Special Issue on “Financing, Regulation and Performance of the European Rail Sector”

Rail transport does not seem to live up to its potential in terms of the contributions it could make to satisfy the transport and mobility needs in the EU and in other economies; this concerns in particular the significant contribution it could make to the decarbonization of transport.1 The latter holds despite substantial government funding of the railway sector. In May 2017, a workshop on “Financing, Regulation and Performance of the European Rail Sector” brought together academics and stakeholders at Justus Liebig University Giessen to discuss these topics from various angles. This special issue presents selected contributions from the workshop to provide both academia and practitioners from the sector with a state of the art overview of railway funding and financing as well as on selected policy debates and recent regulatory changes ranging from the setting of access charges to the optimal (vertical) structure of the sector. Chris Nash surveys “Railway Finance in Europe” and provides both a general overview of the possible justifications for subsidies to the rail sector and an evaluation of how these subsidies are given in practice as well as how efficient use of these subsidies could be ensured. Jan Schäfer and Georg Götz complement this survey with the presentation of a detailed database on the public funding structure in eight European countries. They highlight that some countries like Germany and France mainly fund the provision of (regional) passenger train services via Public Service Obligations, which to a large degree cover high track access charges, while other countries like the UK directly finance the operation of the infrastructure. Lorenzo Casullo focuses his discussion of the funding