Damage or no damage from traffic: Re-examining marginal cost pricing for rail signalling maintenance

This paper re-examines the implementation of short run marginal cost (SRMC) pricing principle with respect to rail infrastructure usage and empirically tests if there are maintenance costs triggered by traffic but not caused asset damage from traffic. is important because current EU legislation stipulates that only related wear tear eligible for direct cost-based element track access charges. An econometric approach applied French panel data on signalling costs. The results show SRMC provision these assets traffic, can also be due economic factors linked increased line capacity utilisation: 1) higher per activity, and/or 2) preventative curb delays. Our work offers an explanation as why engineering approaches give different views variability suggests may need revised.