Stakeholder Perspectives on ?mproving Rail Freight Services on the Eve of Rail Market Liberalization: An Analysis of the Turkish Rail Freight Market

摘要

Turkish rail market will be liberalized in the near future in order to comply with EU Directives. Before liberalization, the traditional rail operator, TCDD, needs to recognize and adequately understand the perceptions of different stakeholders and their problem identification with respect to rail freight services. This paper focuses on the perceptions of a group of stakeholders on how rail freight services can be improved, the services desired by customers and the facilities required for rail transport to provide such service. This survey has been conducted by interviewing institutional stakeholders and railway freight companies (both manufacturers and forwarders) and was completed with a focus group meeting to test proposals from the clients. Empirical data was gathered by utilizing semi-structured interviews. This paper reports the findings of the first stage of the research, where a better understanding of the perspectives of the participants and the issues that must be dealt before liberalization of rail freight market were produced. This research has been carried out with the finance of the World Bank.