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Maintenance. From asset management to direct cost calculation.
A key issue for the future of the HS Railways System.

Directive 1991/440 marked a milestone for European railways, changing totally their
management. The main idea is the separation of the activities of infrastructure management
and provision of transport services. The access rights to railway infrastructure must be
granted in a uniform and non-discriminatory manner. The payment for this access shall be
done with charges; the determination of these is further developed later different normative
texts, among which the following can be found:

• Council Directive 95/19 / EC of 19 June 1995 on the allocation of railway infrastructure
capacity and the charging of infrastructure fees

• Directive 2001/14/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February
2001 on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for
the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification.

In Spain, its development is done through the Rail Sector Law. The first law of such name,
Law

39/2003, includes the concept of infrastructure charges in section IV of title V. Subsequently,
in Law 38/2015 (second Rail Sector Law), the structure of the charges is modified,
contemplating the payment of a charge for use of the railway lines, called Mode B. This
charge is divided into two parts: a taxable base, to be determined by the infrastructure
1
manager, and an additional, to be determined in the Law of General State Budgets . Each
year, the Network Statement, published by the Infrastructure Manager, sets out the general
rules, deadlines, procedures and criteria that will govern the fees.

As indicated in the previous section, the European Union sets the principles to be followed
by national regulations. A basic principle is that the infrastructure manager may only include
in the calculation those costs for which it can objectively and rigorously demonstrate that
they derive directly from the operation of the different services. This means that elements
whose wear does not vary because of traffic, such as wear of track signs or interlockings,
should not be included in the charge.

This is known as the principle of direct costs, whereby the infrastructure manager will use
a charge so that, if an additional train passes, the amount paid will cause no loss in the
system. The formulation currently used for the charges is based on different parameters,
among which is the number of trains · km, speeds or types of train.

The Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2015/909 of 12 June 2015 for the calculation
of the cost that is directly incurred of the cost that is directly incurred as a result of
operating the train service sets out a number of ideas for infrastructure managers, or
bodies responsible for the determination of charges, so they can calculate these direct
costs, and thus determine which parameters should be used.

It should be noted that, according to Fernández Arévalo (2013), railway infrastructure is
characterized by very low marginal costs, which means that a very low percentage of the
total costs can be recovered with infrastructure charges. As Fernández Arévalo states, this
can result in a lack of incentives for investment in new infrastructures to address capacity
problems, as this would contribute to increase the manager’s deficit. However, raising the
charge above average costs can result in the expulsion of operators with lower market
resources, reducing competition.

1 Law 3/2017, of June 27, of General State Budgets for the year 2017, which includes these aspects in
articles 71 and 72.

International Congress on High-speed Rail: Technologies and Long Term Impacts - Ciudad Real (Spain) - 25th anniversary Madrid-Sevilla corridor 253