The Implementation of New Public Management (NPM) Approach in European Transport Governance: Evidence from the TEN-T and Rail Freight Corridors (RFCs)

Date

2026-2-25

Author

Süloğlu, Bülent

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The European Union has undertaken a process of reform lasting decades in response to the historical inefficiency, fragmentation, and a shrinking competitiveness of European rail freight. This thesis argues that these reforms were more than infrastructural development, and were a systematic and planned implementation of the principles of NPM-marketization, decentralization, performance measurement, customer orientation, and managerial methods in the EU Transport Policy. Therefore, this study aims to analyse whether, why and how New Public Management (NPM) affected the management framework of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) and its working tool, the Rail Freight Corridors (RFCs). The study uses a qualitative multi-case study approach to conduct a systematic content analysis of major EU legislative and policy documents, such as Regulation (EU) 913/2010, Regulation (EU) 2024/1679, as well as the most significant White Papers. This is supplemented with a detailed analysis of two RFCs of strategic importance, the North Sea-Mediterranean and the Baltic-Adriatic Corridors. The thesis follows the translation of abstract NPM tenets into concrete governance practices through analysis of their implementation plans, annual reports and management structures. The institutionalization of the corridor management by the Executive and Management Boards, the creation of One-Stop-Shops, the compulsory regime of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and the introduction of professional corridor managers are all important indicators of a radical change of a traditional, state-centred, bureaucratic model to the results-oriented, networked, and managerial pattern. The success of the TEN-T project in future lies in the combination of the efficiency focus of NPM and the larger political agenda of sustainability, cohesion, and resilient infrastructure, which leads to a new model of New Public Governance. The work is of value to the literature in that it explicitly mediates the public administration theory with the empirical reality of transnational transport policy, providing critical information to both scholars and policy makers interested in the management of large-scale infrastructures in Europe.

Subject Keywords

New Public Management (NPM), Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), Rail Freight Corridors (RFC), European Union Transport Policy, Governance, Liberalization, Performance Management, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118710

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis