Access prices for rail infrastructure

Separation of railway infrastructure, a natural monopoly, from a contestabl e train operator industry raises policy options for setting the infrastruct ure access fee and for regulation of the infrastructure supplier. Marginal cost, average cost, Ramsey prices and multipart tariff rules for ac cess fe es are assessed. Recognizing the importance of rr ain operator entry decisi ons. a single access fee per grass tonne kilometre based on a mark-lip of m arginal cost is favoured. An independent regulator and the use of price cei lings on the infrastructure supplier are proposed.