Market organisation of the Dutch rail sector: Exploration of organisational options

The Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management has asked inno-V to update the previous inno-V report “Rail Services Concession on the HRN – practical conditions and points for consideration regarding the award of the contract”, which was published on 25 May 2020. The request was to take into account developments that have occurred since the publication of the first version of this report. These developments relate, on the one hand, to the legal sphere. On the other hand, there have also been several interesting developments abroad in the areas of effective competition and the market organisation of rail services.

The present report, “Market Organisation on the Dutch Railways – Exploration of Organisational Options”, is the result of this (see also the letter from the government (dated 24 April 2026) to the House of Representatives regarding the Future Market Organisation of Railways (TMS): research reports and next steps).

The report contains no recommendation regarding the form of market organisation to be chosen for the future of the Dutch railways; this was not part of this exploratory assignment either. However, for each of the 11 variants studied, the report does contain:

• Concrete practical examples where the variant in question can currently be observed in Europe, serving to illustrate the relevance of the variant and the developments that can be observed therein
• Comments on the circumstances in which the variant in question could be most effectively implemented
• Comments on how governance and coordination could be organised for the variant in question, in terms of policy, train service design, implementation and coordination of the railway chain
• Comments on practical conditions for the introduction of the variant in question, including indications of a transition timeline

To make this extensive document easier to read, this version, like the first version, also contains summaries of the main points for each chapter.