User charges for the railway infrastructure in Bulgaria

The proposed article has been developed as a result of a research project funded by Marie Curie Programme and performed under the Economics, Policy and Appraisal Training Site in Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds.The article presents an analysis of the current charges for the use of rail infrastructure. The results of this analysis are used to evaluate the pricing principles and approaches to charging infrastructure costs in Bulgaria. The deficiencies of the existing infrastructure charging system are discussed and appropriate measures for their overcoming are outlined.The paper gives an outline for the way ahead and suggests a model for rail infrastructure costs estimation which will be developed on the basis of the opportunities for transferability of scientific methodology for infrastructure charging assessed according to the UNITE research project performed with participation of the ITS.