Implementing regulation 2014/869 - New rail passenger services - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 239/1

In accordance with Article 10 of Directive 2012/34/EU, Member States have opened their market for international rail passenger transport services provided by any railway undertaking licensed under the same Directive. In the course of an international rail passenger service, railway undertakings have the right to pick up passengers at any station located along the international route and set them down at another, including stations located in the same Member State.

However, the introduction of new, open-access international rail passenger services with intermediate stops should not be used to open up the market for domestic passenger services, but should merely focus on stops that are ancillary to the international service. The principal purpose of the new services should be to carry passengers travelling on an international journey. At the request of competent authorities or interested railway undertakings, the regulatory body referred to in Section 4 of Chapter IV of Directive 2012/34/EU should determine the principal purpose of a proposed new service.

Opening up international rail passenger services to competition may have implications for the organisation and financing of rail passenger services provided under a public service contract in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1370/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council (2). In accordance with Article 11 of Directive 2012/34/EU, Member States may limit the right of access to the market where that right would compromise the economic equilibrium of those public service contracts. At the request of competent authorities, the infrastructure manager or the railway undertaking performing the public service contract, the regulatory body should determine whether a proposed new international rail passenger service would compromise the economic equilibrium of a public service contract.

In order to avoid the interruption of a new rail passenger service that has already started, and to give legal certainty to this new service about its possibility to operate, the time period that is open for request for a principal purpose test or for an economic equilibrium test should be limited and linked to the time of the applicant's notification of its interest in operating a new international rail passenger service. For the same reason, the procedures of the regulatory body for those tests should also be limited in time.

A request for a principal purpose test should include all relevant information to justify that the principal purpose of the proposed new service is other than to carry passengers between stations located in different Member States. In order to meet this requirement, entities requesting for such a test should be able to use standard request forms published by the regulatory bodies.

The regulatory body should carry out both a qualitative and quantitative analysis to identify the vocation of the proposed new service in the medium term, rather than its characteristics at a given moment. Assessment criteria should be determined in the methodology adopted by the regulatory body for the principal purpose test with regard to the specificities of rail transport in the Member State concerned. No quantified threshold should be applied strictly or in...