The process of market liberalisation is an inevitable step towards a modern and competitive market. In this process, the railway sector sees its final chance to transform the railway transport into a modern, user-oriented, and economical system. The liberalisation of the European railway sector is a long-term process of implementing European regulations and directives into national laws with the aim of reorganising national railway undertakings. The market liberalisation began with the strongholds of the European economy, such as Germany and France, followed by the expansion into other EU member states, which have, depending on the degree of liberalisation and their application of EU directives and regulations. The analysis of the organisation of railway passenger transport is dependent on the degree of the liberalisation of a certain market, and has to be observed through political and market circumstances of the states in question. In the process of liberalisation, the railway sector was forced to fundamentally change its organisational and legal structures, which were largely linear, which in turn led to the separation of railway undertakings and infrastructure managers. The passenger undertakings in the railway sector have been facing fierce competition from private companies that have optimized their business, and which have been successful in adjusting to the legal and organisational demands of the market. The model that has shown to be successful on the railway market is the consortium model. The leaders of the newly reorganised societies that are dominating the liberal European markets through concessions, acquiring new strategically relevant undertakings, are consortium Deutsche Bahn and SNCF. This paper reflects critically on the organisation of the passenger railway transport company Arriva, which has been operating within the consortium Deutsche Bahn, and provide analysis of its financial operations during its attempts to take over the multi-modal traffic market.

liberalisation; railway sector; passenger undertakings; organisation; consortium