This paper reports on work undertaken for the European Commission (EC) between 1996and 1999. It is shown that despite reforms initiated by the EC Directive 91/440, theperformance of 17 state owned western European rail operators is poor. Work usingnon-parametric index numbers indicates only...

This paper compares the experience of the two countries in Europe with the most experience of passenger rail service franchising – Britain and Sweden. It examines the nature of the contracts between the franchising authority and the franchisee, and between the franchisee and the infrastructure...

Given that virtually all British passenger train services were franchised out over the period1995-7, and many have now been franchised for a second time, Britain should provide anexcellent opportunity to study the impact of franchising passenger rail services. Moreover,since several different...

Whilst the emphasis of European Union rail legislation to date has been on freight, measures such as separation of infrastructure from operations, infrastructure charging regimes and regulation have major implications for the passenger sector. However, a number of problems with the...