Economic History of the Railway Network in the Czech Republic - Myths, Mistakes and Illusions in Economic Policy and the path dependence of Railways
1. ed. Brno: Masaryk University, 2006. 84 p. Rail transport. ISBN 80-210-4219-2
Railway transport - institutional status, economic policy and economic theory
Martin Kvizda, Tomáš Pospíšil, Daniel Seidenglanz, Zdeněk Tomeš
1. ed. Brno: Masaryk University, 2007. 230 p. Rail transport. ISBN 978-80-210-4233-9
The aim is to contribute to understanding the nature and functioning of rail transport: its historical development, institution building, spatial organization, economic policy and railway economic performance. The main motivation for writing this monograph and for the whole our umbrella project was the effort to offer an economic and geographic view of the railways issue and thus to create some counterpart of the prevailing operational and technical approaches in this area.
The entire text (230 pages) is organized into six basic chapters. In the first chapter we dealt with the definition of the basic thematic and theoretical framework for the work. We dealt with the basic theoretical concepts that are relevant to this work. At the theoretical level, we analyzed the microeconomic aspects of the railway market, the relationship between the state and the railway carriers and the competition on the railway market. In the second chapter we used the historical method in studying some problems of the railway that were present in the past and are also now. The analysis of the causes of some current rail problems has given a surprising finding that many problems have origins in ancient history and many of them are cyclically repeated. In the third chapter we analyzed the economic history of the railway. As part of the historical analysis of the development of railways in the world, we attempted to apply life cycle theory to the development of the railway, including possible implications for the development of transport policy. In the fourth chapter, we dealt with the basic principles and implications of European transport policy. This policy is a key strategic factor in the development of EU Member States' transport systems. In its analysis, we used geographic and economic analysis methods. In the fifth chapter we dealt with the issue of the railway network in the Czech lands. We were wondering on what conditions the individual tracks were created and whether these conditions were in line with the theoretical criteria of railway traffic efficiency. From the analysis of historical background we tried to formulate some conclusions for the functioning of the current railway network. In the sixth chapter we focused on the economic results of the Czech railway, where we especially thoroughly studied the volume of public subsidies for rail transport. We tried to analyze their flows and quantify the overall commercial loss of rail transport. We also carried out an international comparison of the basic parameters of selected railway companies in order to fit the performance, losses, subsidies and indebtedness of the Czech railway into broader contexts. In order to assess the competitive position of the Czech railway, we then conducted a cross-sectoral comparison of economic indicators on the Czech transport market.
Full text to download here: Zaverecna_monografie_2007