GERMANY: Invest in the Infrastructure, not in a Company! The Planned Equity Increase for DB Risks Delaying Urgent Upgrades to the Network
Last week, the media reported about plans by the German government to increase the equity capital of the state-owned rail incumbent Deutsche Bahn (DB).
Not only would this distort competition - because equity injections into the DB Group parent company mean that its commercial subsidiaries can also benefit from support intended for its infrastructure subsidiary, but also, it comes at a time when the EU Commission’s competition authority is already investigating both DB and French incumbent SNCF for cross-subsidisation of their commercial freight operator subsidiaries.
Another flaw of vertical integration: One operator is on strike, so all the others have to stop as well
Yesterday, the Austrian state-owned rail incumbent Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) was on strike. Since the incumbent rail operator and infrastructure manager are vertically integrated in Austria, it led to the infrastructure manager being on strike as well. Therefore, ÖBB's competitors such as WESTbahn and RegioJet were unable to operate their trains even though they were not on strike.
More growth in EU cross-border night trains But many high barriers to entry must still be removed
In ten days’ time from now, on June 27th 2021, a new night train service of the long distance operator Snälltåget1 will depart from Stockholm to Berlin. It will be the first night train that runs in regular traffic between Sweden, Denmark and Germany since the 1990s. Yesterday, the start-up Midnight Trains announced plans to offer night trains between France & other countries. Clearly, private investors believe in night trains – and this will lead to modal shift. But more night time routes could be commercially viable – if only the high barriers to entry were removed.
Extension of Regulation Establishing Measures for a Sustainable Rail Market in View of the COVID-19 Outbreak
With this letter, the undersigned associations strongly urge the European Commission to extend Regulation 2020/1429 by a further 6 months. To achieve the European Commission’s modal shift objectives introduced under the Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy, continuous support to the rail sector is needed.
ALLRAIL Green Deal Priorities: Open Rail Data and Through Ticketing
In February 2020 ALLRAIL presented list of Green Deal priorities on: Open Data & Through ticketing, Fair access to track infrastructure, Fair access to rolling stock Attractive & efficient cross-border night train network. In this paper, we shortly summarise Open Data & Through ticketing conditions needed to achieve the ambitious Green Deal objectives.