Contracted Rail Services in Western Europe

During the post-war decades more and more passenger rail services have been deficit making. Economic support for these services has often been provided as a blanket subsidy from the central government with little specification of the services concerned. The support is substantial, at least MECU 7 000 per annum in the European Union (EU) Member States alone. Gradually, however, contracting, tendering and franchising schemes are introduced. At the same time there is a tendency towards regionalisation and decentralisation of powers. The services concerned can be of a very different character. They can be suburban highfrequency, high-density, high capacity services - these services are often the only realistic means to manage the extremely high volumes of traffic in for instance Paris, London or München. They can be long-distance cross-country services in the more sparsely populated regions of Europe where traffic volumes are too low to make operations on a fully commercial basis possible. Finally, they can be truly rural services where perhaps a bus would have sufficed for the volume of traffic concerned but where traditions and local opinion often prevent this change of transport mode. Various schemes now emerge. Britain may be said to lead the franchising (and privatisation) league but other countries such as Germany and Sweden are further ahead in the regionalisation field.

战后数十年间，越来越多的客运铁路服务陷入亏损。这些服务的经济支持通常由中央政府以全面补贴的形式提供，且对相关服务的具体说明甚少。此类支持规模庞大，仅欧盟（EU）成员国每年的补贴就至少达7000欧洲货币单位（MECU）。然而，承包、招标和特许经营方案正逐步推行。与此同时，权力呈现区域化和分散化的趋势。相关服务的性质可能千差万别：它们可能是郊区高频、高密度、高容量的服务——这类服务往往是应对巴黎、伦敦或慕尼黑等地极高交通流量的唯一切实可行的手段；也可能是欧洲人口较稀少地区的长途跨区域服务，这些地区的交通流量过低，无法实现完全商业化运营；最后，还可能是纯农村地区的服务，尽管这些地区的交通流量或许用公交车即可满足，但传统和当地舆论往往阻碍了这种运输方式的转变。如今，各类方案纷纷涌现。英国可被视为特许经营（及私有化）领域的引领者，而德国、瑞典等其他国家则在区域化领域更为领先。