Railway regionalisation in the Netherlands

Abstract This paper is about railway regionalization in the Netherlands. Regionalisation has come about after a number of railway reforms were made, beginning with EU directive 91/440. This directive required the separation of vertically integrated national railway companies into infrastructure and transport divisions to improve transparency. Later directives have enforced greater market liberalisation, accessibility and harmonization in an effort to increase efficiency and competitiveness. In the Netherlands profitable and unprofitable tracks, requiring subsidies, were distinguished. The unprofitable tracks have been contracted out as a concession, whereas the profitable tracks remain in the hands of national railway company NS. Responsibility for contracting out the railway concessions has been decentralised to the provinces in which the specific tracks are located. The provinces use public tendering to offer the concession, following other modes of public transport they are already in charge of. Efficiency should improve because of this introduction of competition and the ability of regional authorities to make more informative decisions. A case study of the Noordelijke Nevenlijnen confirms these arguments; less subsidies are required while qualitative elements have improved. This leads to a positive answer to the problem statement: railway regionalisation has been an improvement.