In the context of increasing exigency generated by the rising of intramodal concurrency in the railway transport market, railway companies need to fit analytical methodologies for helping them to orient operative decisions for going forward in their competitivity and economic sustainability levels. Nevertheless, the ranking only based in margin or coverage has not enough precision. To avoid this difficulty it is proposed I this paper the introduction of the Balanced Use concept.

 

The Balanced Use can be defined as the value of the offer use (vk / pk) that will permit equilibrate the total unit cost for the production or generation of a seat.kilometer (pk) with the overall unit average income per carried passenger.kilometer (vk).

 

Several arithmetical expressions are set to carry out the Balanced Use concept as a function of different characteristic magnitudes of the commercial, economic and technical activity of the railway passenger operator.

 

Some threshold values for the Balanced Use and for its comparison with real Use are suggested as basis for applying decision criteria to identify actions that lead to a decrease in the value of the Balanced Use, or a reduction in the difference between the Balanced Use and real Use.

 

Is explored through a sensitivity analysis, the effect of changes in different characteristic magnitudes of the commercial, economic and technical activity of the railway passenger operator on the variation of the Balanced Use values. This sensitivity analysis permits to identify the more effective actions in terms of decreasing the value of the Balanced Use. 

 

Is clearly shown the more than linear effect on the variation of the values of Balanced Use that the change in the coefficient representing the weight of fixed costs over the total cost, as its initial value is greater.