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Article: Private operators shun some regional franchises: issues about the ownership of, or investment in, rolling stock are behind the wildly different attitudes of private operators towards bidding for regional railway franchises in Italy.(Italy)(Cover Story)
- Article from:
- International Railway Journal
- Article date:
- December 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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OF the three regions actively tendering their rail services at the moment, only one, Lombardy, has attracted bids from private operators. The reason is that Lombardy owns its own rolling stock which it is prepared to hand over to the successful bidder while Veneto and Liguria each require the winner in their areas to acquire their own trains.
If the Veneto and Ligurian franchises had been for 15 or 20 years that may not have been much of a problem but, under Italian law, nine years is the maximum and that is proving to be a serious disincentive to the private sector.
All the franchises are for region-wide services and involve 10.5 million train-kin/ year ...