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    <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
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    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
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    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
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      <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
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      <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
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      <title>The impact of access prices on train traffic: An econometric study for France</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2032457</link>
      <description><![CDATA[To guarantee fair and nondiscriminatory access to rail networks, European Commission raised the importance of regulation by promoting short run marginal cost. Thus, to recover the full cost of infrastructure, Infrastructure Managers may use mark ups over the marginal cost, using Ramsey pricing for example. However, a Ramsey pricing implementation for rail infrastructure is strongly limited by the lack of information about the demand elasticity of train paths. The aim of this article is to try to fill this gap by conducting an empirical research on the price sensitivity of the railway paths using a French dataset from 2003 to 2016. Preliminary results suggest that track access charges influence negatively the train path demand for high-speed trains and freight trains but do not seem to influence the train path demand for regional trains under PSO. Nevertheless, if track access charges are related to the track category (UIC category) or to the kind of line (high speed or conventional) results may differ. Regarding regional and freight trains, the track category seems to determine the statistical significance of track access charges elasticity while the kind of line seems to explain the impacts on the demand of rail paths for high-speed trains.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 19 Oct 2022 13:31:08 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2032457</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Three Principles for Optimal Pricing of Trackage Rights</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1528549</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Borrowing from the literature on optimal road pricing, this paper introduces three efficiency-based principles for setting track access fees. The fundamental principle is that track fees should be set as close as possible to optimal congestion tolls on a track segment. Since this procedure gives an incentive to keep capacity inefficiently low in order to increase congestion tolls, the second principle is that track fees be devoted to paying for track maintenance, the opportunity cost of land, and the amortization of plant and equipment installed on the track. The third principle is that track fees should be set by traffic and cost conditions on a line and should not vary with the identity of the user whose freight is hauled on the line; this third principle is designed to encourage efficient location and mode choice. The combination of these three principles has the promise of increased willingness to use rail logistics systems, the installation of an appropriate level of capacity on each line, and optimal routing and traffic levels throughout the rail system.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 09 Aug 2018 17:24:57 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1528549</guid>
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    <item>
      <title>Integrated Optimization of Rolling Stock Rotations for Intercity Railways</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1458949</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This paper proposes a highly integrated solution approach for rolling stock planning problems in the context of long distance passenger traffic between cities. The main contributions are a generic hypergraph-based mixed-integer programming model for the considered rolling stock rotation problem and an integrated algorithm for its solution. The newly developed algorithm is able to handle a large spectrum of industrial railway requirements, such as vehicle composition, maintenance constraints, infrastructure capacities, and regularity aspects. The authors show that their approach has the power to produce rolling stock rotations that can be implemented in practice. In this way, the rolling stock rotations at the largest German long distance operator Deutsche Bahn Fernverkehr AG could be optimized by an automated system utilizing advanced mathematical programming techniques.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 28 Mar 2017 17:08:33 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1458949</guid>
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      <title>Innovative Track Access Charges</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1414049</link>
      <description><![CDATA[A detailed and serious cost calculation is a precondition for a competitive offer of railway traffic services in future. This task does not only concern the Train Operating Companies (TOCs), but also the Infrastructure Managers (IMs) when transferring the infrastructure costs into track access charges. These charges are subject to discussions since they were foreseen in the European regulations back in the 1990-ies the first time. The principle, to charge the “cost that is directly incurred as a result of operating the train service”, lead to numerous different interpretation throughout Europe. Beside the legislation, it is still the objective of the IM to calculate the costs for the single train. Averaged charges based on gross-tonne-kilometres are definitely no proper estimation.  It is essential to base the charge on three levels. The first level is the network-section or line. The costs of Railway's permanent way differ very much on the given boundary conditions. Curved, mountainous sections come up with costs that are very likely up to three times higher compared to straight sections. Averaging costs network-wide leads to unfair conditions. Modulating gross-tonne-based charges due to the line conditions is the first necessary attempt in order to calculate “directly incurred costs”. A proper cost accounting system provides all necessary input data.  The second step has to be seen from the view of the competiveness of railway freight transport. Just allocating costs does not include the cost-by-cause principle. The infrastructure is designed and maintained to the highest needs of the collective of all users. One example is the quality of track geometry that generates much higher costs if only one train is operated on high speed. These high costs are distributed to all trains if simply allocating it to gross-tonnage. Turnouts are a second major cost driver. As only the cost level is given by the accounting system, this steps needs a modelling process. Calculating gross-tonne-costs on a defined quality level is possible using detailed cost analyses for different assets at different quality standards. This second step makes it possible to calculate a cost level for freight operation, not covering the additional costs of fast or regional passenger services, and is therefore a pre-condition for a competitive railway freight service in a tight market situation.  Last but not least, the quality of rolling stock is an essential part of the generated infrastructure costs. The forces of the rail-wheel-contact define the wear and damage process on the track involving the maintenance cost to be charged. It needs a sound track deterioration model to calculate the cost relevance of different forces. This modulation is an important step towards lower overall costs of the total railway system, as optimisation of subsystems is eliminated.  In the end, Track Access Charges must be calculated on a much more detailed level in order to cover the goals defined by the cost-by-cause principle and a non-discriminatory access to railway infrastructure. Most of the necessary data are existing, it needs to transform the detailed cost calculation to a manageable charging system.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 28 Jul 2016 10:03:42 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1414049</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Public Use of Rail Right-of-Way in Urban Areas</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1408283</link>
      <description><![CDATA[A growing population combined with a growing economy is resulting in increased passenger travel demand in Texas. Diverting both passenger and freight traffic to rail transport is often seen as a key component of a greater intermodal solution to reduce roadway congestion and associated societal and environmental costs within existing transportation corridors. The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) conducted this study to update and expand previous work conducted by the Center for Transportation Research at The University of Texas and TTI. The previous study examined the idea of commuter rail using existing freight tracks or existing ROW, and the relocation of rail yards and mainline tracks outside of densely populated urban areas, thereby freeing key corridors for public use. The research team conducted 10 U.S. case studies, six pertaining to commuter rail sharing existing freight tracks or ROW and four pertaining to the relocation of rail yards and mainline tracks. The team researched a Texas example in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area where two transit agencies are evaluating the introduction of commuter rail service over a former freight rail line, now owned by one of the transit agencies. Currently, the rail line is leased to a short-line railroad for local freight rail service. The research team also interviewed all three Class I freight railroads currently operating in Texas. This report highlights several shared-use agreements that have been executed, the negotiation issues and concerns, the benefits of passenger rail sharing freight infrastructure, and the benefits of relocating rail yards and mainline tracks outside of densely urban areas.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 23 May 2016 09:48:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1408283</guid>
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      <title>Amtrak's Unique Access Rights to Freight Railroads: What Are They, and Do They Still Make Sense?</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1146630</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This paper reviews Amtrak's current legal authority to operate passenger trains on lines owned by freight railroads. A brief history of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970 (RPSA) explains the law, which called for the creation of a private company called Amtrak and provided the mechanism whereby freight railroads were relieved of their common carrier obligations to provide passenger service. The paper reviews the incremental costs funding regime, which in effect caps the rates freight railroads may charge Amtrak for access to their properties. Finally, the author raises policy questions for further consideration regarding the maintenance of a legal framework that gives Amtrak these special access rights and privileges.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Jul 2012 09:47:37 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1146630</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Negotiating Passenger Rail Rights: Lessons Learned in Massachusetts</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1122778</link>
      <description><![CDATA[With recent increases in federal funding for rail infrastructure projects, commuter rail agencies across the country are struggling to secure operating rights on right of way owned by or shared with freight railroads or Amtrak. Issues relating to operating windows, control of maintenance and dispatching, liability allocation, and construction coordination each pose potentially serious impediments to commuter rail and intercity passenger service expansion. Passenger rail expansion projects in New York, California, Florida, Ohio, and Missouri, among others, have faced significant challenges in negotiating with Amtrak or freight railroads for the operating rights and infrastructure improvements necessary to accommodate commuter service. State governments are pressing Amtrak and the freight railroads to accommodate commuter rail expansion, but often fail to approach deals with an understanding of the business imperatives of those host railroads. The complexity of these issues, combined with the strict deadlines attached to new federal funding, threaten to stall the commencement of critical transportation infrastructure projects. In Massachusetts, several recent deals with freights and other state agencies have successfully navigated these critical issues. This paper explores novel solutions employed in Massachusetts in right of way acquisitions and trackage rights agreements. It will present concrete negotiating strategies and share successful outcomes on key issues by looking at recent Massachusetts deals, including (1) the acquisition of right of way by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from CSX Transportation, Inc. (“CSX”) to Fall River/New Bedford and the pending acquisition of right of way from Framingham west to Worcester; (2) the expansion of Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (“MBTA”) commuter rail service to points south of Providence, RI; and (3) the acquisition of trackage rights over property owned by Pan Am Railways and its affiliates in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 29 Nov 2011 13:43:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1122778</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Tricks of the Trade: Oddities in Abandonment Issues</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/924968</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This article describes how capitalizing on the profitability of multiple subsidies and the overcharging of railroads, construction companies in the era of Railroad Building (second half of the 19th century) overbuilt railroad tracks. By the 1920s, with the advent of competition from motor carriers, railroads found that they had too much capacity and desired to abandon trackage. But regulators often resisted proposed rail abandonments. As a result, railroad developed creative ways to circumvent this resistance or to manipulate situations so that otherwise viable trackage would have to be abandoned. This article discusses the history of abandonment regulation and railroad strategies in response to it. The article describes how railroads used legal processes to stall early efforts at regulation and it explains how railroads sometimes worked to drive away their own customers in order to manipulate the data they presented to regulators. The article outlines the unique value of railroad right-of-way and methods railroad companies and others have used to attempt to destroy such properties in ways that may have been contrary to the public interies.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:11:23 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/924968</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Railway Dreaming: Lessons for Economic Regulators from Aboriginal Resource Management Lore</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/914959</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Many jurisdictions, including Australia, seek to promote competition by mandating that railroads open their track to third-party operators.  This paper contends that third-party access changes the property rights associated with railway track, rendering it a common pool resource (CPR). If this is the case, the literature on the governance of CPRs could inform the economic regulation of railways. The paper illustrates this approach by drawing some lessons from the CPR governance mechanisms traditionally used by Australia's Aborigines in managing their land that may have application within the context of modern railways.  Two important aspects of the Aboriginal CPR governance framework are fragmentation of assets and interdependence between their owners, and graduated levels of ownership of assets.  The first aspect can serve to dilute economic power while still enabling the efficiency gains of joint production.  The second aspect assists in improving the stake and control access seekers have over an important input to their production process and can enhance certainty and trust for the track owner.  Underlying these lessons is a different attitude toward power.  Aborigines addressed the problem of power concentration by preventing its formation, creating a polycentric power structure.  However, understanding the utility of polycentricity will require a fundamental change in the focus of modern policy makers.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:45:29 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/914959</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Root Causes of Amtrak Train Delays</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/880369</link>
      <description><![CDATA[On September 8, 2008, the analysis of the root causes of delays to Amtrak trains operating outside the Northeast Corridor (NEC) was issued. The objectives of the audit were to: (1) identify the root causes of delays for Amtrak trains operating outside the NEC, (2) assess whether Amtraks passenger trains have been granted preference over freight trains as prescribed by law, (3) identify practices in dispatching trains that influence delays, and (4) evaluate whether delays in maintaining track have impacted Amtrak train delays. We found several root causes of Amtrak train delays, including; (1) host railroad dispatching practices, some of which result in preference violations; (2) track maintenance practices and the resulting speed restrictions; (3) insufficient track capacity; and (4) external factors beyond the host railroads control. We also identified host railroad dispatching practices that violate Amtraks preference rights. However, disagreements between Amtrak and the host railroads, both on how to measure delays and how to define Amtraks right to preference in the use of rail infrastructure, make measuring violations of preference and allocating the exact causes of delay difficult. The recommendations to the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) focused on (1) legislative changes to clarify Amtraks preference rights and enhanced enforcement of those rights; (2) increased involvement and oversight by the FRA to facilitate cooperative planning between Amtrak and the host railroads to reduce delays and improve Amtraks on time performance (OTP) and; (3) expanded funding for rail capacity projects.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:38:21 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/880369</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Railroad Restructuring</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/865127</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This paper describes how it seems appropriate at the outset to consider the meaning (in the context of today’s rail problem) of the word “restructuring.” Presumably it does mean rehabilitation, since that important subject is separately discussed in another paper, but restructuring may in some cases may be a prerequisite to or at least a handmaiden of rehabilitation. It seems clear that restructuring is intended to alleviate the specific ill of today’s railroads in the United States which many writers refer to as Balkanizaiton. It is the corporate structure and the geographic extent of the corporation’s ownership or trackage rights, and thus operating rights, with which the paper is concerned.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:24:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/865127</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Optimal Track Access Rights Allocation for Agent Negotiation in an Open Railway Market</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/850352</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In this paper researchers describe agent negotiation with a branch-and-bound (BNB) algorithm in open railway markets as a sort of railway access market between agents such as train service providers (TSP) and infrastructure providers (IP). In this study, the TSP and IP agents are represented computationally as a multi-agent software system with the IP agent with the task of creating an optimized track access rights schema and the TSP agent acting as a regulation on such optimization. The empirical testing of the BNB algorithm used to formulate the IP-TSP simulated interface demonstrated that the proposed model faired well in the emulation of rational agents. It was also demonstrated that there is a high level of correlation between the proposed BNB method and the methods used for agent negotiation in practice.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:05:44 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/850352</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Taking a Step Back</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/838725</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The UK Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) must walk a fine line between intervention and market freedom, especially for issues such as regulating track access.  This article discusses a recent review by the ORR of its criteria and procedures for approving track access contracts.  The ORR is loosening its tight control of the approval process and will concentrate on areas of disagreement between parties to a proposed contract, the actual and potential impact of third parties, and the efficient use of available network capacity.  However, the ORR has made it clear that it will continue to oversee the fair and efficient allocation of capacity.  A dual approach is envisioned.  First, the ORR will make increased use of general approvals that provide for the automatic approval of certain amendments to track access contracts without the need to obtain specific approval.  Second, the ORR is contemplating a series of changes to the model track access contract itself.  This will be done in two phases, culminating in early 2008.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2007 10:15:25 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/838725</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Regional cooperation</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/791724</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Subtitle: Ohio Central and Wheeling & Lake Erie share track in eastern Ohio.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Oct 2006 11:02:18 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/791724</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Taking the slow (rail) road</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/791434</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Subtitle: Passenger rail group says freight carriers are dragging down Amtrak service.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Oct 2006 10:50:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/791434</guid>
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