Competitive advantage and competition within railway transport - chances and limits of economic policy

2008-2010
Investor: Czech Scientific Foundation, No. 402/08/1438

Cíl: analysing possibilities and limits of the competition on the railway market and identifying possibilities of economic policy to achieve railways revitalization.

Main outputs

• The State and Railways - A Historical Comparison of Economic Policy in Relation to Railways
• Competition Limits in Railway Transport
• Makroekonomické aspekty hodnocení dopravních projektů z hlediska uživatele
• Applying the life cycle theory: the rise and fall of railways
• Impacts of Unbundling on Competitiveness of Railways
• Czech Military Railways – History and a Comparative Analysis of the Czech Railway Network’s Efficiency

Objectives

The general results of analyses was applied at the data and institutional aspects of Czech economy. The important institutional, environmental, geographical and other specifics of this industry was taken into account. The hypotheses of the project were following:

1. Economic policy has only limited possibilities of introduction of effective and strong competition in the field of railways transport services on the Czech railway market.
2. The introduction of competition on the track through the policy of vertical unbundling is connected with high transaction costs. Vertical unbundling per se doesn’t lead necessarily to higher effectiveness of the industry.
3. The competitiveness of railways in comparison with the other transport modes can be strengthened through the tools of economic policy. The costs of such actions are higher than financial revenues that can railway transport generate.
4. Environmental friendliness of railway transport is limited by the technical and economical factors. As a result the increase of competitiveness of railway transport through the actions of economic policy need not necessarily result in the higher environmental value of the entire industry.