Route usage right

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Track usage rights are granted to enable railway undertakings (RU) to access the railway infrastructure and services .

history

Especially in the early days of the railway development in the 19th century, the still patchy route network and the many private railway companies made it necessary to conclude user agreements. Only in this way was it possible for the companies to make economic offers to freight forwarders and travelers. These agreements were known as the péage contract (from French péage - toll).

Situation in individual countries

Germany

Until the General Railway Act (AEG) came into force on January 1, 1994, private railways only had the opportunity to use the railway infrastructure of the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Deutsche Reichsbahn in exceptional cases.

If a railway company has the required license from the Federal Railway Authority (EBA) , it can order train paths from DB Netz AG . Depending on the route, a train path fee is then to be paid, which must comply with certain charging principles in accordance with European law. The amount depends on the route utilization, the expansion status and the train types. Depending on the frequency of use, a distinction is made between regular routes (regular use), required routes (sporadic use) and special routes (one-time use). The ECJ has not yet finally clarified whether these requirements have already been sufficiently implemented in national German law .

Since January 1, 2006, the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railways has been responsible in Germany for monitoring non-discriminatory access to the railway infrastructure.

Austria

The first Péage contract in today's Austria closed the railway Vienna-Aspang (EWA) on 3 December 1880 with the Southern Railway Company from. This allowed her to use the tracks of the Southern Railway Company between the Felixdorf and Wiener Neustadt Südbahnhof stations . The company had to pay a fixed amount to enlarge the Wiener Neustadt train station as well as a usage fee based on the number of axles and wagons through to the Südbahngesellschaft. The EWA originally intended to build its own route from Sollenau to Wiener Neustadt, and these plans were pursued until around 1900. However, after interventions by the city senate and the kk priv. Südbahngesellschaft, this was forbidden by the Reichsrat.

Following this example, further péage contracts were subsequently concluded between railway companies. For example, the Crown Prince Rudolf Railway agreed to share the 18.4 km section between Selzthal and Stainach - Irdning with the Empress Elisabeth Railway .

Switzerland

In Switzerland, free network access has been in place for freight traffic since the beginning of 1999, there referred to as "Open Access".

United States

Because the networks of the railroad companies rarely meet the requirements of the railroad customers, the railways in the USA have developed methods of adapting their range to customer requirements.

"Joint rate and route"

One method is called “joint rate and route” . Two railway companies agree on a common price from the place of origin on the first to a destination on the second company. One of the railways creates the invoice for the customer and then forwards a corresponding partial amount to the other company. Each railway uses its own locomotives and its own staff and also bears the corresponding transport risks on its own route network.

Trackage Rights

Another method is the granting of "trackage rights" or route rights. Here, a railway company (“rental” company) is given the right by agreement to serve customers with its own trains and usually also with its own staff via the tracks of a second railway company (owner). The tracks used by both railways are called the joint facility . In contrast to the first variant, the rental company is the exclusive contractual partner of the customer in such an agreement. It is solely responsible for the transportation as well as for loss and damage to the cargo. The owner company receives a fixed annual sum for track maintenance , dispatchers and other costs. In addition, there is a variable fee, which is based on the share of the rental company's traffic in the total traffic on the shared facility. For the sake of simplicity, most agreements show the fee to be paid by the rental company in cents per car-mile or ton-mile.

Route rights can mean “full service”, that is, the rental company has the right to serve customers directly on the shared route, or be “overhead service” or “bridge service” (the terms are synonymous ). This means that the rental company is not allowed to serve customers on the common route.

For example, Union Pacific's rights over the BNSF Cajon Pass route are full service route use rights. Most current route usage rights, however, are "bridge-service" rights, such as B. Metro-North , which runs from Penn Station in New York on the way to Upstate New York through New Jersey on routes of the New Jersey Transit , but does not stop there (or is allowed to stop) at train stations, but without stopping drives through until it reaches the state of New York again and thus its own route.

Trackage Rights agreements are regulated by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) and are also open to the public. Traditional protection provisions for railway employees are also linked to the rights to use the route. If the employees of an owner company lose their job or their duties because a new rental company reduces transport over such a distance, they must receive payment for up to six years according to federal law . As part of the company mergers in the 1980s and 1990s, the STB repeatedly set new "trackage rights" to ensure competition.

Haulage Rights (transport rights)

In the current deregulated environment, both of the above methods have their drawbacks. The Staggers Act of 1980 reduced the antitrust protection that competing railroads enjoyed when they offered uniform prices. Rail customers too are reluctant to have to negotiate new transport contracts with more than one company. To prevent this, the railways have increasingly turned to so-called “haulage rights” or transport agreements. Here is marketing separated from the operational business.

The railway company negotiates the price for the entire route with the customer. It provides the freight wagons and is responsible for any loss or damage to the freight. The railway company that grants the transport rights, meanwhile, retains direct control of operations. It provides the track systems, the train crew, the dispatchers and sometimes the locomotives . For this, the company receives remuneration based on the car movements. However, she does not have any insight into the agreements with the customer.

These agreements are very popular with rail customers due to the concentration of transport from origin to destination on one company. There are no difficult negotiations with a number of companies if the customer ever wants to change the price or the service. The railways like this concept because, due to a number of federal and court decisions, transportation rights are viewed as trade agreements and are thus outside the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board.

This also means that the employees do not have appropriate protection against dismissal. As a rule, they benefit from the additional traffic created by the agreements. Furthermore, the railway undertakings do not have to publish the transport contracts.

However, this secrecy also leads to confusion, e.g. B. via the transfer points from one company to another or the responsibility for the rented freight wagons . Companies seldom publish this information in order not to give competitors an advantage. The number and complexity of such agreements has increased significantly in recent years.

This should be illustrated using the example of the Santa Fe . The route network from 1994 showed not only the 12,200 km of its own route, but also the areas accessible through transport rights. Santa Fe was able to offer container trains to Boston , New York and Philadelphia based on an agreement with Conrail from 1988. A transportation agreement with Grand Trunk Western enables Santa Fe to ship auto parts from Mexico to Ford's Ontario factories . Another agreement with Gateway Western Railroad provides access to and from St. Louis .

The Santa Fe served Memphis and Birmingham (Alabama) since 1993 by means of an agreement with the Burlington Northern Railroad . The company also offered truck transports. Thus it was possible that goods could be transported between Winston-Salem and Sacramento under the sign of the Santa Fe .

Union Station

"Union Station" is a train station in which the track systems and services are shared by two or more railway companies. This gives passengers the opportunity to easily switch between the individual trains. The station is often used by all passenger trains that serve the city.

In practice, a Union Station is usually operated by a separate company owned by the railway companies that use the station. The shares in the company usually correspond to the shares in the use of the station.

With the transfer of passenger traffic to Amtrak , these regulations have become obsolete; today, most of the earlier "Union Stations" are owned by Amtrak. Major Union Stations were in Chicago , Dallas , Denver , Kansas City , Los Angeles , Pittsburgh , St. Louis, and Washington, DC

Operation, leasing, majority ownership

In the early days of rail traffic, often only the tracks were built by a railway company. In most cases , there was no more capital available to purchase rolling stock . The operation of these routes was then in many cases left to the railway company for a fee, which operated the subsequent main route. These agreements were usually terminated when the built route was long enough to be operated independently or when there were changes in the companies (takeover, bankruptcy).

Another form is and was leasing a route. As a rule, connecting lines were leased that offered access to important markets or connected the network in a meaningful way. The contracts were usually concluded over a longer period of time. There are contracts with terms of up to 99 years, in a few individual cases even longer. For this lease fees are paid to the lessor. Since in the 1980s and 1990s many branch lines were renewed with federal and state funds and these were then passed into public ownership, public corporations (municipalities, counties) are also often public corporations (municipalities, counties) leasing lines today.

Since many railway companies were stock corporations , the catchment area of ​​one's own company was expanded by acquiring shares in other companies.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Art. 7–12 of Directive 2001/14 / EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of February 26, 2001 on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity, the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and the safety certification ABl. L 75 of March 15, 2001, p. 29 ff.
  2. ^ The first railway package of the European Union Scientific Services of the German Bundestag , WD 11 - 3000 - 60/11, May 6, 2011.
  3. ↑ BGH, decision of June 7, 2016 - KZR 12/15