Impact Assessments

In line with the requirement of Regulation (EU) 2016/796, the Agency performs ex-ante impact assessments of its recommendations and opinions forwarded to the European Commission. These follow the impact assessment methodology adopted by the Management Board and usually a standard template, which is aligned with the EC Better Regulation Guidelines. 

The Agency provides qualitative and quantitative evidence for the comparison of alternative options in order to facilitate decision making on the best suited option, taking into account the perspectives of all relevant stakeholders involved. 

Ex ante impact assessments can be retrieved as annexes to the Agency's recommendations and opinions that they accompany. Impact assessments reports may be of three types depending on the depth of economic analysis performed:

• Impact notes for very light and high-level analyses;
• Light impact assessments for thorough qualitative analyses that focus on assessing impacts on specific stakeholders group and that may follow the principles of multi-criteria analysis;
• Full impact assessments for thorough quantitative analyses that focus on monetising impacts on specific stakeholders and on the rail sector as a whole and that may follow the principles of cost-benefit analyses;