Iñigo AGUAS ARDAIZ, Université Gustave Eiffel, France
Eloïse LIBOUREL, Université Gustave Eiffel, France
Pierre ZEMBRI, Université Gustave Eiffel, France
The particularly long process of liberalisation of the rail sector in the EU has produced very uneven and rather disappointing results compared to the initial ambitions. While competition for the market (calls for tender) is active, with a target of generalisation by the end of 2023, competition on the market (open access), theoretically open without limitation since 14 December 2020, seems more difficult to develop. This situation raises questions about the efficiency of policies carried out at national level to open up the markets, particularly the high-speed rail market.
The questions that can be asked are of several kinds:
-Do the conditions for opening up the market leave enough room for newcomers to develop a credible offer (capacities available on tracks and at stations), compared with that of the incumbent operator, which has a monopoly position?
-Is access to the network possible without excessive costs, particularly for approval of the rolling stock or use of train paths?
-Are there any other implicit barriers to entry that would prevent the deployment of alternative offers?
In order to answer these three main questions, we propose to compare two cases that are close to each other but which have been subject to radically different choices. These are the two most important networks on the European continent, with 2923 km of high-speed lines in Spain and 2734 km in France. For many years, the national operators RENFE and SNCF did not compete together, preferring to operate international connections in cooperation. Since 2020, RENFE has been trying to enter the French market on an open access basis, while SNCF has created a subsidiary, Ouigo España, to do the same in Spain in an original tender.
The latter took place in 2019 (start of operations delayed to 2021) and resulted in the allocation of blocks of train paths to three operators in an asymmetric and programmed manner.
Mots clés : Rail liberalization|National rules|Barriers to entry|France|Spain
A102779PZ