The Railway Freight Corridor no. 7 (RFC – 7) became operational in November thus observing the provisions set by Regulation 913/2010, issued by the European Parliament and the Council. The European Union has designated nine international rail freight corridors, the so called “RFC”-corridors in the EU rail network.
Freight Corridor no. 7 will run through the Prague-Vienna/Bratislava-Budapest-Bucharest-Constanta and – Vidin-Sofia-Thessaloniki-Athens axis. 7 European countries, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece with their 8 railway Infrastructure Managers and a Capacity Allocation Body (one stop shop) established the corridor in order to build an essential connection between Central Europe and South-East Europe and form a link to Asia through the Black Sea and Aegean Sea ports offering a good, reliable service based on harmonised technical and procedural conditions.
As first measure for the corridor opening, the Corridor one stop shop manager de-signated the first pre-arranged path for Prvá Slovenská Zelezničná railway undertaking between Prague and Curtici. In order to fulfil the requirements and expectations described in the regulation, the participating railway companies of RFC-7 – led by MÁV Zrt. – implemented a number of measures to be able to run the corridor by the specified deadline. With this first act the corridor started its real operation. The opening ce-remony of the RFC-7 Corridor gathered a large number of significant representatives who played an important role in the establishment and realisation of the Corridor: representatives of the Ministry of National Development of Hungary, representatives of respective Ministries of the partners, representative from the National Regulatory Body, members of the Management Board and Executive Board of RFC-7, Czech Republic, (SZDC), Slovakia, (ZSR), Austria, (ÖBB-Infrastruktur), Hungary, (GYSEV, MÁV Zrt., VPE Kft.), Romania, (CFR), Bulgaria, (NRIC), Greece, (OSE); and representatives from significant European rail freight undertakings and terminals of the relevant regions attended the event.
“Efforts have been made to implement the provisions of Regulation 913/2010 and to prepare the documents necessary to the operation of RFC-7. Its establishment is one of the steps that lead to the set up of the Single European Railway Area and I hope we will have high railway traffic on this corridor”, pointed out Jean Nicolaos, Strategy Manager & International Affairs Manager – CFR SA.
“In the first phase, the one stop shop will operate as representative model for the next two years. The applicants, those who want to run on RFC-7, will be able to receive an answer in maximum five days. According to the provisions of the Regulation, at least 75% of cargo trains have to be punctual at departure. In the future, we consider extending this corridor to the east to Patras (Greece) and to the north to Germany”, declared the representative of the RFC-7 one stop shop manager.
“I hope that this cooperation between infrastructure managers and railway freight transport operators will become a daily practice. Also, I hope that this cooperation would provide improved services and that information exchange between partners would improve and we would have a better capacity on lines. Moreover, I think that Turkey is a very interesting market and that the development of rail transport connection to this region should be considered and analysed”, said Gyulla Farkasz, representative of Rail Cargo Hungary.
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