Nick Brooks: Warnung vor „Kartell”
Auf der Bahnstrecke Berlin–Paris ist man über acht Stunden unterwegs, ein- bis zweimaliges Umsteigen inbegrif- fen. Das soll sich ändern. Ende dieses Jahres, spätestens 2024, soll eine direk- te Hochgeschwindigkeitsverbindung eröffnet werden. Reisezeit: deutlich un- ter acht Stunden. Kritiker befürchten allerdings Mono- pole. Nick Brooks, Generalsekretär des Allrail-Verbands, der sich in Brüssel für mehr Wettbewerb im Schienenverkehr einsetzt, warnt vor einem „Kartell“. Er fragt: „Warum können (oder wollen) das größte Bahnunternehmen Europas (die DB) und das zweitgrößte (die SNCF) nicht miteinander konkurrieren?“ Es sei nämlich gerade der Wettbewerb, der die Schiene attraktiv mache.
France: How one European country is planning a ‘rail revolution’
ALLRAIL welcomes France's drive to expand its high-speed rail infrastructure to accelerate modal shift to rail.
However, like we stressed in the article, the only way to take full advantage of this is to make SNCF face more competition.
Le 60ème anniversaire du Traité de l’Élysée devrait être l’occasion de célébrer l’espace ferroviaire unique européen, et non un nouveau monopole ferroviaire transfrontalier
Dimanche dernier (22 janvier) fut célébré le 60ème anniversaire du traité d'amitié entre la France et l'Allemagne. Les deux pays font partie intégrante de l'Union européenne et du marché unique européen. Il est donc surprenant que leurs deux opérateurs ferroviaires publics marquent cet évènement en créant conjointement un nouveau monopole de trains à grande vitesse.
The 60th Anniversary of the Élysée Treaty should celebrate the Single European Rail Area – and not a new cross-border rail monopoly
Four days ago, on Sunday 22 January, we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the treaty of friendship between France and Germany. Both countries are an integral part of the EU and the European single market. Therefore, it is rather odd that their two state-owned rail incumbents are marking this anniversary with a new joint high speed rail monopoly.
Evidence shows that when state-owned incumbents compete with each other on cross-border routes, then there is much faster modal shift to rail
Once again, it has been proven that competition between passenger rail operators on the same tracks is the key driver for a fast modal shift. This also applies to competition between state incumbents.
Indeed, nine months since French incumbent SNCF and Italian incumbent FS Trenitalia started competing on the Paris - Lyon - Milan route, the total number of passengers has grown by 58%.
Therefore, competition - rather than collaboration - between state incumbents on cross-border routes is needed to draw passengers away from non-sustainable modes of transport.