06 November 2020

What is the best way to handle the conflicts that can appear in allocation of railway capacity after market deregulation? This is a question that Abderrahman Ait Ali has sought out to answer in his dissertation Methods for Capacity Allocation in Deregulated Railway Markets.

Abderrahman Ait Ali at a railway station
For a long time, Sweden along with many other countries had railways operating under a national monopoly with regards to passenger as well as freight traffic. In the end of the 20:th century, challenges in form of efficiency and cost problems were rising, and because of this the railway monopoly was reformed so that infrastructure management was separated from the operative train service. This separation opened up the railway as a new market where new entrants are allowed to compete, a procedure known as deregulation.

By deregulating their railways, governments aim to reduce public expenditures, increase service quality, and improve system efficiency. For this to succeed, there is still need for instruments to intervene. An important element in this context is the allocation of railway capacity.

–The previously closed internal capacity allocation, within monopolistic national railway companies, needs to be replaced with a more transparent allocation of available capacity to the different (often competing) companies in the market.. This has to be done without decreasing efficiency. This task is the main problem that I attempt to address in my thesis, says Abderrahman Ait Ali (or Abdou, as he is called).

Abdou is a PhD student in Infra Informatics within the Division of Communications and Transport Systems (KTS), Department of Science and Technology (ITN). He is also a research assistant at The Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). The public disputation will be held online on Monday November 16:th at 13:15.

More information

Latest news from LiU

Woman looking up from working at her computer.

New research centre meets challenge of longer working lives

More and more people are working later into their lives – but what happens when health fails and this leads to sick leave? A new research centre at LiU is to find solutions for returning to work later in life and for a sustainable working life.

Inside Wadströms Exploranation Laboratory

LiU takes a big leap in global sustainability ranking

Linköping University climbs almost 200 places to reach position 156 in the QS World University Rankings: Sustainability2026. The ranking measures how higher education institutions around the world contribute to sustainability.

The shape of the cell nucleus influences cancer treatment

Cancer cells with a cell nucleus that is easily deformed are more sensitive to drugs that damage DNA, shows a new study. The results may also explain why combining certain cancer drugs can produce the opposite of the intended effect.