Railway transport services in the age of globalization

The fall of the Berlin Wall confirmed the victory of the capitalist system over the communist system. The emergence and evolution of globalization have already produced significant changes in the world economy. In the age of globalization, the free movement of people and goods requires the finding of high-quality transport solutions all over the world. In order to offer a high level of mobility and to ensuring the competitiveness of the European economy, the European Union (EU) has grounded its own transport policy, based on some major objectives. Among them, revitalizing Europe's railway is one of the most important. Railways are going to represent in the future a key transport mode for both freight and passengers in EU. Focusing on railway customers has become an imperative of the present European transport policy and that is why EU's need for high quality railway transport services has remained as important as ever. Under the globalization impact, EU decided that railways should be privatized in all of the member states. Based on a comparative analysis made between Japan and Romania, the paper shows that railways privatization can be a successful story.