Competition in Swedish passenger railway: Entry in an open access market and its effect on prices

Abstract

The Swedish market for passenger railway services has been open to competition since the year 2010. Although minor entries have been made since this date, the incumbent SJ only faced substantial competition on the tracks when MTR entered the Stockholm-Gothenburg line in March 2015. Using unique Swedish ticket price data from operators' websites, this paper investigates what effects this entry has had on market prices.The results show that the incumbent's prices decreased by 12.6 percent on average between March 2015 and June 2016. The price level of the competitor is well below the average price that was offered in the pre-entry period. Further, the largest price reduction, in percentage terms, was found on tickets booked 13 days before departure date. Finally, the observed price decrease in the paper is most likely at a short-run equilibrium, or an ongoing process, implying that prices might adjust further in the long-run.