Open Access (Infrastructure)

Open Access (Infrastructure) is infrastructure such as railways were clients other than the owners can use it albeit for a fee.

Most railways are inherently open access and operate as common carriers.

Railways within say a steel works are private and not available to outsiders, although it is not clear why outsiders would want access to the confines of a steelworks.

It that steelworks had a port or a railway to a distant mine, then outsiders might want access to those to save having to incurr a possibly large cost of building their own facility.

Pilbara Railways

In the northwest of Western Australia, two large mining companies are trying to deny access to other albeit small players. Strictly speaking, when these mines started in the 1960s, they were supposed to make their infrastructure available to other players, but since this has not actually happened until recently, it was a moot point. [ The Australian 11 June 2008, p31 ]

In the same region, the Fortescue Metals Group railway has been set up for open access for a fee.

Marconi

Marconi was a pioneer of long distance radio communication, which was particularly useful for ships at sea. Marconi was very protective about its costly infrastructure and refused - except for emergencies - to allow other radio companies to share its infrastructure. Even if the message sender was royalty, as in the Deutschland incident of 1902, they continued to refuse access.

Since radio communication was so new, it preceded laws, regulations and licences, which might otherwise imposed conditions to open infrastructure to other players.

Fees

A player seeking access to infrastructure would expect to pay several fees of a capital and operating kind. Hopefully the cost of this is less than having to built separate infrastrucure.

Public Interest

It is in the public interest that access disputes be resolved in an efficience way, so that for example, profits are maximised and therefore income tax on those profits is also maximised.

Monopolies

The potential for monopoly infrastructure to charge high fees and provide poor service has long been recognised. Monopolies are often ineviatable because they can be too expensive for two. To tame the monopoly beast, governments have often imposed conditions, in exchange for approval of the project and for the granting of useful powers such as land resumption. Thus a canal might have its rates regulated, and be forbidden to operate canal boats on its own waters.

Trackage rights

Where there are many separate railways and one railway wishes to run trains off their own tracks onto the tracks of another, they may seek Trackage rights from the other railway(s). This can be done by voluntary aggreement, or by compulsary order of a regulator. In time of flood and accident which puts a line out of order, compulsary trackage rights may be ordered in the public interest to keep traffic flowing, assuming that alternate routes exist.

References