A Theoretical Approach to Welfare-Optimal Calculation of Direct Costs in European Rail Regulation

The regulation of track access charges within the European Union is based on the economic principles of first and second best pricing. In order to obtain an allocative efficiency it is crucial to determine the marginal costs of operating the train services – the so-called direct costs. Even though the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/909 specifies the modalities for the calculation of direct costs, a broad range of different values for direct costs can be observed across Member States. However, the discussion of the level of direct costs is driven in particular by econometric, engineering and cost accounting aspects – an economic analysis is missing despite the welfare-economic concept of track access charges. For that reason, this paper discusses the welfare economic effects of different suitable values for direct costs.It will be shown that both a welfare maximising first best track access charging and, in most cases, also a second best charging will result in boundary solutions for direct costs. However, it also becomes obvious that from a welfare-economic perspective there is no general recommendation for adopting the lowest suitable direct costs. Any allocatively efficientregulation of track access charges must consequently consider the specific situation of each market segment separately.