Contracted Rail Services in Western Europe
During the post-war decades more and more passenger rail services have been deficit making.Economic support for these services has often been provided as a blanket subsidy from thecentral government with little specification of the services concerned. The support issubstantial, at least MECU 7 000 per annum in the European Union (EU) Member Statesalone. Gradually, however, contracting, tendering and franchising schemes are introduced. Atthe same time there is a tendency towards regionalisation and decentralisation of powers. The services concerned can be of a very different character. They can be suburban highfrequency,high-density, high capacity services - these services are often the only realisticmeans to manage the extremely high volumes of traffic in for instance Paris, London orMünchen. They can be long-distance cross-country services in the more sparsely populatedregions of Europe where traffic volumes are too low to make operations on a fully commercialbasis possible. Finally, they can be truly rural services where perhaps a bus would havesufficed for the volume of traffic concerned but where traditions and local opinion oftenprevent this change of transport mode. Various schemes now emerge. Britain may be said to lead the franchising (and privatisation)league but other countries such as Germany and Sweden are further ahead in theregionalisation field.