Competition Report 2009

Photo: Rainer Garbe
Regulation is intended to promote the competitiveness of rail.
New focus in regulatory practice
Regulation of the rail sector made progress in 2008. Interim results have been announced in the proceedings
on railway infrastructure usage conditions, on construction site information and market observation.
These provide the railway undertakings with a better planning basis as well as more legal certainty.
In addition to negotiations between the Federal
Network Agency and DB, various court rulings in
2008 helped to clarify fundamental regulatory questions.
They referred to subjects such as the powers of
the regulatory authority, or its right to demand information.
Speaking at the symposium “Competition
and Regulation in the Rail Sector” held by Berlin
Humboldt University and Deutsche Bahn in January
2009, Dr. Iris Henseler-Unger, Vice-President of the
Federal Network Agency, confirmed that the Agency
also welcomed these results. The court rulings have
limited the scope for interpretation of the legislative
provisions. As a result, the long-winded notices of the
past stating detailed complaints, which were
of no apparent use to the market players, are no longer
to be expected. The Agency has announced that it
tends to concentrate on key areas in future.
A focal point will be the regulation of charging.
The Agency has been reviewing the level and structure
of station charges since April 2007 and infrastructure
charges since January 2008. No results are as
yet available in either case, although DB has
processed and supplied the regulatory authority with
comprehensive data in response to numerous
requests for information and consultation procedures.
At the above symposium on competition, Dr. Henseler-Unger
announced that no swift solutions could
be expected. The authority first had to define its
own investigation standards more precisely in
order to clarify unresolved fundamental questions,
such as the obligation of the regulated company to disclose
its pricing criteria, or the authority’s right to examine
the cost allocation structure of individual
charging components.
Although the Agency’s powers in regulating
charges under the present legislation have still not
been clearly established, it is already demanding the
extension of its remit. The present legal framework,
for instance, is to be amended to permit a performance
regime which specifies maximum price limits for
previously defined product groups such as train
paths or stations. The Agency believes this will
encourage infrastructure managers to work more
efficiently and reduce costs, as they will be entitled to
keep the difference between upper price limit and
actual operating costs. However, incentives already
Regulatory Policies
35