Is the future EU railway market liberalisation a replication of the old British franchising model?

[bahnause]

Cheap is also not necessarily any worse, and as it’s specced by the local authorities it’s less likely to be worse than if distant central government do it. Also DB would be bidding to the same spec, so how can it be worse rather than just less efficient (despite the alleged economies of scale!)

Their calculations are often not very realistic.

• Abellio is running networks in various places in germany. They started asking for more money in 2019 due to „economicsl reasons“. Right now they want 100Mio or they might go bancrupt. Abellio
• Rolling Stock is ordered late: In Baden Württemberg even years after handing over the network from DB to Go Ahead there is still old replacement stock in use, despite the contract requiring modern low floor trains.
• Liberalisation has nothing to do with specs being made by local or central authorities.

 

[Meerkat]

Their calculations are often not very realistic.

• Abellio is running networks in various places in germany. They started asking for more money in 2019 due to „economicsl reasons“. Right now they want 100Mio or they might go bancrupt. Abellio
• Rolling Stock is ordered late: In Baden Württemberg even years after handing over the network from DB to Go Ahead there is still old replacement stock in use, despite the contract requiring modern low floor trains.
• Liberalisation has nothing to do with specs being made by local or central authorities.

Would local authorities having nice spec ambitions have any relevance in a world where a monopoly DB would just say “that sounds nice, however this is what we are giving you, suck it up” or treat it like a contract variation and price gouge accordingly?

 

[bahnause]

Would local authorities having nice spec ambitions have any relevance in a world where a monopoly DB would just say “that sounds nice, however this is what we are giving you, suck it up” or treat it like a contract variation and price gouge accordingly?

Yes, local transport is planned and ordered by the local public transport authority. Not by DB or the local train/bus/tram operator. Nothing to do with "private" operators or DB. It never had. The service level ist given by the local public transport authority. There never was a "competition" for better or worse service levels.

 

[dutchflyer]

The EU as such does not stipulate so much: only that commercial competitors should be allowed and that IF routes/networks are subsidized, there has to be some kind of open tender.
I know, and I do it myself too, that FR/SNCF is often blamed/named as stubborn to it, mostly due to the eternal strikes it produces, but in fact BElgium is more stubborn and also has fierce wallon(french speaking) trade unions. And uh, sorry, but the UK was also famous for eternal and vicious strikes in about any public sector before that iron lady came to power there across the North Sea. As you see-anything can change in the long run. And do not forget HUngary-over there they even again centralsied all the various bussystems to make it a state-wide Volan again so to prevent any non-state operator from running it.
Banning long distance bus (what you call coach in the UK) was normal in about all European countries untill around 2000.
Seen from a distance not much different from other former state-centralised sytems like the mail, the electric and/or gas providers etc.

 

[Fragezeichnen]

They are losing bids because others are doing it cheaper. Cheaper is not necessarily better. The "race to the bottom" has not delivered anything of benefit, ever. All it does is understands the price of everything and the value of nothing.

There is hardly any Open Access in Germany - much less than in the UK. Flix might have a reasonably sized network, but it's on very low frequencies - typically one train each way per day, the numbers are tiny compared with DB's Takt. And Nightjet could have been done under the "old" system - national railways allowed other national railways a get-in if they weren't interested in the traffic themselves, and if they were they'd operate it co-operatively.

Lopping DB up into bits categorically would not improve it.

I really don't know how you managed to acquire a cast-iron belief that an enormous state-owned monopoly is alway the most efficient way of providing a service, and therefore that anyone who provides the service at a lower cost must be doing it worse. There are innumerable examples showing that to be false.

The same services now run under the Nightjet brand used to be run cooperatively by DB. Then DB pulled out. If ÖBB hadn't had the possibility to run the services themselves, they wouldn't be running at all.

Equating market liberalisation with "Lopping up <state monopoly> DB up into bits" is sticking to the UK way of thinking. No-one is suggesting that. This is only about not handing all public subsidy automatically to a monopoly.

(P.S. With a few excecptions, the entire long distance network in Germany is an open access operation, not specified or subsidised by the government.)

 

[Meerkat]

Yes, local transport is planned and ordered by the local public transport authority. Not by DB or the local train/bus/tram operator. Nothing to do with "private" operators or DB. It never had. The service level ist given by the local public transport authority. There never was a "competition" for better or worse service levels.

My point was that the authority could spec all they like, but they would only get what DB was willing to do, at prices DB wanted, unless there was an alternative available - ie private operators bidding after liberalisation.

 

[bahnause]

My point was that the authority could spec all they like, but they would only get what DB was willing to do, at prices DB wanted, unless there was an alternative available - ie private operators bidding after liberalisation.

But it doesn't work like that. And there is no reason at all why DB or any other state owned operator wouldn't care about the specs. They are just as intrested in good public transport as a private TOC. It is their business to run trains. Tt amazes me that people think a state owned company would refuse to make a good offer. If they wouldn't wanna run train, they could just stop doing it.

 

[Meerkat]

But it doesn't work like that. And there is no reason at all why DB or any other state owned operator wouldn't care about the specs. They are just as intrested in good public transport as a private TOC. It is their business to run trains. Tt amazes me that people think a state owned company would refuse to make a good offer. If they wouldn't wanna run train, they could just stop doing it.

As you say ‘it’s their business to run trains’, not satisfy local authorities or passengers.
Why would they make a good offer if they can charge as much as they like, and have little incentive for innovative efficiency? There is a reason monopolies are generally illegal

 

[Bletchleyite]

As you say ‘it’s their business to run trains’, not satisfy local authorities or passengers.
Why would they make a good offer if they can charge as much as they like, and have little incentive for innovative efficiency? There is a reason monopolies are generally illegal

Monopolies aren't illegal. Abuse of a monopoly is.

Most UK bus services are in practice monopolies. That is, most passengers do not have a choice of operator on the route/routes relevant to their journey. What goes on elsewhere in their town is irrelevant.

 

[Meerkat]

Monopolies aren't illegal. Abuse of a monopoly is.

Most UK bus services are in practice monopolies. That is, most passengers do not have a choice of operator on the route/routes relevant to their journey. What goes on elsewhere in their town is irrelevant.

But they investigate monopolies because of the assumption that they are bad for customers.
The competition for a bus is another form of transport. That is unlikely to work for a local authority wanting a rail service (unless they build a Cambridge busway instead…..)
Are we still on topic vaguely??? Or should we just agree to disagree and step away!

 

[Bletchleyite]

But they investigate monopolies because of the assumption that they are bad for customers.
The competition for a bus is another form of transport. That is unlikely to work for a local authority wanting a rail service (unless they build a Cambridge busway instead…..)

The competition for all public transport is the car (and to some extent air). Spatting among itself is pointless; doing this is fighting over fewer than 10% of journeys when 90%+ are in cars and ripe for harvesting with quality integrated public transport.

 

[Meerkat]

The competition for all public transport is the car (and to some extent air). Spatting among itself is pointless; doing this is fighting over fewer than 10% of journeys when 90%+ are in cars and ripe for harvesting with quality integrated public transport.

That’s the whole point - those local authorities can afford more public transport if competition means they can get what they want and at a lower price.

 

[bahnause]

That’s the whole point - those local authorities can afford more public transport if competition means they can get what they want and at a lower price.

Considering that most varibles are not varible at all when it comes to a tender makes it hard to believe, that the actual cots per mile are sustainable. The case of Abellio Proves that.

I consider it a bit rude to assume that a company and its staff is not interested in customer friendliness and efficiency if there is no competition. Plenty of examples of very friendly staff and a good service without having to fear competition come to my mind. Innovation and customer-oriented action in the rail sector is not primarily dependent on the ownership of the company, but rather on the will of the authority to set a certain service level, finance it accordingly and check the target achievment. This involves a certain level of resposibility of all the involved positions. Especially in germany, you will notice the quality of lacal public transport is far less dependent of the company running it, but on the quality and know how of the local authorithy and the available fundings. At the moment smaller private companys struggle a lot because they don‘t have quick access to replacement stock or additional staff if needed short term. Fragmentation makes it hard to find quick solutions.

The same services now run under the Nightjet brand used to be run cooperatively by DB. Then DB pulled out. If ÖBB hadn't had the possibility to run the services themselves, they wouldn't be running at all.

This is a very good example: Both are state owned railways. The austrian government has supported night transport financially for years, but the german government has not. No surprise ÖBB was invested and all the others were not.

 

[DanielB]

I think DB, SBB, OeBB, NS and SNCB/NMBS do a pretty good job of serving the passenger, all things considered.

Well... Although NS is offering a quite good network, they do have some sort of arrogancy because of being the only operator on the main network.
That's something you'll hardly notice when visiting for, but becomes apparent when travelling regularly and getting to know them better. It's in things like asking for massive amounts of money for additional contracted services (they are rare with a reason).
And in the incompetence to learn from the past resulting in repeatedly overcrowded services, weird replacement services during engineering works or extremely vague information about disruptions.

However, tendering is not the only solution to that: the private operators in The Netherlands have partly similar problems. For example with overcrowding due to their very small fleets of rolling stock. Arriva Netherlands is for example the only operator having a large enough fleet to be able to transfer trains to another region when needed. And even they can't combine trains from various regions due to incompatibility issues.
Nice example: we've got seven separate fleets of Stadler GTWs in this tiny country. And only two are fully compatibele because that was a requirement in the franchise.
It can be in little things... The GTW DMUs in Limburg are the only ones capable of running in multiple with an EMU on electrified lines for example. And that's just because of being the only DMU having a button to raise and lower the pantograph on a coupled EMU.

 

[MarcVD]

The competition for all public transport is the car (and to some extent air). Spatting among itself is pointless; doing this is fighting over fewer than 10% of journeys when 90%+ are in cars and ripe for harvesting with quality integrated public transport.

And none of the liberalization rules, imposed by the EU or otherwise, be it for passenger or for freight, have managed to significantly increase the market share of railways as a whole, versus air or road.

 

[Giugiaro]

And none of the liberalization rules (...) have managed to significantly increase the market share of railways as a whole, versus air or road.

It did for air at least. Ryanair and Easyjet thrived with the EU air market deregulation by allowing them to go full bonkers with their strategy.
If air travel worked on the basis of franchising, neither would have been very successful,.
Plus, air travel mostly depends on the airports, ATC and communication/nav points. The air itself does not need to be upgraded nor maintained. Only managed.
Low cost carriers thirst for money led them to avoid expensive things like jet bridges and baggage check-ins, meaning that having a successful low cost air operation at the airport turns out to be much cheaper, since you don't need to install a lot of extremely expensive equipment, and respective personnel.

The strategy for passenger rail service has always been half-arsed, as it always implied that the competition will come before the service, rather than during it.
Plus, the high dependence on the quality of the infrastructure means that any mismatch between infrastructure strategy and train operation strategy comes at a huge cost for the latter.

In Portugal the market share for cargo hasn't gone up as much as hoped because the infrastructure has been the main hurdle to the sector.
The main issues are the limitations to the length of trains, bad track maintenance, short or badly designed terminals, excessive traffic on some routes, and political pressure to remove "ugly and unwanted" infrastructure from extremely strategic locations.
Passenger wise, the government contracted the public service to by run by CP - Comboios de Portugal (the state owned company), but anyone can run recreational, long haul, highspeed and international routes. Not only will the government do nothing, CP will also back off from either of those services if it can't compete.