Consultation on ORR's draft guidance on the Economic Equilibrium Test (EET)

Body

Consultation conclusions

EU legislation has focused on opening up the European rail market and promoting competition in passenger rail markets. There are a number of protections within EU legislation to support this, including an overarching requirement that access to the network is granted in a fair and transparent manner. However, EU legislation also sets out limited circumstances where access to infrastructure can be denied. This includes the circumstance where there is evidence that there would be a substantial negative impact on the economic equilibrium of a public service contract, in the UK usually a franchise or concession agreement, resulting from a new open access service.

A new EU Implementing Regulation which applies from 1 January 2019 sets out how this limitation should be approached. It describes an “economic equilibrium test” which ORR, as independent regulator, must, when requested, carry out in reaching a decision on whether to approve certain open access applications.

We consulted on our guidance which sets out how we plan to administer the test between 3 December 2018 and 14 January 2019.

Conclusions documents

Consultation responses
27 March 2019

Conclusions letter
27 March 2019

Finalised guidance on the Economic Equilibrium Test
27 March 2019

December 2018 consultation

Date published: 3 December 2018
Closing date: 14 January 2019

EU legislation has focused on opening up the European rail market and promoting competition in passenger rail markets. There are a number of protections within EU legislation to support this, including an overarching requirement that access to the network is granted in a fair and transparent manner. However, EU legislation also sets out limited circumstances where access to infrastructure can be denied. This includes the circumstance where there is evidence that there would be a substantial negative impact on the economic equilibrium of a public service contract, in the UK usually a franchise or concession agreement, resulting from a new open access service.

A new EU Implementing Regulation which applies from 1 January 2019 sets out how this limitation should be approached. It describes an “economic equilibrium test” which ORR, as independent regulator, must, when requested, carry out in reaching a decision on whether to approve certain open access applications.

We have consulted on our guidance which sets out how we plan to administer the test.

Consultation document

Further information