Regionalization of regional railways passenger transport : the intervention of federal issues in transport economics A French-German perspective[Régionalisation du transport ferroviaire régional de voyageurs : l’intrusion des problématiques fédérales dans l’économie des transports Une perspective franco-allemande]

Regional railways passenger transport is experiencing today a new expansion. This revival is based on new developments in the economic theory of fiscal federalism, dealing with decentralization mechanisms and efficiency of public activities in a multi-level government structure. Regionalization can then appear as an adapted answer to today's issue of monopolistic regulation of railways transport. German experiences are, from this point of view, interesting because they show, unlike the British choices, an integration and a modernization of railways activities in a bottom up approach. They thus aim at transparency, controlled opening to competition and a reorganization of public transports institutions around co-operative choices. On the contrary, French choices are made more cautiously, by testing out in six Regions a transfer of competencies from the S.N.C.F. and the State to the Regions. But by refusing to investigate institutional issues such as the monopoly of the S.N.C.F. and the institutional splitting up of the transport competency, the French test on regionalization appears more like an attempt in dealing with scarcity than an effort towards optimizing.