| Since the China Railway has separated government functions from enterprise in 2013,relevant government authorities in China have issued relevant documents,requiring the development of an open,transparent,fair and reasonable system for the settlement of costs,and distribution of revenues for the use of railway network infrastructure to ensure the fair and reasonable allocation of railway network resources,promote the diversification of operators in railway transport business,moderate competition and deepen the reform of railway investment and financing system.The former Ministry of Railways implemented the "carrier revenue allocation" system for passenger transport services in 2005,and the former China Railway Corporation implemented the "carrier revenue allocation" system for freight transport services in 2018,starting a shift from "national railway unified internal revenue allocation system" to "multi-operator railway access charges system".This raises the economic theoretical and practical issue about the China’s railway access charges regulation.At present,the theoretical research on access charge in the network infrastructure industry,represented by the telecommunications industry,has been relatively wellstudied,while the research on access charge in the railway network is relatively backward.In the past 20 years or so,experts and scholars from the European countries have conducted a lot of research on the theoretical and practical issues of access charges for railway network,mainly focused on the measurement of costs and prices of railway network and its impact.However,most of the relevant researches in China focus on the specific application of railway network usage fees from the perspective of financial allocation,with the railway reform,the research on access pricing is in the transition stage from practical operation to theoretical analysis.Based on the practice and current literature research,the following research questions are proposed:(1)Does the access pricing of China’s railway network need to be regulated(who sets the access charges)?(2)How to regulate the access charges of China’s railway network(how to set the access charges)?Based on a review of China’s previous railway revenue allocation methods and the current "carrier revenue allocation" system,typical lines such as the Beijing-Shanghai HSR,the new Baotou-Shenmu railway and Shenhua railway were selected to analyze the practice of China’s railway passenger and freight access charge policy.The research found that there are many problems worthy of improvement and optimization in the railway access pricing rules and policies:(1)The main body of access pricing is dominated by the railway sector,and the real upper regulator has not yet formed;(2)The standards for setting the level and structure of access pricing are formulated within the railway sector,and the higher-level law that has not yet been raised,which lacks transparency in terms of formulation basis,adjustment process and implementation,and discriminates against non-national railway operators for access and pricing;(3)Equal,scientific and effective communication and consultation mechanisms have not been established between joint-venture railways,local railways and national railways,and there is also a lack of third-party intervention and adjudication mechanisms. With the basic theories of regulatory economics and transportation economics,by using methods of game models and international case comparisons,this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework for the regulation of railway network access pricing.And combined with the organizational model that China’s railway has emerged and may adopt in the future,this paper discusses the access charge under the separation of operation and infrastructure,the one-way access charge under the integration of operation and infrastructure,and the two-way access charge under the integration of operation and infrastructure.The study found that due to railway network monopoly issues,information asymmetry and transaction cost issues,externalities and public welfare issues,the access pricing in the three cases all requires government regulation,but the degree of regulation and regulation method are different,which provides theoretical and international experience support for China’s railway network access pricing regulation.Finally,taking into account the China’s national conditions and railway conditions,an analysis of China’s railway network access charge was conducted,and it was concluded as follow:(1)China’s railway network access charge should be shifted from the current internal pricing of national railways to government-regulated pricing;(2)according to the technical and economic characteristics and transport demand of different routes/regions,differential pricing in the form of "marginal cost-plus pricing" should be adopted,and the extent of price increase should base on the elasticity of demand in different market segments in accordance with the Ramsay pricing principle;(3)incentives for railway network efficiency and network quality,as well as incentives for effective utilization of road network transport capacity,should be considered;(4)the structure of network access charge should be based on a "two-part" pricing system;(5)from the principle of optimal social welfare,governments at all levels should provide effective financial subsidies to the high-speed railway network with strong public welfare and large positive externalities.The main innovations of this paper are:(1)Different from the previous research mode of internal allocation of railway transport revenue,this paper proposes a logical explanation framework of railway network access pricing,such as who sets the price and how to set the price,based on the network industry regulation theory from the perspective of regulation.The framework enriches the theoretical content of network industry access pricing and provides theoretical support for China’s railway network access pricing regulation;(2)Proposed and analyzed,three models of railway network access charge by situation using the game model: access charge under the "vertical separation" condition,one-way access charge under the "vertical integration" condition and two-way access charge under the " vertical integration " condition,providing a certain theoretical support for the railway network access pricing regulation under different organizational models.(3)According to the pricing principle of "marginal cost plus",the basis of classification pricing is proposed,and the case calculation is carried out with the high-speed railway network access pricing as the object,which provides a useful reference for optimizing the allocation of China’s high-speed railway network resources. |
