Rail infrastructure financing

SNCF organised a workshop on “Solid infrastructure financing for efficient rail systems” on 8 July 2014 in Paris, gathering rail infrastructure experts from various European countries. inno-V chaired one of the three round tables of this workshop, discussing the issue of network performance in the railway sector.

Four of the represented countries (Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy and France) presented how performance is currently being measured and used within the national governance of the railway sector. The focus of the round table was on infrastructure performance indicators and understanding the main objectives pursued in different countries, while discussing the main trade-offs than can exist between them and attempting to elucidate the link between infrastructure funding and railway performance. What constitutes ‘performance’ was subject to a substantial amount of debate due to its multidimensional nature, national differences quickly became apparent due to diverging national concerns, values or priorities, but also due to differing levels of experience in terms of performance measurement, contracting and incentivising.

The findings of the three round tables of the expert workshop was summarised in an issue-paper written by Dr. Yves Putallaz (IMDM-Infra Consulting, Switzerland), Prof.dr. Matthias Finger (EPFL, Switzerland) and Didier van de Velde (director inno-V).

The issue-paper was presented on 3 March 2015 in Brussels at a lunch-debate supported by Pavel Telička (MEP) and Mr. Dins Merirands (Deputy State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport of Latvia) and moderated by Didier van de Velde.