Competitive Tendering of Rail Services

Competitive tendering provides a way to introduce competition to railways whilst preserving an integrated network of services. It has been used for freight railways in some countries but is particularly attractive for passenger networks when subsidised services make competition between trains serving the same routes difficult or impossible to organise. This report examines experience to date from around the world in competitively tendering rail services. It seeks to draw lessons for effective design of concessions and regulation from both the successful and less successful cases examined. The work is based on detailed examinations by leading experts of the experience of passenger rail concessions in the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. It also draws on examples of freight rail concessions in Latin America. Table of Content : - 1. Passenger Rail Franchising British Experience by Chris Nash and Andrew Smith - 2. British Rail Franchising: An Experience In Choppy Seas by Tom Windsor - 3. The Pitfalls In Competitive Tendering: Addressing The Risks Revealed By Experience In Australia And Britain by Peter Kain - 4. Tendering And Decentralization Of Regional Rail Passenger Services In The Netherlands (1997 2005) by Hans van Dijk - 5. Experience With Competitive Tendering In Germany by Andreas Brenck and Benedikt Peter - 6. Competitive Tendering Of Regional And Interregional Rail Services in Sweden by Gunnar Alexandersson and Staffan Hulten - 7. Central and Eastern Europe: A Special Situation by Ad Toet - 8. Conclusions: Competitive Tendering in Railways - What Can We Learn from Experience? by Lou S. Thompson