Competition in the railway passenger market: The challenge of liberalization

European country members have been opening up to competition railway passenger services in recent years, whereas others still remain on the way to liberalization. The recent Commission’s fourth European Union (EU) Railway Package has updated the European legislation to ensure an effective liberaliza...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Gutiérrez Hita, Carlos, Ruiz Rua, Aurora
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Cantabria (UC)
Repositorio:e-spacio (DSpace). Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/31992
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/31992
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:5312.12 Transportes y comunicaciones
Railway passenger services
Liberalization
Competition
Regulation
Descripción
Sumario:European country members have been opening up to competition railway passenger services in recent years, whereas others still remain on the way to liberalization. The recent Commission’s fourth European Union (EU) Railway Package has updated the European legislation to ensure an effective liberalization within the EU country members by 2020. It is intended to enhance firms’ efficiency and also consumers’ benefits. In this article, we study different paths towards liberalization from the traditional state-owned monopoly configuration. First, the monopoly outcome is presented, as it is the current situation in a number of EU country members. Second, the oligopoly models are introduced to study different paths towards an effective competition as a result of different market configurations. It is found that liberalization may enhance consumer surplus keeping operators’ profitability only when variable costs and access charge to the network are low. Finally, some regulatory measures are discussed.