Transport and Covid-19: responses and resources

Efficiency in Railway Operations and Infrastructure Management

Efficiency in Railway Operations and Infrastructure Management

This report provides a framework for making reliable comparisons of the efficiency of rail systems. Efficiency is of concern to all governments but measuring it for railways is challenging. This is because of the complexity of providing rail services and the diversity of business models adopted to deliver them. Restructuring of the sector in many countries makes trends in costs and efficiency particularly difficult to track. There are also trade-offs to be made in how detailed the analysis needs to be and the availability of consistent data over time. The report proposes a balanced scorecard for characterising performance.

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An earlier version of this Report was published in 2015 as Roundtable Discussion Paper 2015.12 "Efficiency in Railway Operations and Infrastructure Management".

Policy Insights

  • Build on simple indicators for an aggregate analysis of rail performance.
  • Use econometric models to better capture the complexity of rail performance.
  • Develop a narrative of the drivers of rail performance.
  • Invest more into data and indicators related to service quality.

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