How to define, measure, and improve the performance of the European railway system?

Abstract

The European Rail Sector has room for improvements with regard to its performance. But how exactly are the railways performing and how are they improving? Key Performance Indicators are a popular tool to measure and benchmark the performance of an organisation. They are used on the company management level but increasingly also as a regulatory tool: most prominently the Single European Sky imposed a performance regime to improve the performance of the European Air Navigation Service Providers – the ‘infrastructure managers’ of the air. Is this applicable to railways? Not so fast is the short answer. The 12th Florence Rail Forum discussed where we stand in terms of measuring and comparing the performance of the European railways. The controversial discussion in which the European Commission, regulators, operators and interest groups took part showed that everyone agrees on the need to improve performance but not necessarily on what performance actually means and how it could be measured.