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Travellers’ preferences for high-speed rail services: a kick-off study
... Italy anticipated this process in 2012 with Italo Treno, an Italian brand-new passenger rail company operating primarily on domestic high-speed routes. Italo Treno started challenging the historical and government-owned carrier, Trenitalia, and its high-speed brand, Frecciarossa (Catenazzo, 2022). Since then, competition has gradually become a reality also in other EU countries. ...
... The introduction of competition has led to a drastic reduction in prices, increased frequency of services and, therefore, a significant increase in passenger volume (Montero-Pascual, Finger, and Kupfer, 2016, p. 6). Yet, unlike the case of Italy described in Catenazzo (2022), where the newcomer has a strong Italian identity and operates only domestic services, various domestic and international players increasingly compete on the same routes in other EU countries. The case of France is particularly interesting as international competition applies to domestic services. ...
... Harcar and Karadag, 2022;Munoz and Laniado, 2021. A preliminary study on travellers' choice of high-speed rail services in Italy exhibits that travellers choose a high-speed rail ticket merely on price and the length of the trip (p. 2), neglecting the train operating company (Catenazzo, 2022). In Italy, two Italian players have been competing for over ten years on domestic routes only; further works should also examine the country-of-origin effect on cross-border and international services (Catenazzo, 2022, p. 2). ...
This study replicates and extends in France an exploratory study run in Italy on travellers’ choice for a high-speed train service for leisure. We specifically analysed the effect of the country of origin of two train operating companies, i.e. a domestic versus a foreign carrier, and ticket price on travellers’ interest in a single high-speed train service. The results from an experimental study highlight that travellers seem not to consider either rail operator in their ticket preferences. On the other hand, ticket prices make a difference in assessing a ticket offer, but only up to a specific threshold. Above that limit, the ticket price becomes irrelevant in travellers’ eyes.
We examine key aspects of data quality for online behavioral research between selected platforms (Amazon Mechanical Turk, CloudResearch, and Prolific) and panels (Qualtrics and Dynata). To identify the key aspects of data quality, we first engaged with the behavioral research community to discover which aspects are most critical to researchers and found that these include attention, comprehension, honesty, and reliability. We then explored differences in these data quality aspects in two studies (N ~ 4000), with or without data quality filters (approval ratings). We found considerable differences between the sites, especially in comprehension, attention, and dishonesty. In Study 1 (without filters), we found that only Prolific provided high data quality on all measures. In Study 2 (with filters), we found high data quality among CloudResearch and Prolific. MTurk showed alarmingly low data quality even with data quality filters. We also found that while reputation (approval rating) did not predict data quality, frequency and purpose of usage did, especially on MTurk: the lowest data quality came from MTurk participants who report using the site as their main source of income but spend few hours on it per week. We provide a framework for future investigation into the ever-changing nature of data quality in online research, and how the evolving set of platforms and panels performs on these key aspects.
The process of European Union(EU) rail market liberalisation is now at a tipping point, with the fourth railway package approved by the European Parliament and Commission and the Member States that have to embed its mandates and provisions into their national legislation. To a large extent, this has already been achieved. The railway package is structured in two main pillars – market pillar and technical pillar – with specific objectives. My paper will focus on the market pillar, particularly on the new challenges that the liberalisation of the EU passenger rail market will generate on public service contracts in effect as of 2023. The establishment of the single European railway area requires common rules on the award of public service contracts in this sector, while taking into account the specific circumstances of each Member State. Public service contracts for public passenger transport services by rail should be awarded on the basis of a competitive tendering procedure. Procedures for competitive tendering of public service contracts should be open to all operators, should be fair and should respect the principles of transparency and non-discrimination. This paper will analyse the new legal challenges that public service contracts in railway transport will encounter and what their impact will be on the process of liberalisation or the EU passenger rail market.
Competition in the railway passenger market, technical report. Florence School of Regulation
- J Montero-Pascual
- M Finger
- D Kupfer