The dictum to reform the Regulatory Law on Railroad Service, approved in general by the full House of Representatives, has generated intense debate among public and private actors, which provide facts, figures and divergent opinions to support their points of views.

With the changes and additions to the various provisions to the Regulatory Law on Railroad Service, which is in force since December 1995, new powers to the Mexican Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (SCT), which will ensure the allocation of interconnections in granted railways as they are means of communication, and to establish conditions and considerations in cases where dealers fail to reach an agreement.

According to information from the Chamber of Deputies, this dependence will also establish base rate regulation standards "in the absence of effective competition." The SCT must also promote "increase opportunities for new entrants or competition in rail infrastructure, to end the territorial exclusivity which railroad licensees currently enjoy." Therefore, anticompetitive exercise of territorial exclusivity is replaced by the opening of the market.

The dictum establishes new grounds for the revocation of licenses or permits, including within it those which have executed or omitted actions that prevent or restrict the use of terminal interconnection services, rights of way, drag, or which prevent pathways to function as continuous communication routes.

Also, those who do not maintain the track according to the established regulations or official Mexican standards will be immediately revoked. The grant to exercise territorial exclusivity alleging anticompetitive practices was also revoked.

What the approval of the bill seeks is:

To ensure the interconnection of railways;

To allow private investment for the construction of new lines and bid new routes that complement and raise the in tramodal rail competition;

To end the territorial exclusivity of dealers;

Set base price regulation of freight transport;

To revoke licenses for engaging in anti-competitive practices, such as preventing and limiting the use of inter connection and terminal services or for preventing pathways to function as continuous communication routes;

To revoke concessions for the omission in the mainte nance of the railways under the official Mexican standards and rules, and repeated charging rates not registered with the Mexican Secretariat of Communications and Transport;

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