suggested to obtain better results and further improve computation time. Rail transport is recognized as a sustainable and energy-efficient means of transport. Moreover, each freight train can take a large number of trucks off the roads, making them safer. Studies in this field can help to make railways more attractive to travelers by reducing operative cost, and increasing the number of services and their punctuality. To improve the transit system and service, it is necessary to build optimal train scheduling. There is an interest from the industry in automating the scheduling process. Fast computerized train scheduling, moreover, can be used to explore the effects of alternative draft timetables, operating policies, station layouts, and random delays or failures.Postprint (published version
The Economics of EU Railway Reform. Bruges European Economic Policy (BEEP) Briefing 8/2004
The EU began railway reform in earnest around the turn of the century. Two ârailway packagesâ
have meanwhile been adopted amounting to a series of directives and a third package has been
proposed. A range of complementary initiatives has been undertaken or is underway.
This BEEP Briefing inspects the main economic aspects of EU rail reform. After highlighting the
dramatic loss of market share of rail since the 1960s, the case for reform is argued to rest on three
arguments: the need for greater competitiveness of rail, promoting the (market driven) diversion
of road haulage to rail as a step towards sustainable mobility in Europe, and an end to the
disproportional claims on public budgets of Member States.
The core of the paper deals respectively with market failures in rail and in the internal market for
rail services; the complex economic issues underlying vertical separation (unbundling) and
pricing options; and the methods, potential and problems of introducing competition in rail
freight and in passenger services. Market failures in the rail sector are several (natural monopoly,
economies of density, safety and asymmetries of information), exacerbated by no less than 7
technical and legal barriers precluding the practical operation of an internal rail market. The EU
choice to opt for vertical unbundling (with benefits similar in nature as in other network
industries e.g. preventing opaque cross-subsidisation and greater cost revelation) risks the
emergence of considerable coordination costs. The adoption of marginal cost pricing is
problematic on economic grounds (drawbacks include arbitrary cost allocation rules in the
presence of large economies of scope and relatively large common costs; a non-optimal incentive
system, holding back the growth of freight services; possibly anti-competitive effects of two-part
tariffs). Without further detailed harmonisation, it may also lead to many different systems in
Member States, causing even greater distortions. Insofar as freight could develop into a
competitive market, a combination of Ramsey pricing (given the incentive for service providers
to keep market share) and price ceilings based on stand-alone costs might be superior in terms of
competition, market growth and regulatory oversight. The incipient cooperative approach for
path coordination and allocation is welcome but likely to be seriously insufficient.
The arguments to introduce competition, notably in freight, are valuable and many e.g. optimal
cross-border services, quality differentiation as well as general quality improvement, larger scale
for cost recovery and a decrease of rent seeking. Nevertheless, it is not correct to argue for the
introduction of competition in rail tout court. It depends on the size of the market and on
removing a host of barriers; it requires careful PSO definition and costing; also, coordination
failures ought to be pre-empted. On the other hand, reform and competition cannot and should
not be assessed in a static perspective. Conduct and cost structures will change with reform.
Infrastructure and investment in technology are known to generate enormous potential for cost
savings, especially when coupled with the EU interoperability programme. All this dynamism
may well help to induce entry and further enlarge the (net) welfare gains from EU railway
reform.
The paper ends with a few pointers for the way forward in EU rail reform
European Railway Deregulation: The Influence of Regulatory and Environmental Conditions on Efficiency
The objective of this paper is to analyze the impact of regulatory and environmental conditions on technical effciency of European railways. Using a panel data set of 31 railway firms from 22 European countries from 1994 to 2005, a multioutput distance function model, including regulatory and environmental factors, is estimated using stochastic frontier analysis. The results obtained indicate positive and negative effciency effects of different regulatory reforms. Furthermore, estimating models with and without regulatory and environmental factors clearly indicates that the omission of environmental factors, such as network density, substantially changes parameter estimates and, hence, leads to biased estimation results.European railways, technical effciency, stochastic frontier analysis
Inverting the regulatory rules? Optimizing airport regulation to account for commercial revenues
This paper analyzes the role of commercial revenues in today's airport regulatory system. We find that the current regulatory regime only partially achieves core aims such as welfare maximization. After highlighting instances in which airport price regulation is not economically justified, we explore the potential for airports to exercise market power in the commercial sector. In certain circumstances, we advocate the introduction of an 'inverted' dual till system under which commercial as opposed to aviation revenues are the focus of price regulation. The suitability of such a system varies from airport to airport, however, depending on various factors, such as the airport's competitive environment and the presence of capacity constraints. --Airport regulation,non-aviation revenues,price differentiation,single till,dual till
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