• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.81-94
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• 2008

Recently, most of countries have been adopting the policies that aim to deal with the Problems of road congestion, environmental problems and the decreasing the volume of rall. A vital important subject is the reform of railways. Actually, the reform of railways has been carried out in various kind of ways, however the most epoch-making policy has been privatization of railways. Historically, Japan made the first step when it carried out regional privatization, unifying the infrastructure and operation. It created a 6 passenger enterprises and 1 freight enterprise. Meanwhile, in the case of the UK, discussion about rail privatization started the middle of 1980 and was implemented in 1994. It was implemented according to a functional division based on a separation of infrastructure and operation, creating a lot of different enterprises. With regard to the UK and Japan, there have been some debates about the methods of privatization, in particular, some scholars suggest that the rail accidents in the UK are a result of division of the infrastructure and operation. In addition to, some insist that the accident which occurred on 27th April 2005 at Hukujiyama in Japan was also attributable to the emphasis on profitable management. This paper examines the process and outcomes of rail privatization between the UK and Japan, especially focusing on different methods of privatization. This paper may provide some lessens for rail privatization policy. First, the rail privatization policy needs a enough time to complete the scheme. Second it is require to participate in the consumer, mass communication and rail of ncers who are involved the operation. Third, it is essential to have a huge investment, high technology and strong organization to drive.