<rss version="2.0" xmlns:atom="https://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <channel>
    <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
    <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
    <atom:link href="https://trid.trb.org/Record/RSS?s=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" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
    <description></description>
    <language>en-us</language>
    <copyright>Copyright © 2026. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.</copyright>
    <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs>
    <managingEditor>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</managingEditor>
    <webMaster>tris-trb@nas.edu (Bill McLeod)</webMaster>
    <image>
      <title>Transport Research International Documentation (TRID)</title>
      <url>https://trid.trb.org/Images/PageHeader-wTitle.jpg</url>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/</link>
    </image>
    <item>
      <title>Competition, efficiency and productivity in the long-distance British passenger rail market</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2686809</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Railways Act 1993 privatised the British rail industry and introduced competitive tendering and open access operation to the long-distance passenger sector. This paper discusses the different forms of competition this introduced, with the key research question posed is whether the reforms to the British long-distance passenger rail sector produced outcomes consistent with a competitive market. The tools used to address this issue are efficiency and productivity assessments. Covering the period 1996 to 2023, efficiencies are estimated using corrected ordinary least squares, before Malmquist productivity indices are calculated. The results show strong gains in productivity over most of the period for both franchised and open access operators, which would be consistent with competitive market pressures. A noticeable difference however is found between how these have been achieved between the two types of operator. The possible retention of open access operations and an independent rail regulator are then discussed in the context of the Railway Passenger Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024 and future British rail policy.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jul 2026 15:05:57 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2686809</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Towards a revitalization of passenger rail services in South African cities: Lessons from international institutional reforms</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2636407</link>
      <description><![CDATA[For over a century passenger rail services in South Africa have been provided by one or other form of national public monopoly. Over the past decade these services have been in steep decline, effectively collapsing when COVID-19 lockdown regulations were imposed. Current policy attention is focussed on reviving operations and installing an institutional structure capable of providing ‘safe, reliable, effective, efficient and fully integrated’ rail transport. Key to this is a commitment to devolve functions to capable lower spheres of government. The aim of this paper is to explore lessons from international experiences in institutional reforms centred around devolution. To qualify for inclusion, cases needed to have experienced a deliberate policy action to devolve passenger rail functions from a national to a lower sphere of government. A literature search revealed 11 such cases. Case reviews focussed on: the circumstances of the devolution; any associated vertical separation and privatisation; impacts; and any subsequent policy reversals. Key lessons included: devolved operations should be accompanied by financial resourcing; vertical separation requires independent institutions capable of adjudicating competing interests; private sector participation in operations is less risky than private infrastructure ownership; and the devolution of both train and bus services can enhance modal integration.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:45:15 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2636407</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>‘Don’t be afraid of the bosses, they should be afraid of us’ – a power resource analysis of a successful union organising on local trains in Sweden</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2608533</link>
      <description><![CDATA[During the 2000s, in Sweden, as in other European countries, the transport sector that once was public owned has been subjected to neoliberal privatisation. The involvement of private actors in public transport entails changes in industrial relations, which have impact in the workplace. In this paper, though a power recourse lens, we discuss a multifaceted labour dispute that occurred 2018 to 2021 between Arriva (now VR Sverige), the private company that runs the regional train service in the Swedish southern region of Skåne, and the local trade union club Klubb Pågatåg, affiliated with the blue-collar trade union federation Seko (Service- och Kommunikationsfacket). Started in conjunction with the negotiations for renewing the local collective agreement initially set for April 2020, the dispute became sharper following the decision of the company to implement a business plan contemplating the redefinition of individual terms of employment for all employees and, later, the attempt to fire the local trade union health and safety representative appointed by Klubb Pågatågwho confronted that decision. By relying on interviews, observations, online material as well as legal documents analysis, we discuss the significance of the 2020–2021 Pågatågand the capacity of a local trade union to successfully engage in a dispute by mobilising associational power resources even against institutional constraints. In line with global trends, our paper shows the strength of logistics workers (broadly conceived) in attempting to change power relations on the labour market through local union organising.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 08:31:52 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2608533</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Opening the tracks: The impact of rail liberalization on ridership growth in the Czech Republic</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2557033</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The Czech Republic has carried out dedicated rail liberalization. Two major lines, Prague–Ostrava and Prague–Brno, were opened for on-track competition and entered by private operators. These entries led to fare declines, frequency increases, and quality improvements. Ridership increased significantly, but it has not been clear what part of the ridership growth has been caused by competition and what part by other factors. The authors used data about Czech rail ridership that consists of 12 long-distance connections from Prague to regional centres. Four were routes with competition and eight were routes operated solely by the incumbent. This design enables differentiation of what part of the ridership increases was caused by competition and what part by other factors. The main result is that after controlling for economic growth and travel-time improvements, ridership on lines with competition grew by 5 % p.a. more than it did on lines without competition.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2025 11:36:31 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2557033</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A passenger service revolution? Transport design and passenger experience on Tokyo’s urban railway network, c. 1945–2010</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2578286</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This article discusses the history of efforts to shape passenger experience aboard urban railways through transport design. Taking Japan National Railways (JNR) trains as a case study, it examines the development of design interventions and organisational polices seeking to increase passenger comfort on Tokyo’s urban railway network in the second half of the 20th century. Industry and popular accounts have often tied the improvement of transport quality and passenger experience aboard JNR trains to its privatisation in 1987. In contrast, this article shows that passenger-oriented transport design has been an integral component in a continuous project to make urban railway travel more pleasant that long preceded this 1987 change in governance structures but has been held back by organisational and structural challenges. In doing so, it highlights that transport design involves the conscious shaping of both the “hardware” (i.e. physical transport infrastructure) and “software” (i.e. passenger-staff interactions) of service, as well as the backstage modification of organisational structures and processes that facilitate this framework. Built on a qualitative analysis of Japanese industry publications, newspapers, and secondary sources, the article thus contributes to literature on passenger experience, mobilities design, and transport history.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 13:39:58 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2578286</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Privatising profits and socialising losses: The effects of liberalisation on the incumbent high-speed rail operator in Spain</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2517640</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This paper investigates the destiny of high-speed rail (HSR) operations as rail liberalisation challenges the cross-subsidy single rail operators established between profitable and non-profitable routes when they monopolised the whole HSR network. When an incumbent HSR operator has to share the cake with newcomers, the resulting decline in revenues and profits may limit the effectiveness of the relevant cross-subsidies. The authors analyse such scenarios through the case of Spain, in which the state-owned incumbent rail company, Renfe, faces increasing competition in its more lucrative HSR corridors. Scenarios suggest that with only a 30 % drop in ticket sales in the northeastern HSR corridor, the financial balance of Renfe's HSR commercial operations becomes negative. This means that beyond the profits made by new entrants in one or two specific corridors, the outcomes for non-profitable corridors will be quite different: public authorities will have to cover losses and/or Renfe will have to increase ticket prices and/or the frequencies of HSR services will have to be cut. Travellers on the most profitable HSR routes will enjoy greater frequency of services and lower fares, while those on other HSR routes could experience less frequency and higher fares. In geographical terms, rail liberalisation applied to HSR operations may thus have very heterogeneous effects and reinforce spatial inequalities between regions.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 31 Mar 2025 08:58:36 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2517640</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Concessioning, Privatization and Restructuring of Railways in China</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2264122</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Within the past 10 years, railway concessioning of formerly government-operated railways has emerged as a strong global trend in order to improve operating efficiency as well as a means to generate private capital for their construction. This trend is strongly supported by the World Bank and other international lending institutions. The concept of privatization and commercialization of railway management and construction has a long history in China. Though coupled with significant political consequences, foreign capital enabled construction of many thousands of kilometers of new railway line when it was desperately needed. During later years of railway development, private capital continued to finance the construction of local railways, supporting the primary MOR rail network. In the future, this concept of efficient railway management and cost-based pricing concepts will form a basis for restructuring of the entire MOR system, resulting in the increased efficiency of the country's strategically important railway network.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 16:59:06 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2264122</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Will the latest British reforms to rail passenger service procurement work?</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2224297</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In the 1990s Great Britain embarked on one of the most radical railway reforms undertaken anywhere in the world, with full vertical separation and privatisation of all aspects of the railway and the introduction of competition throughout the sector. However, since then Britain's railways have been plagued with multiple problems, most notably a failure to control costs, as well as multiple franchise failures and problems with developing sensible timetables, with consequent impacts on train performance. Multiple attempts to reform the initial model have failed and in 2018/2019 a fundamental review was undertaken which culminated in the publication of the Williams–Shapps plan for rail which proposes a major step back towards vertical integration with the establishment of a new government owned organisation to take charge both of infrastructure and services, although the latter will be operated by private companies under concessions. This paper reviews the reasons behind the problems experienced by Britain's railways – which led to the review – before setting out the proposed reforms and discussing whether they might solve the problems and what some of the critical success factors might be.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:34:04 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2224297</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>All things must pass? Recent changes to competition and ownership in public transport in Great Britain.</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2176059</link>
      <description><![CDATA[The publication of the National Bus Strategy in March and the Williams-Shapps Plan for Rail in May 2021 suggests an end to the period of deregulation and privatisation that has dominated local buses in Great Britain since the mid-1980s and national rail since the mid-1990s.This paper reviews the recent trends in the local bus and national rail industries in Great Britain, both pre- and post-Covid. The policy response in the two sectors seems to be searching for solutions that do not involve full blooded public control and ownership, at least in England. For local buses, emphasis is being placed on the development of Enhanced Partnerships between operators and Local Authorities. For national rail, the key organisational change is the establishment of Great British Railways to vertically integrate the planning of infrastructure and train services. Operations will remain vertically and horizontally separated but with franchising replaced by Passenger Service Contracts.For both sectors, post-Covid, there will be an emphasis on demand and service recovery, with funding likely to be problematic. Future prospects will be considered, alongside the potential for further turns of the regulatory cycle, with respect to both competition and ownership.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 30 Oct 2023 13:44:22 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2176059</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Post privatization of high-speed rail with corporate social responsibility (CSR) in an international transportation market: Mandatory CSR versus voluntary CSR</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2232187</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This study considers an international transportation market wherein a high-speed rail (HSR) firm engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) competes with both domestic and foreign airlines with differentiated services. The authors investigate and compare two CSR types, mandatory CSR, imposed by the government, and voluntary CSR, chosen by the HSR operator, and show that mandatory CSR can be lower or higher than voluntary CSR, depending on the transportation subsidy types offered. With uniform subsidies, mandatory CSR together with a higher subsidy is lower than voluntary CSR, which yields higher profits for domestic firms and higher social welfare, while the opposite result can be found with discriminatory subsidies. The authors further explore the welfare effect of HSR privatization policies with CSR activities. The authors find that irrespective of the CSR types and subsidy types, privatization with subsidies always improves social welfare; however, privatization with mandatory (voluntary) CSR improves (reduces) social welfare in the absence of subsidies. These findings suggest that post-privatization with CSR activities may be harmful to society without an appropriately designed subsidy policy and should be monitored by antitrust agencies.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 25 Sep 2023 14:46:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2232187</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>The liberalisation of high-speed rail services in Spain: Ticket price in the Madrid–Barcelona corridor</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/2121762</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Current EU regulations and initiatives aim to promote a series of structural changes within the rail sector to improve its efficiency and environmental sustainability. Thus, a liberalisation process has been implemented through the so-called "railway packages". In the case of Spain, in 2021 the Spanish state-owned railway infrastructure manager (ADIF) culminated a long and complex process, initiated in 2016, to replace the existing public monopoly with free market models. As a result, three different companies have signed a ten-year agreement on the provision of high-speed services on the Madrid-Barcelona route, Madrid-East and Madrid-South. By facilitating the entry of new competitors, a reduction of transport costs is expected, which will in turn reduce the charges paid by operating companies. This will benefit rail passengers. In fact, the Spanish high-speed rail network presents, in general terms, excess capacity and low levels of congestion, which makes it easier for new operators to access the infrastructure. Therefore, new rail services will increase by 65% the network's capacity, compared to pre-liberalisation scenario. Given the new highly competitive scenario, the prices and types of tickets are much more complex as they are highly influenced by numerous factors, including internal factors, external factors, competition among rail operators and strategic customers. However, an appropriate ticket-pricing strategy can not only attract more passengers but also improve revenue. Therefore, the main goal of this paper is to analyse the pricing strategy for High Speed Rail (HSR) services in the Madrid-Barcelona corridor, considering the competition among different rail operators.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 05 Jun 2023 17:12:34 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/2121762</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Examining Liberalization of Iranian Railway Communication Services</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1998235</link>
      <description><![CDATA[In every country, railway is a measuring factor for cultural economic and political progress. In today’s world there is no gap amongst railway systems and coordinated international railways along with traffic control system has made this an easy task, but considering high maintenance as well as development costs as opposed to little income, passenger section all over the world is in red economical condition, hence a lot of attention is given to finding new ways of increasing revenue in non-passenger sections. One of the main ways to reach this goal is development of communication infrastructure and related services. Considering vast geography as well as high level of technology in Iran railway communication network, in addition to providing services for the railway, it has potential to enter national communication market as well, hence be able to upgrade its equipment and services and also create even more revenue, as well as new work opportunities. In this article, the authors examine ways to develop railway communication infrastructure as well as increase in revenue via privatization and investigating the same process in developed countries and also by providing questionnaires and field study. Among countries with privatized railway communication system, Britain, with even an advanced privatization status, has not been successful due to government interference, but in USA because of capitalist system and lower government interference privatization has been very successful.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 31 Dec 2022 16:01:12 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1998235</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>A systematic review of the literature on air transport networks (1973-2021)</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1986650</link>
      <description><![CDATA[This research provides a systematic literature review on air transportation. Three periods are analysed: 1973–1999 (120 papers), 2000–2019 (742 papers), and 2020–2021 (177 papers), with the period 2000–2019 being the focus. A computer-assisted thematic analysis was conducted using Reinert's method to quantify thematic classes and their prevalence statistically. The evolution of class predominance over time was also analysed. The results highlighted six major thematic classes in 2000–2019, with three reflecting methodologies (i.e., parameter estimation, time-based problems, and optimisation) and the remaining three characterising underlying applications (i.e., co-opetition, business models, and external stakeholder/social view). Classes found for 1973–1999 also discuss optimisation and co-opetition, with the remaining classes focusing on aviation developments in Europe and transportation systems in general. Classes found for 2020–2021 agreed largely to the period 2000–2019, albeit with more well-delineated classes on the COVID-19 pandemic and the connectivity and accessibility of air networks. A correlation of methodologies and applications (2000–2019) identified the ubiquitous use of regression analysis throughout applications and the underrepresentation of complex network analysis and economic modelling in applications associated with the business models and external stakeholder/social view classes. Temporal trends suggest a steady increase in discussions of the parameter estimation class and subclasses related to low-cost carriers in Europe, regional airports, and high-speed rail co-opetition, and a decrease in investigations of airline alliances, deregulation, and privatisation.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Wed, 20 Jul 2022 10:43:05 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1986650</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Establishing the relationship between railway safety and operational performance</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1899708</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Deregulation and/or privatization of railway systems has been adapted in many developed countries, aimed at improving economic performance. Literature on railway performance mainly focuses on the effects of reforms and on liberalization itself as well as measuring performance indicators for the management of assets in the railway industry. Although these management reforms on the maintenance and operations of rail infrastructures are generally found to have contributed to improving trends of rail safety and safety performance, there is not much evidence from research to support this. There is also little work on how the lessons from restructuring can apply in developing countries. Identifying approaches that can revitalize railways in developing and emerging economies while raising standards of safety and operational performance is the objective of this article. Presented are some of the specific lessons from developed countries and how they can be applied in developing economies' railways, noting that it is not generally feasible to adopt best practices because of social and/or economic constraints. Only where there is a significant foreign investor is there the potential to replicate best in class technology and operational practices, so the presentation will identify areas where less well-funded railways can adopt lessons from developed countries - using both historical and current international benchmarks. The originality of this approach lies in establishing the relationship between performance and safety in the era of reforms and liberalization of the rail industry. The article analyses publicly available data to suggest how rail safety considerations have impacted in a more general way upon railway performance, and by extension, derive lessons for emerging and developing economies.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Thu, 20 Jan 2022 12:14:43 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1899708</guid>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Public transport procurement in Britain</title>
      <link>https://trid.trb.org/View/1705247</link>
      <description><![CDATA[Britain is one of the countries with the most experience of alternative ways of procuring public transport services. From a situation where most public transport services were provided by publicly owned companies, it has moved to a situation where most are private. Long distance bus services, most local bus services outside London and a small number of rail services are left to commercial operators to provide without regulation on a purely commercial basis. Most rail services, bus services in London and subsidised bus services elsewhere are competitively tendered by central or local government. In the bus industry, both forms of competition have substantially reduced costs, but competitive tendering of services planned by local authorities has been the more successful in boosting patronage. On the other hand, on the rail system, whilst competitive tendering has again gone hand in hand with a large rise in usage, it has also been accompanied by a large rise in costs. Some possible reasons for this difference are considered, but it does appear that caution should be exercised when transferring lessons from one mode to the other.]]></description>
      <pubDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2020 11:49:30 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://trid.trb.org/View/1705247</guid>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>