NMa fines ProRail for violating Dutch Railway Act

The Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) has imposed two fines on Dutch railway infrastructure manager ProRail for violation of the Dutch Railway Act.

Capacity distribution for the 2007 timetable

Firstly, ProRail is given a fine of € 776.000 for the way it treated Dutch railway undertaking Connexxion during the capacity allocation process for rail companies. During that process, ProRail did not abide by the rules laid down in the Railway Act, which are there to safeguard that capacity is distributed in a non-discriminatory manner.


This case concerns the capacity on the so-called Valley Line [Valleilijn], which runs from Amersfoort to Ede-Wageningen, including the yards at Amersfoort. Connexxion had won the contract for the Valley Line, and it thus entered the rail transport market as a new entrant in 2007. The NMa has established that ProRail had not treated Connexxion's request as equally as that of the Dutch incumbent railway undertaking NS Reizigers (NSR), and that ProRail had unrightfully given priority to NSR's request. Connexxion was forced to adjust its request to NSR's timetable because of ProRail's conduct. NSR's request was based on a draft version of the 2007 timetable that had been drawn up within the so-called Rail Together project [Samen Sporen], in which Connexxion was not involved. ProRail is legally obliged to grant capacity requests of railway companies as much as it possible can. ProRail is thus required to process those requests equally and to weigh them against each other in a fair way. By giving priority to NSR's interest, ProRail has, according to the NMa, acted contrary to the legal command of non-discrimination.



Non-compliance with time limits

Secondly, the NMa has imposed a fine of € 100.000 on ProRail for exceeding the time limit to perform a so-called capacity analysis for the Valley Line after the capacity allocation for that line had led to conflicts between Connexxion and NSR. Such analyses, which should provide possible solutions to the problem, need to be completed within six months after the infrastructure has been declared 'overloaded'. ProRail exceeded this time limit by two months.


The NMa highly values strict compliance with these time limits so that ProRail initiates in good time the process to come up with structural solutions for increasing capacity in places where shortages have been established. ProRail has several options to do so, such as organizational measures or physical solutions. However, a point to be kept in mind here is that transport companies have no alternative: they have to deal with ProRail, as it is a monopolist.


The Office of Transport Regulation is the unit within the NMa that enforces the Railway Act, and is a regulatory body in accordance with Article 30 of Directive 2001/14 EC. It has carried out the research in the cases mentioned above. Looking at fair capacity allocation is one of its top priorities in 2008.