Principles of Calculation of Track Access Charges in Rail Freight Transport in Poland

Non-discriminatory rules for access to the railway infrastructure as well as transparent pricing system are the essential factors of ensuring that the freight transport in Poland is competitive enough. Infrastructure managers pass some categories of their costs (e.g. for maintaining of railway infrastructure) on railway undertakings in the form of access charges verified andaccepted by the Polish regulatory body. In general, approximately one – third of their costs shall be paid by railway undertakings. Given that access charges are treated as one of the most important factors for both railway undertakings and railway infrastructure man-agers. The aim of this article is to review the main principles of calculation of track access charges in rail freight transport in Poland. The article refers to the judgment of the Court of Justice, which stated that Poland failed to properly implement the direct cost principle in the meaning of directive 2001/14/EC. The direct costs principle expressed in article 7(3) of the Directive means that only the direct costs incurred as a result of operating the train services can be taken into account by the rail infrastructure managerwhen setting infrastructure access charges.

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Calculation of access charges for rail infrastructure in the light of European Union’s regulations

Transportation Overview - Przeglad Komunikacyjny ◽

10.35117/a_eng_18_06_08 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 2018 (6) ◽

pp. 81-88

Author(s):

Juliusz Engelhardt

Keyword(s):

European Court Of Justice ◽

Final Part ◽

Court Of Justice ◽

European Court ◽

Rail Infrastructure ◽

Introductory Part ◽

Airport Infrastructure ◽

The One ◽

Access Charges

The article presents evolution of EU’s regulations referring to the rules of calculation of access charges for rail infrastructure. In the opposite to payable utilization of road, harbor or airport infrastructure, payable access to the rail infrastructure for transport operators (rail carriers) is a relatively new issue in the European railways, because it emerged just in 1991 in relation with taken up system reforms of EU’s rail sector. In the introductory part of the article, the Directive 91/440 has been indicated as a historically first law act that referred to the issue of calculation of access charges for rail infrastructure. Next, there were presented regulations of the Directive 2001/14 adopted within so called first railway package and vagueness in their interpretation, which led to the trials before the European Court of Justice, whereas the most important was the one against Poland, ended with the sentence on the 30th of May 2013. The final part of the article presents references to this sentence and to the new regulations referring to the charges for the access to rail infrastructure, included in the Directive 2014/34 and executive ordinance 2015/909 issued on its basis.

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Noise Related Rail Access Charges in Europe: Aspects of Interoperability and Competitiveness

Periodica Polytechnica Transportation Engineering ◽

10.3311/pptr.14269 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Péter Bucsky

Keyword(s):

Freight Transport ◽

Low Noise ◽

The European Union ◽

Network Access ◽

Rail Freight ◽

Braking System ◽

Environment Agency ◽

Access Charges ◽

Freight Market

Noise reduction of rail transport in Europe is an important step toward enhancing quality of life. According to the estimation of the European Environment Agency 14 million people are affected by rail noise in the European Union. Since the 1990s numerous measures have been taken by legislators but in practice noise levels did not lowered significantly. The changing regulations and upgraded standards have direct costs on rail freight transport and it is affecting its competitiveness. Some key countries in the European rail freight transport – Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands – have already introduced Noise Differentiated Track Access Charges (NDTAC), which makes higher noise traffic more expensive, and encourages wagon owners to invest in low noise braking systems. Railway undertakings will face higher costs either due to higher network access charges or due to higher costs of low noise braking system. The higher costs will affect the competitiveness of rail freight transport compared to other modes of transport. Furthermore, the diverse regulation of European countries will restrict the interoperability and selective funding favors local corporations and can reduce competition. The aim of this paper is to show the possible effects of the current NDTAC regulation on the European rail freight market.

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Decision-Making Process in the Case of Insufficient Rail Capacity

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12125023 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (12) ◽

pp. 5023

Author(s):

Anna Dolinayova ◽

Vladislav Zitricky ◽

Lenka Cerna

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Network Capacity ◽

Cost Calculation ◽

Detailed Calculation ◽

Railway Transport ◽

Negative Effects ◽

Railway Network ◽

Railway Infrastructure ◽

Rail Infrastructure ◽

The Impact

One of the main priorities of transport policy in the EU is to take measures to support railway transport as an environmentally friendly transport mode. An interesting challenge for a railway transport operation is represented with cost items for its operation. This problem is exacerbated if transport flows are routed through a congested railway infrastructure. If some or all transport takes place on congested rail infrastructure, the carrier’s costs increase, which may ultimately lead to withdrawal from the market. The article deals with the impact of insufficient capacity on the rail carrier’s costs. We used a pre-cost calculation methodology to calculate the rail carrier’s additional costs due to the insufficient railway network capacity based on detailed calculation of train costs and proposed a methodology for carrier decision-making in case of insufficient rail infrastructure capacity. The case study showed that the use of a diversion track in case of insufficient planned rail line capacity may not be advantageous for carriers, even with a longer waiting time for capacity to be released. One of the ways to eliminate the negative effects of congested railway infrastructure is investment in the increase of its capacity.

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