NMa conditionally positive about collaboration between Dutch railway infrastructure manager ProRail and Dutch railway undertakings

The plans of Dutch railway infrastructure manager ProRail of collaborating with railway undertakings in the so-called Operational Control Centre Railway (OCCR) will not compromise ProRail's independence. This has been the conclusion of the Board of the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa), which it had laid down in an opinion about said collaboration. Jaap de Keijzer, member of the Board of the NMa, explains: 'We welcome any steps that are taken to increase the quality on the railway network for both passengers and shippers, but at the same time, we want to prevent the level playing field for railway undertakings from being potentially distorted.'

OCCR cannot distort level playing field

ProRail and the railway undertaking will be joining forces in the OCCR in cases of rail disruptions and calamities. They will also try to prevent these from happening in the first place. In April 2005, a major computer failure occurred at the rail control center in Utrecht, bringing rail traffic in the Netherlands to a complete standstill for an entire day. In effect, this was the primary reason for creating the OCCR. However, with the infrastructure manager and the railway undertakings collaborating in the OCCR, the impression might be given that the introduced separation of railway infrastructure and operations could be reversed. In order to prevent the level playing field from being distorted for railway undertakings, the NMa has set four conditions to OCCR collaborations.



Four conditions attached to OCCR collaborations

First, ProRail must guarantee the railway undertakings that it will allocate rail capacity in an independent and non-discriminatory manner. Second, ProRail must ensure that railway undertakings cannot gain access to confidential information. Third, ProRail must charge the railway undertakings the costs of the OCCR, by means of an infrastructure charge. The NMa expects the new infrastructure charge not to be higher than the current one, since the OCCR's purpose is improving performance, thus resulting in cost savings. The fourth and final condition is that ProRail must include all information regarding the OCCR in the network statement, which is the railway undertakings' prospectus.


Mr. De Keijzer continues: 'All in all, we are, in principle, positive about OCCR collaborations. It is however expected that this collaboration will be intensely scrutinized. It is therefore in their own interests that ProRail and the railway undertakings pro-actively set up their collaboration as transparent as possible.'