GERMANY: In a ruling issued on October 7, a federal administrative court in Köln has rejected an earlier regulatory measure intended to facilitate market entry by private operators to the long-distance passenger rail market. The ruling is a potential setback to Italian open access operator NTV-Italo’s hopes of launching services in Germany in 2028. The court ruled that federal networks agency Bundesnetzagentur did not have sufficient legal basis to require infrastructure manager DB InfraGO to reserve a proportion of available train paths for competitors to incumbent Deutsche Bahn. The case was heard under expedited proceedings, with the decision reportedly not subject to appeal. The clause, introduced by the regulator in July 2026, proposed the introduction of a competition clause, which would limit any single operator to between 60% and 75% of long-distance train paths on congested routes, but only under narrowly defined circumstances. Since DB Fernverkehr is the incumbent and dominant market player in the German inter-city segment, the remaining capacity would effectively have been available to competing operators. The measure was intended to apply to the 2028 timetable, for which capacity allocation preparations take place in 2027. The court found that neither German nor EU railway legislation provided a sufficient basis for imposing this type of capacity restriction. It also questioned whether the measure, given its limited geographical, temporal and substantive scope, would provide the long-term certainty required to support investment in new services. The ruling also overturned a separate requirement concerning access to DB station lounges, finding that their catering, resting and working facilities did not serve a sufficiently railway-specific operational purpose to justify treating them as railway service facilities. The decision comes as Italo prepares to invest approximately €3.6bn in entering the German market, with operations planned from 2028 using a fleet of high speed trains on order from Siemens Mobility. Italo stands to gain as regulator seeks changes to DB InfraGO path allocation processes
GERMANY: In a ruling issued on October 7, a federal administrative court in Köln has rejected an earlier regulatory measure intended to facilitate market entry by private operators to the long-distance passenger rail market. The ruling is a potential setback to Italian open access operator NTV-Italo’s hopes of launching services in Germany in 2028.
The court ruled that federal networks agency Bundesnetzagentur did not have sufficient legal basis to require infrastructure manager DB InfraGO to reserve a proportion of available train paths for competitors to incumbent Deutsche Bahn.
The case was heard under expedited proceedings, with the decision reportedly not subject to appeal. The clause, introduced by the regulator in July 2026, proposed the introduction of a competition clause, which would limit any single operator to between 60% and 75% of long-distance train paths on congested routes, but only under narrowly defined circumstances.
Since DB Fernverkehr is the incumbent and dominant market player in the German inter-city segment, the remaining capacity would effectively have been available to competing operators.
The measure was intended to apply to the 2028 timetable, for which capacity allocation preparations take place in 2027.
The court found that neither German nor EU railway legislation provided a sufficient basis for imposing this type of capacity restriction. It also questioned whether the measure, given its limited geographical, temporal and substantive scope, would provide the long-term certainty required to support investment in new services.
The ruling also overturned a separate requirement concerning access to DB station lounges, finding that their catering, resting and working facilities did not serve a sufficiently railway-specific operational purpose to justify treating them as railway service facilities.
The decision comes as Italo prepares to invest approximately €3.6bn in entering the German market, with operations planned from 2028 using a fleet of high speed trains on order from Siemens Mobility.
Italo stands to gain as regulator seeks changes to DB InfraGO path allocation processes
Source: Railway Gazette
