The first chapter of the book “Rail economics, policy and regulation in Europe”, sets the stage and recalls the fundamentals of rail economics and regulation in the context of de-regulation and re-regulation as promoted by the European Commission. It focuses on the specific role that regulation and regulators play – and are supposed to play – in the shaping of the European railway sector (past) or industry (future). It does so by considering the economic dimensions of railway de-and re-regulation, as opposed to the technical and safety dimensions. This chapter is divided into three distinct sections. The first section presents the European Commission’s (EC) history and programme of railway de-regulation and re-regulation, especially with regard to economic regulation. In the second section, we look at the underlying railway economics from the perspective of the main three types of rail market players that have emerged as a result of the EC’s de-/re-regulation initiatives; namely, infrastructure managers, train operating companies and station managers. The third section discusses the challenges for railway regulation, and European railway regulatory policy more generally, that result from the newly emerging and increasingly fragmented European railway industry structure.
This dataset is composed of five indicators which provide information on the economic and environmental performance of sectors covered by the European Union’s Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The focus [...]
On 21 February 2024 the European Commission Directorate General for Mobility and Transport in cooperation with the Florence School of Regulation hosted an academic conference to explore opportunities and challenges [...]
Rail has a key role to play in making transport more efficient and sustainable in the EU and elsewhere. However, increasing passenger and cargo volumes require investment in infrastructure, and [...]
In this work, we present the major application and impact areas of Contracts-for-Difference (CfDs) in a European context, describe the most relevant design dimensions and discuss several design packages for [...]
After years of record announcements, frantic policy development and the establishment of substantial public support mechanisms, the clean hydrogen sector is nearing an inflexion point. Many clean hydrogen projects have [...]
The safeguarding of critical offshore energy infrastructure has assumed a heightened level of urgency in the wake of the Nord Stream pipeline explosions in September 2022 and the suspected sabotage [...]
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