1.Member States shall establish a charging framework while respecting the management independence laid down in Article 4 of Directive 91/440/EEC.
Subject to the said condition of management independence, Member States shall also establish specific charging rules or delegate such powers to the infrastructure manager. The determination of the charge for the use of infrastructure and the collection of this charge shall be performed by the infrastructure manager.
2.Where the infrastructure manager, in its legal form, organisation or decision-making functions, is not independent of any railway undertaking, the functions, described in this chapter, other than collecting the charges shall be performed by a charging body that is independent in its legal form, organisation and decision-making from any railway undertaking.
3.Infrastructure managers shall cooperate to achieve the efficient operation of train services which cross more than one infrastructure network. They shall in particular aim to guarantee the optimum competitiveness of international rail freight and ensure the efficient utilisation of the Trans-European Rail Freight Network. They may establish such joint organisations as are appropriate to enable this to take place. Any cooperation or joint organisation shall be bound by the rules set out in this Directive.
4.Except where specific arrangements are made under Article 8(2), infrastructure managers shall ensure that the charging scheme in use is based on the same principles over the whole of their network.
5.Infrastructure managers shall ensure that the application of the charging scheme results in equivalent and non-discriminatory charges for different railway undertakings that perform services of equivalent nature in a similar part of the market and that the charges actually applied comply with the rules laid down in the network statement.
6.An infrastructure manager or charging body shall respect the commercial confidentiality of information provided to it by applicants.
1.Railway undertakings shall, on a non-discriminatory basis, be entitled to the minimum access package and track access to service facilities that are described in Annex II. The supply of services referred to in Annex II, point 2 shall be provided in a non-discriminatory manner and requests by railway undertakings may only be rejected if viable alternatives under market conditions exist. If the services are not offered by one infrastructure manager, the provider of the ‘main infrastructure’ shall use all reasonable endeavours to facilitate the provision of these services.
2.Where the infrastructure manager offers any of the range of services described in Annex II, point 3 as additional services he shall supply them upon request to a railway undertaking.
3.Railway undertakings may request a further range of ancillary services, listed in Annex II, point 4 from the infrastructure manager or from other suppliers. The infrastructure manager is not obliged to supply these services.
1.Member States shall lay down conditions, including where appropriate advance payments, to ensure that, under normal business conditions and over a reasonable time period, the accounts of an infrastructure manager shall at least balance income from infrastructure charges, surpluses from other commercial activities and State funding on the one hand, and infrastructure expenditure on the other.
Without prejudice to the possible long-term aim of user cover of infrastructure costs for all modes of transport on the basis of fair, non-discriminatory competition between the various modes, where rail transport is able to compete with other modes of transport, within the charging framework of Articles 7 and 8, a Member State may require the infrastructure manager to balance his accounts without State funding.
2.Infrastructure managers shall, with due regard to safety and to maintaining and improving the quality of the infrastructure service, be provided with incentives to reduce the costs of provision of infrastructure and the level of access charges.
3.Member States shall ensure that the provision set out in paragraph 2 is implemented, either through a contractual agreement between the competent authority and infrastructure manager covering a period of not less than three years which provides for State funding or through the establishment of appropriate regulatory measures with adequate powers.
4.Where a contractual agreement exists, the terms of the contract and the structure of the payments agreed to provide funding to the infrastructure manager shall be agreed in advance to cover the whole of the contract period.
5.A method for apportioning costs shall be established. Member States may require prior approval. This method should be updated from time to time to the best international practice.
1.Charges for the use of railway infrastructure shall be paid to the infrastructure manager and used to fund his business.
2.Member States may require the infrastructure manager to provide all necessary information on the charges imposed. The infrastructure manager must, in this regard, be able to justify that infrastructure charges actually invoiced to each operator, pursuant to Articles 4 to 12, comply with the methodology, rules, and where applicable, scales laid down in the network statement.
3.Without prejudice to paragraphs 4 or 5 or to Article 8, the charges for the minimum access package and track access to service facilities shall be set at the cost that is directly incurred as a result of operating the train service.
4.The infrastructure charge may include a charge which reflects the scarcity of capacity of the identifiable segment of the infrastructure during periods of congestion.
5.The infrastructure charge may be modified to take account of the cost of the environmental effects caused by the operation of the train. Such a modification shall be differentiated according to the magnitude of the effect caused.
Charging of environmental costs which results in an increase in the overall revenue accruing to the infrastructure manager shall however be allowed only if such charging is applied at a comparable level to competing modes of transport.
In the absence of any comparable level of charging of environmental costs in other competing modes of transport, such modification shall not result in any overall change in revenue to the infrastructure manager. If a comparable level of charging of environmental costs has been introduced for rail and competing modes of transport and that generates additional revenue, it shall be for Member States to decide how the revenue shall be used.
6.To avoid undesirable disproportionate fluctuations, the charges referred to in paragraphs 3, 4 and 5 may be averaged over a reasonable spread of train services and times. Nevertheless, the relative magnitudes of the infrastructure charges shall be related to the costs attributable to the services.
7.The supply of services referred to in Annex II, point 2, shall not be covered by this Article. Without prejudice to the foregoing, account shall be taken, in setting the prices for the services set out in Annex II, point 2, of the competitive situation of rail transport.
8.Where services listed in Annex II, points 3 and 4 as additional and ancillary services are offered only by one supplier the charge imposed for such a service shall relate to the cost of providing it, calculated on the basis of the actual level of use.
9.Charges may be levied for capacity used for the purpose of infrastructure maintenance. Such charges shall not exceed the net revenue loss to the infrastructure manager caused by the maintenance.
1.In order to obtain full recovery of the costs incurred by the infrastructure manager a Member State may, if the market can bear this, levy mark-ups on the basis of efficient, transparent and non-discriminatory principles, while guaranteeing optimum competitiveness in particular of international rail freight. The charging system shall respect the productivity increases achieved by railway undertakings.
The level of charges must not, however, exclude the use of infrastructure by market segments which can pay at least the cost that is directly incurred as a result of operating the railway service, plus a rate of return which the market can bear.
2.For specific investment projects, in the future, or that have been completed not more than 15 years before the entry into force of this Directive, the infrastructure manager may set or continue to set higher charges on the basis of the long-term costs of such projects if they increase efficiency and/or cost-effectiveness and could not otherwise be or have been undertaken. Such a charging arrangement may also incorporate agreements on the sharing of the risk associated with new investments.
3.To prevent discrimination, it shall be ensured that any given infrastructure manager's average and marginal charges for equivalent uses of his infrastructure are comparable and that comparable services in the same market segment are subject to the same charges. The infrastructure manager shall show in the network statement that the charging system meets these requirements in so far as this can be done without disclosing confidential business information.
4.If an infrastructure manager intends to modify the essential elements of the charging system referred to in paragraph 1, it shall make them public at least three months in advance.
1.Without prejudice to Articles 81, 82, 86 and 87 of the Treaty and notwithstanding Article 7(3) of this Directive, any discount on the charges levied on a railway undertaking by the infrastructure manager, for any service, shall comply with the criteria set out in this Article.
2.With the exception of paragraph 3, discounts shall be limited to the actual saving of the administrative cost to the infrastructure manager. In determining the level of discount, no account may be taken of cost savings already internalised in the charge levied.
3.Infrastructure managers may introduce schemes available to all users of the infrastructure, for specified traffic flows, granting time limited discounts to encourage the development of new rail services, or discounts encouraging the use of considerably underutilised lines.
4.Discounts may relate only to charges levied for a specified infrastructure section.
5.Similar discount schemes shall apply for similar services.
1.Member States may put in place a time-limited compensation scheme for the use of railway infrastructure for the demonstrably unpaid environmental, accident and infrastructure costs of competing transport modes in so far as these costs exceed the equivalent costs of rail.
2.Where an operator receiving compensation enjoys an exclusive right, the compensation must be accompanied by comparable benefits to users.
3.The methodology used and calculations performed must be publicly available. It shall in particular be possible to demonstrate the specific uncharged costs of the competing transport infrastructure that are avoided and to ensure that the scheme is granted on non-discriminatory terms to undertakings.
4.Member States shall ensure that such a scheme is compatible with Articles 73, 87 and 88 of the Treaty.
1.Infrastructure charging schemes shall through a performance scheme encourage railway undertakings and the infrastructure manager to minimise disruption and improve the performance of the railway network. This may include penalties for actions which disrupt the operation of the network, compensation for undertakings which suffer from disruption and bonuses that reward better than planned performance.
2.The basic principles of the performance scheme shall apply throughout the network.
Infrastructure managers may levy an appropriate charge for capacity that is requested but not used. This charge shall provide incentives for efficient use of capacity.
The infrastructure manager shall always be able to inform any interested party of the infrastructure capacity which has been allocated to user railway undertakings.