2019年经济学人 英国铁路(5)（在线收听）

On shorter lines, the open-access approach is harder to pull off. Busy commuter routes have such tightly packed services that arranging a timetable around several companies would be a recipe for chaos. So an alternative approach is to grant concessions in which a single operator signs a contract to run all services on a line, and sometimes to maintain the track as well. London’s Docklands Light Railway, which has the happiest rail passengers in the capital, is run like this by Keolis, a French firm. Three of Britain’s four most punctual rail firms are concessions.

在更短的线路上，开放访问方法更难实现。繁忙的通勤线路上的服务是如此的紧凑，以至于在几个公司之间安排一个时间表将会导致混乱。因此，另一种方法是给予特许，由一个运营商签订合同，在一条线路上运行所有的服务，有时也要维护线路。伦敦的Docklands轻轨是首都最幸福的铁路，由一家法国公司Keolis运营。英国最守时的四家铁路公司中有三家是特许经营。

Granting concessions doesn’t give passengers a choice about how they travel. Yet an element of competition can be introduced by re-opening alternative lines that were closed half a century ago. In 2016 Chiltern Railways opened a London-Oxford line that had been closed by British Rail in the 1960s, when rail use was in decline. Within a few months the incumbent on a rival line, GWR, cut ticket prices and introduced free Wi-Fi. Some have proposed reopening a 40-mile stretch of the Great Central Railway between Aylesbury and Rugby to provide competition for the West Coast mainline between London and the north.

给予优惠并不能让乘客选择如何出行。然而，通过重新开放半个世纪前关闭的替代线路，可以引入竞争的元素。2016年，奇尔顿铁路公司开通了一条伦敦至牛津的铁路线。上世纪60年代，当铁路使用量下降时，英国铁路公司关闭了这条铁路线。几个月后，竞争对手GWR公司降低了票价，并推出了免费Wi-Fi。一些人提议重新开放艾尔斯伯里和拉格比之间长达40英里的中央铁路，为伦敦和北部之间的西海岸干线提供竞争。

There may be little case for turning back the clock to the 1980s, before privatisation. But going back even further, to the days when passengers had a real choice of which line to take, is a promising alternative.

或许没有什么理由让时光倒流到私有化之前的上世纪80年代。但再往前追溯，回到乘客可以真正选择乘坐哪条线路的年代，这是一个很有前途的选择。