Liberalization of the European Railway industry:

Purpose of this assignment is to map the trends occurring in the railways in the European territory and particularly to identify the impact of the vertical separation of national railway companies on their performance and competitiveness. Railways’ competitiveness has kept on being worsened during the last three decades, a fact that dictated the adoption of reforming measures by the side of the EU in order for the industry to compete with other modes more successfully. The most drastic and widely met reform has been the vertical separation of the integrated national railway companies. By analysing the structure of 28 European railways over the period 2003-2011 we will try to conclude whether the decision of vertically separating a national railway system did manage to increase the modal share and ridership of railways. We find that in the case of passengers vertical separation has been quite an obstacle in their attempt to increase their modal share and ridership, once it has brought the opposite results from the ones expected. Regarding the freight market our sample has not been able to prove any causal relationship.