La Red de Alta Velocidad Europea: Más un mosaico poco efectivo que una realidad

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market share. The number of stations on a line is important, and their location vital: not all
stations audited are well accessible and have good connections, and for 15 of the 18 audited
high-speed rail stations we saw no clear regeneration effects in the surrounding area.
102. We assess that sustainability is at risk: judging by a benchmark of nine million
passengers per year, three of the seven completed lines audited cannot be considered
successful high-speed rail lines (Eje Atlántico, Rhin-Rhône and Madrid-León) since the
number of passengers carried was far lower. The infrastructure cost of these lines was 10.6
billion euro, to which the EU provided around 2.7 billion euro. This means that there is a high
risk of ineffective spending of EU co-funding on these lines, which could have been mitigated
by a sound ex ante assessment of costs and benefits for the individual lines.
103. Our assessment of the number of people living in the catchment area of the audited
lines indicates that 9 of the 14 audited lines and cross-border connections did not have
enough potential passengers to be successful. In addition, high-speed rail and other
transport modes do not compete equally as not all modes of transport are subject to the
same charges (paragraph 58 to 85).
Seamless and competitive cross-border high-speed rail operations are still some way off
104. There are still many technical, administrative and other barriers to interoperability,
even though the Court called for urgent action to lift such barriers in a special report
published in 2010. The rail passenger market is not open in France and Spain, although there
is on-track competition in Italy and, to a limited extent, in Austria. In Germany, the rail
passenger market is open, but there is no competition on high-speed lines. With the current
rules, competition may be delayed until as long as 2035. As competition encourages better
services, more frequent trains and lower prices for travellers, it should materialise sooner.
105. Track access charges aim to recover previous infrastructure investment and operating
costs. If they are set low enough to allow new entrants to participate in the market, they can
incentivise on-track competition. However, the systems used to calculate them are overly
complicated, as numerous variables can be applied.