European Railway Comparisons – Company Profiles

This work was undertaken as part of a project sponsored by the British Railways Board entitled `European Railway Comparisons'. The aims of this project are as follows: (i)To compare the current efficiency of European railway operators and examine recent trends at both aggregate and disaggregate levels. (ii)To assess the effects of economies of scale and economies of density on European rail operations. (iii)To make an exploratory assessment of the potential for further disaggregation by market type (InterCity, Commuter, Freight) in order to make detailed comparisons of market shares. The main methods employed to carry out this study are as follows: (i)A review of the literature on railway cost and productivity analysis. Preliminary findings are given in Working Paper 354 and a paper presented to the World Conference on Transport Research (Nash, C.A. and Preston, J.M. (1992) "Assessing the Performance of European Railways"). (ii)Collation of published data for 13 European State Railway Operators. (iii)Face to face interviews with managers at the 13 State Railway companies in order to check our understanding of published data sources, gain more infomation at a disaggregate level (administered by a self completion questionnaire) and obtain an understanding of the institutional background. This report summarises some of the background information that was obtained from the interviews undertaken in the summer of 1992. A company profile is developed for each operator under four main headings: Objectives and Management, Finance, the Freight Market and the Passenger Market

Competition in Rail Transport: A New Opportunity for Railways?

Throughout Europe, and in many other parts of the world, railways are suffering from declining market share and deteriorating financial performance; consequently there is renewed interest in deregulation and the introduction of competition into rail transport as a way of improving performance. An EC Directive now provides for access to rail infrastructure for third parties to run their own international trains in some circumstances. After a long debate, the British Government in July 1992 published a White Paper (New Opportunities for the Railways) which aimed to go much further. It would both open access to the infrastructure for any licensed operator and franchise out existing passenger services via a competitive bidding process; all freight services would be privatised outright. Draft legislation to implement these proposals, as well as a string of consultation documents on details have also been published, and an Interim Report from the Select Committee of Members of Parliament examining the proposals has appeared. This paper review the debate that is currently raging over the British government proposals. It considers the potential for innovation and cost savings which they offer, as well as the problems of increased transactions costs, lack of competitive bidding and other potential inefficiencies of the new system. The key issue of the charging regime for access to the infrastructure is also addressed. It is concluded that competition in the provision of freight services is desirable, but that passenger services present many more problems, and that the proposals need modification if they are to meet their objectives

Factors Influencing the Propensity to Make Long Distance Trips by Rail

This paper discusses sane of the major results of the inter-urban rail trip generation models developed during the studentship of J M Rickard under the supervision of Drs C A Nash and A S Fowkes. The trip rates of distinct groups in the population are exmined and possible explanations for the differences discussed. It is found that rail business trip rates are explained by SEG, age and location - other variables such as sex and car ownership do not have an independent effect. Location in a major urban area increases use of rail for business travel by 50-100%, largely at the expense of car. For non-business travel, SEG, age, household type and whether the district has a main-line rail station are the principal determinants of rail trip rates. The highest trip rates are found for students, members of the armed forces and professional employees, particularly those aged 18-24 and living in one person or many adult households. Amongst pensioners, it is those living in 2-pensioner households who travel most: pensioners living alone make few journeys by any mode. Accessibility to a main line rail station appears to raise the use of rail by high-usage SEGs at the expense of car, but for other groups, effect is ambiguous

Some Guidelines for Evaluating New Local Rail Stations

This paper, based on vark undertaken as part of a Ph.D. studentship on new local rail staticms in West Yorkshire, seeks to offer guidelines for identifying and appraising new local rail station sites, and recommendations for further work on the subject. It outlines three methods of forecasting demand at such stations - a simple method based on mean trip rates at certain distance bands for similar existing new stations, an aggregate regression model, and a combination of a disaggregate mode split model for the journey to work with an aggregate non-work journey model. Whilst the latter models do provide greater accuracy, it is suggested that a simple trip-rate model may be adequate for one-off low-cost stations, although packages of stations and train service alterations need more thorough investigation. On this basis, it is suggested that for new stations with the characteristics of those in West Yorkshire (i.e. suburban stations in residential areas a few miles from major employment centres), sites which are free of significant engineering problems, with good road access, close to an existing bridge or crossing and with a population of at least 2,000 within 800 metres of the site, should be sought. On single track rural branch lines, new stations may be justified at much lower population levels

Urban Transport Market Theoretical Analysis.

1.The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS) was commissioned by the Department of Transport (DoT), the Association of Metropolitan Authorities (AMA) and the Passenger Transport Executive Group (PTEG) to undertake this project in November 1992. 2.The objectives of this study were: (a)to establish a simple economic model of urban transport operations, based on present policies; (b)to estimate, using the model, the theoretically optimal form of intervention in urban rail under the present policy constraints, and differences between this optimum and current procedures; (c)to investigate how improved procedures might be implemented in practice in the light of the kind of data which are currently available or become available in the course of a Section 56 appraisal and to make suggestions for additional data collection

Passenger Rail Statistics Following the Privatisation of British Rail.

In common with other major industries, the rail industry requires significant amounts of high quality information for successful operation. Information relating to the demand and supply of rail services is required to ensure that appropriate services are provided at minimum cost. Given the recent explosion of information technology, data on demand and supply is readily accessible and much improved. The benefits to the industry arising from such improvements should be maintained under the new organisational structures brought about by the 1993 Transport Act. It is the aim of this note to outline current sources of information and key statistics and raise the issue of what provisions are being made to ensure that they are maintained in a consistent and compatible format following privatisation

Rail Privatisation: The Practice – An Analysis of Seven Case Studies

After a brief description of the proposals for rail privatisation in Great Britain, this paper contrasts these with the proposals and experience in other countries around the world. The proposals and experience in other countries contain some elements of the British proposals, however, the 'open access' element that features strongly in the British proposals has never been experienced on any significant scale elsewhere. In conclusion, experience elsewhere may shed light on the likely outcome of some aspects of the British proposals, but other aspects such as 'open access' and vertical separation are still unknowns

Rail Privatisation: The Economic Theory

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of economic theory to the rail privatisation proposals contained in the Railways Act 1993. After a review of the latest rail privatisation literature four major themes emerged: (1) Contestability and Barriers to Entry. (2) Franchising. (3) Vertical Integration. (4) Horizontal Integration. Following a short review of the rail privatisation proposals the paper presents each theme in the context of the proposals. In conclusion, we highlight a number of future issues which will require monitoring and research in the future. In particular, we identify a number of hypotheses, put forward by both those in favour and against the Government's proposals, that should be tested

European Railway Comparisons: Final Report

The Institute for Transport Studies (ITS), University of Leeds and the British Railways Board (BRB) carried out a major comparative study of Western European railways in the late 1970s (BRB and University of Leeds, 1979). Follow-up work was carried out by ITS financed by the Social Science Research Council and reported by Nash (1985). It was deaded to revive this work at ITS for a number of reasons: It is over ten years since the last set of comparisons (for 1981) were made at ITS and therefore a review of the changes in costs and productivity may be timely. There has been a number of technical developments that make the use of statistical cost analysis more promising. These developments include the use of more flexible functional forms such as the translog, and the development of comprehensive total factor productivity indices (see, for example, Dodgson, 1985 and, more recently, Hensher and Waters, 1993). There is increasing interest in the organisational structure of railway industries as a result of the 1988 Transport Act in Sweden, the EC directive 91/4-40 and the publication of proposals for privatising British Rail in July 1992 (see, for example, ECMT, 1993). Given the explosion in information technology, there were some hopes that data availability would have improved. (Continues..

A Review of Rail Research Relevant to the Case for Increased Rail Investment.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of rail transport research which has a bearing on the case of increased rail investment. The paper focuses on research which has been conducted on the demand for rail travel, both passenger and freight, rather than the supply side or new technology. The aim is to identify where we believe there to be significant gaps in knowledge and key areas in which further research is required are outlined. The paper deals with the following issues: the investment and funding mechanisms that currently exist for rail; the extent to which changes in the fare and service quality of rail affect the demand for rail travel and also the demand for air and road travel; the environmental and congestion benefits of diverting traffic from road and air to rail; and the links between rail investment and economic development. Where appropriate, the discussion considers inter-urban travel, suburban travel, light rail transit and freight transport separately