Title: Deregulation of railroads and future development scenarios in Europe: analysis of the privatisation process taken place in the USA, the UK and Sweden

Authors: Olli-Pekka Hilmola, Sandor Ujvari, Bulcsu Szekely

Addresses: Lappeenranta University of Technology, Kouvola Research Unit (Finland), University of Skovde (Sweden), Prikaatintie 9, FIN-45100 Kouvola, Finland. ' School of Technology and Society, University of Skovde, P.O. Box 408, SE-541 28 Skovde, Sweden. ' Lappeenranta University of Technology, Kouvola Research Unit, Prikaatintie 9, FIN-45100 Kouvola, Finland

Abstract: A decade ago, the European Union decided that railways should be privatised and deregulated (effective from 2007 onwards). Due to the recent enlargements of the EU and the risk of failures in the decision-making process, it is important to examine early adopters of deregulation policies. We analyse literature and use second-hand quantitative material to thoroughly review this process concerning three different countries (USA, UK and Sweden). In all three cases, the deregulation process has brought positive performance improvements in the long-term perspective, but in the short to medium term, there are a number of problems and warning examples, especially arising from UK case.

Keywords: EU deregulation; railroads; future; European Union; Europe; privatisation; USA; United States; UK; United Kingdom; Sweden; performance improvement; railway deregulation.

DOI: 10.1504/WRITR.2007.013948

World Review of Intermodal Transportation Research, 2007 Vol.1 No.2, pp.146 - 169

Published online: 04 Jun 2007 *

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