Competition and Mobility
on the Railways

The transport policy at continental level has as main objective the lasting development of today's and tomorrow's Europe, promoting the modes of transport which prove to be viable as regarded from several perspectives: economical, social and environment. The transport systems generally should evolve to a new modal repartition, able to better meet the requirements of the collectivity, yet monitoring, in the same time, the minimization of the costs and the improvement of the economical efficiency.

Railways, as all the international and regional organizations are militating, represents a determining trump for re-balancing the trends in the transports sector. That is why we believe that at national level, especially in Romania, which wants so badly the European integration, the knowledge of the transport policy as it is built within the European Union is essential.
The community of the European Railways (CCFE/ CER) has tuned up an informative document presenting the orientations that are considered to be compulsory in order to provide a fair competition and sustainable mobility in the transport market. We will present them further on as they are explained in the brochure 10 measures for fair competition and sustainable mobility in the transport market, issued by CCFE.
1. All the modes of transportation should respect the environment protection norms and the security standards.
All the modes of transport, no exception, bring prejudices, larger or smaller, to the environment. That is why, there is desired that the norms and the prescriptions stipulated for various types of transport in order to protect the environment to be harmonized so that the exigency focuses on those modes of transport which generate the most important external effects. Such an approach would complete the progresses that could be ascertained in the railway sector in respect to the diminishing of the noise and the consumption of energy by using new innovating technologies. In the safety field, the railways can brag with a special favorable balance, due to certain regulations extremely strictly elaborated and detailed, which transform it in a mode of transport 20 times safer than the road transport. That is why there is proposed a strengthening of the safety policy of the other modes of transport, combining the regulations with an effective control of the way in which they are enforced by the ones directly involved (various transporters), accompanied by an efficient sanctioning system and proportional with the registered contravention.
2. Non -commercial services provided for public interest should be paid by public service contract.
This measure aims at reducing the external costs of the transports, especially those resulted from congestion, atmospheric and noise pollution, especially in the sensitive areas and in large urban congestion (urban congestion formed in a town having the role of a center, around which gravitate, from the economical, administrative and cultural point of view, a series of smaller neighbor towns). In this respect, the national and local authorities are advised to protect, even to favor the railway transport and to conclude contracts of public services with the interested operators.
A clear division of the tasks between the public authorities and the ones of the railways should provide all the performances of transport supplied in public interest to be supported by the contractual dispositions, which cover all the risks that the railway undertakings expose to.
3. The distortions under the competition aspect between the modes of transport should be eliminated
It is well known the fact that the regulations from the road sector are, visibly, less restrictive that the ones in the railway transport and, more than that, the control of applying them is far from being systematic. This situation proves to bring prejudice to the general interest, as well as especially to the railway clients, which situates it on an averse position on the transport market. That is why, the control in respecting the road regulations should be strengthened and there should be introduced new measures. Especially the conditions referring to the working time from the road sector should be harmonized; there are going to be applied much more strict norms. Still in order to sustain these measures, there are imposed controls, followed by sanctions, in order to guarantee the respecting of the regulations regarding the maximal load, the speed limitation and the time they are allowed to operate. The traffic restrictions and interdictions for certain categories of road traffic (week-end, sensitive areas) should be introduced or maintained, if they already exist, and should be common for the entire Europe.
4. Transport infrastructures should be planned and financed in an integrated approach.
In the future, the planning and the financing of the investments should be the result of certain methods and analysis, which, on one hand, should integrate in the assembly of all types of transport, and on the other hand, to answer to the needs felt in the European space. The selection of the most appropriate investments is compulsory to be based on analyses of "costs-benefices" type, within which the external effects can be systematically taken into account. In order to coherently meet the various needs of transport occurred on the entire continent there is important to be increased the number of investments engaged from European funds. The creation of the Trans-European Network of Freight Railway Transport will make its contribution to the consolidation of this process and, by all means, will allow to the iron way to fully play its role on the European transport market.
5. Interoperability of the railway systems should take advantage of a greater sustainability.
The interoperability is an older desideratum of the transporters, the railways permanently looking for methods to increase the efficiency of the international transports, among which there is emphasized the agreements for the exchange of rolling stock. Pursuant to the creation of an integrated economic space, where the custom operations between the states have disappeared, the efforts of the railway companies should be accelerated and sustained by the transport policy for the European Union and the one of the member states. In a first stage, they should avert the differences between the systems and equipment at European level and to guarantee, through a contrivance of appropriate regulations, that the future investments made by the railway companies will not imply any additional disparities. Taking into consideration the large amounts of money that are dealt with, for a time period, considered transaction, should be also taken encouraging measures meant to compensate the extra-costs of the first investments that have been made. These measures are considered necessary in order to allow to the railways to reach as fast as possible a high level of interoperability, which will increase the importance of the railway transport at European level.
6. The improvement of the performances of the railway system will be made in collaboration with social partners.
The railway transport has already registered improvements under the aspect of productivity and performance, due to the changes occurred in the exploitation methods, quite often related to the use of the newest technologies. In spite of that, there still are substantial differences between the railway undertakings and, implicitly, between the other types of transport. The differences refer especially to the working and resting times, to the costs of professional training, to the personnel effective and to the social costs. Certain fundamental changes are considered essential, next to a social dialogue, both achieved at national level, as well as at European level. The actions that have already been performed, under the aegis of the institution called European Social Dialogue, between the social partners and the European Commission, should be continued and developed. The community sustainability is important especially for the reorganization actions, in order to favor the interoperability of the personnel in the railway system and to provide the harmonization of the social regulations regarding all modes of transport.
7. The fare principles for the specific infrastructure use should be the same for all modes of transport.
Although the principles according to which there is charged the fare for railway infrastructure use have been already defined, there is, unfortunately, no generalization for the other modes of transport. There should be tuned up a harmonized fare regime for the entire assembly of transports, this fare charging also including the costs for the environment protection, of the accidents, congestion, etc. There will result a better knowledge of the advantages brought by the railways in the protection of the environment and an improvement of the competitiveness of the iron way.
Such a fare charging should be based on the notion of social marginal cost, fact that will be translated through a more efficient use of the infrastructures. In the road sector, a variable tax will replace the fixed tax system from EU. Therefore, there will be introduced a new price system for the number of kilometers that have been covered for the freight transport, varying according to their tonnage. There will be granted priority to the fare charging to the transports performed in the sensitive areas, in order to transfer the traffic from the road to the railways. As long as there will not be introduced comparable regimes for all the modes of transport, a solution could be granted to certain financial compensations for the use of the modes of transport that are more friendly to the environment.
8. Tax on energy should be harmonized and should be introduced a tax for the emission of carbon dioxide.
Taking a series of adequate fiscal measures should allow the attenuation of the presently existing distortions in point of prices and, in the same time, to reduce the level of the costs which the measures imply aiming at decreasing the green house effect, resulted first of all from the carbon dioxides emissions.
For all the modes of transport the taxes on energy should reflect the external costs related to the climate changes, in order to increase the efficiency and to respect the main objective of the Protocol from Kyoto, which stipulates a reduction with 8%, during 2008 - 2012, of the gases emissions with green house effect in comparison to the level existing in 1990. Therefore, all the fiscal ecological measures should aim at gradually increasing the taxes and costs related to the energy, according to the carbon dioxide emissions and the kilometers that have been covered. The incomes that have been obtained this way will be directed to the industry (for example, as the reduction of the employer social task) or to other activity fields. In the air transport sector there should be also introduced a tax on kerosene for all flights that are of interest for Europe.
9. VAT should be harmonized to all types of transport.
The existing differences with respect to the level of taxes from a country to another significantly influence the competition between all the modes of transport. The enforcement methods of VAT in the passengers transport prices should be, on their turn harmonized. In the international railway transport for passengers should be eliminated the Value Added Tax (VAT), in order to achieve the first steps in the creation of a fair competition framework in comparison to the air transport, which is exempted of VAT and, in the same time, the clients should be encouraged to chose the train as mean of transportation.
10. Research and development should sustain the railway sector.
The program of the European Union on research and development line in the transport sector should be placed on the first plan of options, which provide a sustainable mobility, in order to use the railway mode of transport. European research should participate especially to the certification of the innovating solutions for the stimulation of competitiveness of the short or long term railway transport.
A certain number of fields should be included among the priorities of the European research and development policy, being the applications of the IT, the improvement of the energetic efficiency and the promotion of the intermodal transport technologies, that are considered profitable.
Through these measures, the European railways will increase its contribution to the achievement of a sustainable development at continental level.

Silvia Mirea