The Competition in the Passenger Railway Transport
Seminar
Day 1 (9 Sep 2020), Session 1, Competition between Modes, 10:00 - 12:00
Status
Accepted, awaiting documents
Submitted by / Abstract owner
Ondřej Špetík
Authors
Ondřej Špetík
Short abstract
Experience with competitive tendering in the passenger railway transport has shown that only a few carriers participate in tenders. The paper aims to analyse different approaches to competitive tendering by the transport services purchasers.
Abstract
The liberalisation of the passenger rail transport has recently undergone dynamic development. Some lines are starting to compete with private carriers or are directly assigned to them. Under the Fourth Railway Package, by 2023, competitive tendering for railways will be an obligation.
The contribution aims to evaluate the degree of the liberalisation of the passenger rail transport in the Czech Republic, openness to competition in the submission of bids and subsequently to identify factors that restrict the access of competitors to the defined market.
From the methodologic perspective, the article is based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. We conducted structured interviews with the representatives of the carriers and the representatives of the contracting authority. Additionally, we developed the logit model to verify factors influencing the number of competitors.
The results show that the passenger rail transport sector is very demanding in terms of the capital and staff expertise. At the same time, it provides numerous risks. However, the individual carriers make almost no profits (not because of the market’s competitiveness but because of the strong position of the incumbent, which does not aim to make a profit).
The data show that the number of tenderers decreases with the number of concurrent competitions. Apart from the Czech Railways, carriers are not sufficiently capitalised to invest in the purchase of vehicles in more than one tender. Moreover, less formal competitions attract more carriers. The relationship between the contracting authority and the contractor seems to be problematic in the current system of setting up competitions. The results show that the contractor is essentially “a hostage”. Preliminary market consultations would actually help to increase the number of tenderers and to improve the relationship between the contracting authority and the contractor.
Programme committee
Rail Policy and Planning
Topic
professional qualifications for “transport planners”
Documents:
No documents yet.
