Some Aspects of Public Decision-Making in Goods Rail Transport

Abstract

Albanian Railways in the last two decades has experienced a fierce competition of the road transport, which has constantly taken parts in its transport market. Being a railway of a small country will modest freight and passenger traffic volumes, its survival depends on a political decision that has to be taken by albanian government. Tha paper deals with the possibility of the coming back to rail of chrome ore, gravel and fuel transport. These transports are permanent part of rail transport, but about a decade ago left the railway. The paper purpose is not to analyze removal causes of chrome ore, gravel and fuel transport by rail, but to explain the importance of time line concept to the return of these transports volume again in railway. Taking into account the social costs in the form of environmental pollution and roads blocking caused by road vehicles, in the material presented propozes the idea of a cost-benefit analysis. This analysis should be developed in order to justify a public decision to increase the rail volume by returning the goods mentioned above in the railways. The paper develops the idea that decision-making by private viewpoint of transport oprators, has not the necessary elements for solving the blocking roads and environmental pollution problem, so should not be taken into consideration for the development of transport policies in urban areas. For this purpose must be used a cost-benefit analysis to pave the way for an integrated transport or a decision making in favor of the public interest.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n9p692