Broken rails: the privatisation of Estonian railways

Lust, Aleksander

doi:10.1080/14631377.2016.1237041

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…• simplify rail travel • stimulate competition • bring down fares Lust (2016), reported that the privatisation of monopolistic infrastructure is economically wasteful and politically divisive. In 2000-2001, Estonia sold the passenger carrier and a portion of the track to domestic businessmen posing as a British strategic investor, and the main freight carrier and most of the track to an American-led consortium.…”

Section: Russiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Indian Railways Restructuring: Private Sector Involvement, A Beginning

Dhameja

Dhameja²

2020

Indian Journal of Public Administration

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Indian Railways (IRs), the world’s fourth-largest network by size, has a route length covering approximately 68,155 km. It operates over 22,669 trains a day, sixty per cent of which are the ones transporting about 844 crore passengers and 123 crore tonnes of freight; two-third of its total revenue is from freight and only 27.3 per cent are passenger receipts. It is the eighth employer in the world employing about 1.227 people. It suffers from chronic under-investment, low-capacity augmentation, congestion, and over-utilisation, safety problems and poor-quality service, leading to poor morale, reduced efficiency, sub-optimal freight and passenger traffic, fewer financial resources; and deteriorating operating ratio. The government on the recommendations of a high-level committee suggested ways to mobilise resources and restructure the Railway Board; invited private sector companies to operate 151 trains over 100 routes by April 2023 bringing in an investment of ₹30,000 crore. The committee laid down a time frame of five years for implementation of its recommendations. The present study spread over five sections discusses observations and recommendations of the committee and suggests the outsourcing of some of its non-core functions like repair and maintenance workshops, manicuring units, washing of trains, security, and employees’ facilities like medical and education.

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Section: Russiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Indian Railways Restructuring: Private Sector Involvement, A Beginning

Dhameja

Dhameja²

2020

Indian Journal of Public Administration

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“…Examples of reforms that did ultimately not endure can be found even in big bang reformers, like Estonia, where the privatisation of the railway was reversed, as analysed in detail by Lust (2016).…”

Section: Extraordinary Politics Policy Reform and Trade Liberalisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extraordinary politics and durable reform: lessons from trade liberalisation in Estonia and Poland

Feldmann

2017

Post-Communist Economies

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This article analyses the significance of the period of extraordinary politics after the fall of communism for policy reform. It examines under what circumstances policy reforms enacted during such periods are durable by comparing trade liberalisation in Poland and Estonia in the early 1990s. The article relates this question to the historical institutionalist debate surrounding critical junctures, gradual change and the politics of stability and change. It argues that trade policy reform enacted during periods of extraordinary politics is most likely to be durable if it is associated with deeper changes in structural conditions, such as dominant ideas, interests and institutions.

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“…When it comes to infrastructural companies, one of which is the open joint stock company "RR", the theory of privatization makes it possible to estimate the risks and effects of the commercialization of the transport business, as well as the methodology of the structural reformation in the market for rail transportation and therefore, the required level of competition in this market can be supported with these facts. (Lust, 2017;Pendleton, 2003) The history of the privatization and restructuring of railways goes back decades and is connected with the global processes that can be observed in the world economy: an increase in the competition among national and global markets for goods and technologies; and the change of the technological structure, which has led to the appearance of a high-speed, intellectual infrastructure. Worldwide competition contributes to the arrival of new, alternative integrative transport projects, each of which is characterized by a large scale and ambition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Managerial Challenges in Russian Railways Privatization and Restructuring in the Context of Integration Into Global Transport Systems

Zhuravleva¹

2017

EMS

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The article describes the results of an analysis of the processes of privatization and the restructuring of railways, in the context of their inclusion in international transport projects in managerial perspective. The purpose of this study is to emphasize the totality of the rational property relationships, interrelationships and the competition between their structural elements in present-day railway transport systems, and also the influences of branch restructuring on the market effectiveness of transport services. The methodology used in this study involved building on a structural-functional approach and emphasizing the totality of the steady relationships and interrelationships between their elements and their roles relative to each other and to the global market, for the transport services as a whole in the integral transport systems. The processes involved in the optimal model formation of the industry structure were studied. The following structural elements, which are basic for evaluating the expediency of railway privatization, were evaluated: the organizational form of the business, market competition and the separation of the infrastructure and transportation functions. A conclusion was made about the absence of a connection between the structural business model and the privatization effects; namely, the investment needs of the railway infrastructure are considerably higher than the amount that is invested, the active railway memberships are evaluated based on this and the asymmetry prevents the flow of the investments necessary for the branch. The effects of an increase in the market competition in different organizational models of the market for rail transportation were also studied. As a result, a conclusion was made about the reasons for the absence of such an effect on the Russian rail freight market. In the study, it is assumed that the conclusions will be applied to the current processes of the Russian railways privatization and restructuring as a part of the Eurasian transport system infrastructure. It was proven that the basic effects of privatization and restructuring were a result of the density of the network, the openness of the market for transportation and the effectiveness of the national railways controls. It was substantiated that it is precisely the globalization of the economy that ensures the threedimensional effectiveness of global transport systems, drawing in investments through their development and improving the quality of transport services for the users.

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Broken rails: the privatisation of Estonian railways

Cited by 3 publications

References 25 publications

Indian Railways Restructuring: Private Sector Involvement, A Beginning

Indian Railways Restructuring: Private Sector Involvement, A Beginning

Extraordinary politics and durable reform: lessons from trade liberalisation in Estonia and Poland

Managerial Challenges in Russian Railways Privatization and Restructuring in the Context of Integration Into Global Transport Systems

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