Railway performance—how does Britain compare?

Abstract

Given the major changes that have occurred to the organization of Britain's railways during 1994, this seems an appropriate time to compare their performance with those of the rest of western Europe. This article reports on work which repeated the major comparative study carried out by the authors in 1979. At that time, British Rail had relatively high labour productivity and a high degree of cost coverage, but high prices, low train loads and a low’ market share. In general these characteristics remain the case, with a further major improvement in productivity and financial performance in the 1980s, but a faster loss of market share than elsewhere in western Europe.