A European Court of Justice ruling has forced Germany to reform its track access charge (TAC) system. Berlin wants to introduce new rules in 2027, but has failed to present a reform plan until now. The rail freight industry is getting impatient.
Germany is running quite late when it comes to presenting its TAC reform plans. If it really wants to implement a new system next year, it should have some sort of framework ready by now.
“Given how late in the year it is now, we don’t see how a major reform could still be implemented”, rail freight association Die Güterbahnen tells RailFreight.com. It is concerned that Germany is only aiming for “cosmetic changes”.
The idea is that Berlin should postpone this by a couple of months, rather than aiming for an early 2027 implementation. The new system could take effect during the 2028 timetable year. This should give transport minister Patrick Schieder enough time to come up with the necessary reforms in consultation with the freight industry, says Die Güterbahnen.
Rail freight does the ministry’s work
Die Güterbahnen is offering a “helping hand” to the minister. It launched a website detailing everything that is wrong with the current TAC system and how to improve it.
In short, the freight industry has five items on its wishlist. A five-year price freeze tops the list. This should offer the rail companies some predictability as to what they will need to pay in the next few years and prevent prices from skyrocketing. Any price increase during the five-year period should come from inflation corrections.
Second on the list is a switch from a full-cost to a marginal-cost system. Currently, infrastructure manager DB InfraGO works with a full-cost system, where rail companies pay for all fixed and variable costs, as well as a legally enshrined profit margin. The rail freight industry would rather work with a marginal-cost system, where they only pay for the added cost of each additional train that runs (planning, wear-and-tear, signalling costs).
Such a marginal-cost system would change the pricing logic from “what can railway undertakings pay at most?” to “what can the maximum price be while still attracting freight to rail?”, says Die Güterbahnen.
10% efficiency premium
In line with this idea, the rail freight association proposes an efficiency premium to be added to the track access charges. This could be around 10% of the marginal costs and incentivise DB InfraGO to sell as many train path slots as possible. It should replace the legally guaranteed profit margin and push the infrastructure manager to perform.
If there are disruptions and railway undertakings are entitled to compensation, then those payments should also come from the efficiency premium, rather than from higher TACs. “This creates a direct economic incentive to sustainably improve the quality of the infrastructure and operational processes”, says Die Güterbahnen.
Lastly, Die Güterbahnen wants a new rail funding system. Instead of renegotiating current schemes (infrastructure and TAC subsidies), Germany should come up with a multiannual pool that funds DB InfraGO’s network.