Regional impacts of rail liberalization in the Czech Republic
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| Year of publication | 2022 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The Czech Republic has witnessed dedicated rail liberalization over the past decade. In 2011 and 2016, two major lines (Prague–Ostrava and Prague–Brno, respectively) were targeted by new operators that started to provide services in direct competition with the incumbent operator. The impact of these entries on overall market development has been reported in the literature (Nash et al. 2019). The evidence consisted of ridership stimulation, price declines, and quality improvements (Beria – Bertolin, 2019; Tomeš et al. 2016). However, it is not easy to differentiate what part of those effects was created by the liberalization and what part can be attributed to the general growth of the market. To answer this question, we utilized data about Czech rail long-distance transport in 2003–2019. The data are divided into 12 long-distance connections. Four of them were part of the open-access routes, where we can observe the impact of the entry of the new private operators. Eight other connections were not influenced by the open-access competition. All the connections included long-distance rail routes from regional centres to the capital Prague. The design of this investigation enables us to differentiate what part of the ridership increases was caused by the open-access competition and what part was caused by other factors. The utilized methodology was difference in difference approach. The major results of this analysis are that after controlling for travel time, frequency and economic variables, the lines with competition have about 40% higher ridership than lines without competition. |
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