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Definitions For the purpose of this Regulation:

(a) ‘public passenger transport’ means passenger transport services of general economic interest provided to the public on a non-discriminatory and continuous basis;

(b) ‘competent authority’ means any public authority or group of public authorities of a Member State or Member States which has the power to intervene in public passenger transport in a given geographical area or any body vested with such authority;

(c) ‘competent local authority’ means any competent authority whose geographical area of competence is not national;

(d) ‘public service operator’ means any public or private undertaking or group of such undertakings which operates public passenger transport services or any public body which provides public passenger transport services;

(e) ‘public service obligation’ means a requirement defined or determined by a competent authority in order to ensure public passenger transport services in the general interest that an operator, if it were considering its own commercial interests, would not assume or would not assume to the same extent or under the same conditions without reward;

(f) ‘exclusive right’ means a right entitling a public service operator to operate certain public passenger transport services on a particular route or network or in a particular area, to the exclusion of any other such operator;

(g) ‘public service compensation’ means any benefit, particularly financial, granted directly or indirectly by a competent authority from public funds during the period of implementation of a public service obligation or in connection with that period;

(h) ‘direct award’ means the award of a public service contract to a given public service operator without any prior competitive tendering procedure;

(i) ‘public service contract’ means one or more legally binding acts confirming the agreement between a competent authority and a public service operator to entrust to that public service operator the management and operation of public passenger transport services subject to public service obligations; depending on the law of the Member State, the contract may also consist of a decision adopted by the competent authority:

— taking the form of an individual legislative or regulatory act, or — containing conditions under which the competent authority itself provides the services or entrusts the provision of such services to an internal operator;

(j) ‘internal operator’ means a legally distinct entity over which a competent local authority, or in the case of a group of authorities at least one competent local authority, exercises control similar to that exercised over its own departments;

(k) ‘value’ means the value of a service, a route, a public service contract, or a compensation scheme for public passenger transport corresponding to the total remuneration, before VAT, of the public service operator or operators, including compensation of whatever kind paid by the public authorities and revenue from the sale of tickets which is not repaid to the competent authority in question;

(l) ‘general rule’ means a measure which applies without discrimination to all public passenger transport services of the same type in a given geographical area for which a competent authority is responsible;

(m) ‘integrated public passenger transport services’ means interconnected transport services within a determined geographical area with a single information service, ticketing scheme and timetable;

(aa) ‘public passenger transport services by rail’ means public passenger transport by rail, excluding passenger transport by other track-based modes, such as metros or tramways.