The liberalisation of the railway passenger transport market in the European Union has been long debated. Passengers should benefit from more alternatives, more comfort, enhanced safety, less costs, infrastructure managers should have more customers, more routes, higher revenues, while operators should also benefit from a higher number of passengers, more routes, the possibility of operating on any European market. At the same time, railway industry suppliers should have more demands, multi-annual contracts and diverse services.
In less words, this is the outcome expected after the liberalisation of the railway passenger transport. But for now, the authorities compete in getting derogations, the operators demand to be assured that this will not affect their market share and infrastructure managers all over Europe want to postpone the process because of the poor condition of the infrastructure which endangers the safety of passengers.
In order to align Europe to the tendencies of opened markets, the European Union is currently studying the possibility of initiating “the fourth railway package”. Of course, this will not be the last one necessary for a completely opened market, as long as it deals with introducing competition on the domestic markets of the national railway and high-speed transport. Both markets are an example of commitment or the lack of commitment that the European citizens have to the way in which the railway transport they choose is managed (conventional or high-speed), of course, excepting for the urban transport system.
Therefore, by 2012, the European Commission will stop to one of the scenarios that are currently under evaluation and it will come up to the European Parliament with a legislative initiative.
Arriva’s Communication Manager, Simon Craven declared in December 2009 that “in the past years, Arriva has accessed the East-European market on several occasions. We have always believed that this region is a long-term development point. We express our full support and optimism towards the liberalisation process of the railway markets in the region, including the Romanian market”.
“Considering the bad experiences of (almost) all freight transport operators since market liberalisation, it is to be expected that potential candidates would hesitate to enter the passenger market”, declared Johannes Ludewig, CER’s Executive Director, during the Romanian Railway Days in 2009.
Investments in adjacent countries are common in Europe, a relevant example being that of the Czech national operator, Ceske Drahy (CD), which is interested in accessing the Slovakian market. CD’s spokesman, Ondrej Kubala, said that “the Slovakian market is very interested in Ceske Drahy.” This is the result of historical bonds created in the Czechoslovakian era. The infrastructure systems are relatively equal, while rolling stock regulations are similar.
However, a year after the official entrance into force of the railway passenger transport liberalisation, both European companies and railway infrastructure managers have a long way to go before declaring a completely opened passenger market.
by Elena Ilie
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