Tony Lodge, of the Centre for Policy Studies, is a long-standing and passionate advocate for the power of competition to encourage innovation, efficiency and better customer service on Britain’s railways.

In this response to his Beesley lecture, I described how the ORR has acted on its competition duty through addressing issues in the freight container market (a case under the 1998 Competition Act), assessing the impact of orders to promote competition in the rolling stock market; reviewing the market for ticket retail, and applying comparative regulation across the geographic routes of Network Rail.

It also sets out how ORR has considered applications for ‘open access’ train services competing with franchised train operators, which have brought more choice and helped improve customer satisfaction.  Finally, it explains the work ORR is doing to develop reforms which could allow more open access competition to the advantage of rail users, while mitigating any potential revenue downsides for government.

You can read the full talk here: http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/20245/promoting-competition-on-britains-railways-2015-10-29.pdf