This paper compares the experience of three European countries with long experience of competition in rail transport – Britain, Sweden and Germany. Britain is characterised by complete separation of infrastructure from operations, competition either for or in the market for the entire...

In Britain, capacity charges are levied on train operators to cover the costs imposed by increased reactionary delays - i.e. the delay that an already late train causes to a following train. These charges are based on the link between capacity utilisation and the level of reactionary delay. An...

This paper compares three European countries with long experience of competition in rail transport - Britain, Sweden, and Germany. Given the nature of the reforms undertaken, we would expect the British approach to be the most successful, with Sweden next and Germany least successful. But an...

The purpose of this paper is to consider the current situation of Chinese Railways (CR), the progress of reforms to date, and possible future developments. The first section describes the current problems of CR as a vast organization subject to strong central control, facing enormous and rapidly...

In recent years, Chinese railway freight transport has been facing great challenges from transport market reformation and economic expansion. Although the total volume of railway freight has been increasing, its market share has decreased greatly, especially at the beginning of migration from...

In the context of recent plans for public sector expenditure, the value for money provided by rural public transport is an important issue in Britain and elsewhere, and one aspect of this is the option and non-use value placed on public transport by residents. Whilst there are a small number of...

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. But implementation of these measures in many...

Workshop 1 was concerned to identify the real results of competitive tendering, and experience on how to make it work better, using evidence from the rail and bus sectors in a large number of countries spread around the world. It was found that competitive tendering had generally been successful...