The Separation of Operations from Infrastructure in the Provision of Railway Services

For the Round Table participants, the idea implicit in the separation between infrastructure manager and providers of transport services in the rail sector is actually to end another form of separation, namely that between the railways and the transport market. Many experts think that a single national railway undertaking is far too rigid to be able to develop a full range of products capable of appealing to all segments of the customer base. The public authorities can no longer really leave things the way they are and a transformation or radical reform of the way the railways are organised is in many respects inevitable, notably if a solution is to be found to the financial difficulties currently paralysing most railways as a result of their lack of commercial dynamism and low productivity. Against this background, the separation of infrastructure from operations is to be seen as a way of developing the rail mode, since it enables individual railway undertakings to compete with each other and to operate a wide range of services over the same infrastructure. One of the consequences of separating infrastructure and operations is the changeover from railways based on an integrated hierarchical structure to railways with a fragmented structure based on contractual agreements between complementary companies (e.g. between the track operator and service providers). This aspect was discussed by the Round Table experts and the consequences analysed (1. Advantages and disadvantages of a fragmented railway structure). The example which immediately springs to mind is that of the road sector, where there is complete separation. Railway infrastructure cannot be compared with the motorways, however, in that, for one reason, traffic in the rail sector depends on the allocation of timetable slots, which cannot be left to chance. Pricing is bound to play a role in capacity management and will be based on a system of infrastructure user fees which, according to the experts who took part in the Round Table, will be of considerable strategic importance (2. Infrastructure user fees).