On September 17, the European Commission adopted a proposal for improving railway passenger and freight transport services. The proposal aims at boosting competition on the rail transport market and reconfirming the power of national authorities in regulating and improving the investment framework in the railway sector. The directive proposal on the establishment of a single railway area is an exercise for legislative reinforcement and simplification and consists in joining the three currently effective directives and their successive amendments into a single and coherent text. At the same time, the directive proposal aims to approach problems in key areas which affect the efficient operation of the rail transport market.
“Europe holds a top rank in railway technology, But, and this is a strong “but”, needs and deserves better railway services. We have to provide a broader range of high quality, viable and innovating services both for rail passenger transport and goods transport. This is the goal of this law package”, declared Siim Kallas, EC Vice President and European Commissioner responsible for transport. Ensuring an adequate quality of railway infrastructure through fair financing is one of the strategies comprised in the new directive. By amending the existing EU legislation on the railway market access, the Commission plans to create a favourable financing environment for public and private railway investments.
In 2011, the Commission will present the outcome of its activity which is currently developing the connections between TEN-T countries and adjacent European countries and connecting the networks in candidate countries to the TEN-T network.The Commission has been considering for a long time that improving the domestic market operation should stimulate railway industry in boosting efficiency and customer-orientation. The directive approaches problems that affect three key areas.
Transparent access conditions
The directive proposal aims to increase competition on the railway transport market by ensuring more transparent market access conditions and easing access, for example by requiring an improved access (and, in certain conditions, even a guaranteed access) to services adjacent to railway transport, such as maintenance equipments, terminals, information desks and ticket offices, both for passenger and freight transport. It is necessary to establish clear norms on interest conflicts and discriminatory practices in the railway sector. It is also ne-cessary to require rather detailed “reference documents of the network”, annually published documents, so that potential market new-entrants would have a clear perspective on the characteristics of available infrastructure and operation conditions.
The proposal reinforces the national authorities’ capacity to regulate the railway sector and includes proposals for measures such as extending national authorities’ capacity to regulate the railway sector to services adjacent to railway transport. Until now, the aspects connected to the access to adjacent services didn’t always fall into the competence of national regulatory authorities. The proposal aims to consolidate the national authorities’ regulatory capacity in the railway sector (in what concerns for example sanctions, audit, appeal procedures and procedure initiation), as well as implement the obligation of these bodies to cooperate with their counterparts in cross-border problems.
Investment stimulants
The new norms on infrastructure financing and charges are tasked with creating a harmonized “financial architecture” to stimulate investments. Proposed measures include the necessity of long-term strategies and multiannual contractual agreements between public authorities and infrastructure managers (thus establishing a platform between financing, performances and business plans). The main goal is to provide market players with a broader predictability on the infrastructure evolution and stimulate them to improve performances.
It is worth mentioning that the directive proposal requires more specific and meaningful norms for infrastructure charges. Improving the implementation of effective tariff norms should reduce track access charges for rail transport operators from many member states. The new tariff norms (that introduce tariff modulation depending on the noise level based on the pattern of external cost charging in road transport, as well as cost reduction aimed to promote interoperability) should, at the same time, stimulate private investments in environmentally enhanced interoperable technologies.
by Elena Ilie
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