EU rail reforms: unbundling and coordination

The European railway sector has undergone profound institutional changes over the past 20 years. This book, edited by Matthias Finger and Pierre Messulam, constitutes a first systematic assessment and account of the recent transformations of the industry along a series of critical yet contentious issues such as competition, unbundling, regulation, access charging, standards and interoperability, and public–private partnerships. It also covers the main railways sectors including passenger transport, high speed and freight.

In his chapter, titled “European railway reforms: unbundling and the need for coordination”, Didier van de Velde (TU Delft and inno-V)  takes a critical look at the consequences of EU unbundling policy. The chapter clarifies the concept of railway unbundling before illustrating the wide diversity in implementation of this policy across Europe.

This chapter also includes a decomposition of the railway value chain, first developed by Didier van de Velde for teaching purposes at TU Delft and then enhanced at inno-V in an earlier study on the economic impact of vertical separation in the railway sector. This framework of analysis proves very effective in helping to understand issues of defective coordination and cost-ineffectiveness that may result from incentive misalignment between entities resulting from vertical separation.

‘Railways – they are one of the most powerful and symbolic modes of transport. They are especially important for Europe and for many decades the EU has tried to facilitate their development. This book provides a lot of good analysis of the problems of contemporary European railways. It also contains many interesting proposals on how to solve these problems. Highly recommended reading for all who are interested in transport and logistics.’
– Siim Kallas, former Vice-President of the European Commission, Commissioner for Transport 2010–2014

The book “Rail Economics, Policy and Regulation in Europe”, edited by Matthias Finger, Director, Institute of Technology and Public Policy, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland, Director, Florence School of Regulation Transport Area, European University Institute, Italy and Pierre Messulam, Directeur Général Adjoint, Transilien SNCF, France, is available through Edward Elgar Publishing.