In this paper railway reforms in a number of countries are reviewed including Japan, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland. These countries cover a number of the dimensions of railway reform including private vs. public owned companies, vertical integration vs. vertical separation, tendering vs. no-tendering and provide therefore for an interesting comparative analysis. The paper primarily focuses on passenger railways. A key facet of the analysis should determine the impacts associated with different options for passenger rail provision including the present structure. A range of different impacts is likely to be generated as the result of reform of the rail passenger market (e.g. deregulation), including the following broad impact categories: service level, market structure, externalities, equity, economics, and welfare. The information used for this paper includes annual reports from rail companies, documents published by railway authorities (e.g. transport ministry policy papers etc.), and quantitative data about the railways concerned, e.g. passenger trips and kilometres, route kilometres, staff, costs, revenue. In this way the empirical basis will provide both information about the characteristics of each railway considered and an outline of railway performance in the included countries. This paper provides comparative evidence concerning key characteristics of the organisational form used in different countries for railways, thereby setting out similarities and differences. It also includes information about the comparative performance of the railways in the selected countries. For the covering abstract see ITRD E126595.
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