Success Factors in Public–Private Partnership of High-Speed Railway Infrastructures: Elements for Improvement

European railway transportation is not as efficient as it could be. Several factors contribute to this absence of efficiency, including a lack of private investment and exclusively public railway administrators and enterprises. Public–private partnerships can yield higher efficiency in railway transport. Within the high-speed railway sector, there are a few implemented infrastructures through public–private partnerships, and in many of them, the result has not been the expected one. Hence, the purpose of this research is to develop a list of recommendations and good practices that allow governments, private investors and railway stakeholders to take better and more efficient decisions on the implementation of new high-speed rail lines. Consequently, this research has analysed through seven case studies, all the high-speed lines designed through public–private partnerships in Europe. The research methodology is based on the exploratory case study and on the identification of critical success factors. This article has made it possible to develop the following list of recommendations and good practices, cross-border cooperation for international sections, substructure and superstructure work in the same contract, a separate contract for signalling and communications systems, availability risk transferred to the private party, proven purchase of rolling stock, savings in travel times, conservation of existing stations in the conventional rail network, responsibility of the rail infrastructure manager the interfaces between the new infrastructure and the existing network, and the inclusion of the activities of maintenance in the public–private partnership contract.