Recently, I have had the privilege of participating once again to the European Railway Awards, an annual event organized by two professional railway organisations of Europe: UNIFE and CER. This action focuses on celebrating the technological and strategic policy. The awards have been presented to two personalities – Lord Andrew Adonis and Alexander Neumeister – who have each contributed to the advance of the railway industry in the European market. A concept is what brings the two at the same table – the active implication in the transformation of high-speed transport from hope to reality.
Lord Adonis, a personality of British transport, although from a different academic background, has pushed plans for London – Birmingham HS2 to adoption as national strategy and has involved in the development of the National Skills Academy for Railway Engineering. Alexander Neumeister, another professional who adopted the railways to implement his industrial design expertise, has involved in the design of the ICE 3 trains, MAGLEV Transrapid and Shinkansen 500 “Nozomi”trains. Both Adonis and Neumeister prove to grasp the culture and comprehension of problems as their implication in high-speed railway projects becomes just one part of their railway life.
Such a festive event becomes, almost unavoidably, the arena of promoting the latest European railway transport policies. The extended discussion around the future Fourth Railway Package has kept dialogue on the matter still sensitive, although the general end purpose is a common one: the construction of a single European railway area to enable the proper development of business in this economic sector. The general environment protection targets, next to the positive trends of development of production in general, are strong reasons for choosing the railways as preferred mode of transport. However, it is more difficult to grasp how this could be achieved by daily actions. The conservatory spirit of some railway players and of some political men close to the sector slows down the institutional reform process, accepting only the technical steps. Pro-liberalisation arguments are seen in this context as rebellious actions aimed to unbalance the economic power of the players in the area. But the certain thing is that over the next period the European Commission and the European Parliament will have to choose between a small-step policy and an acceleration of this policy. The real and recent experience of the former communist countries shows us that the small-step policy is not always beneficial at macro-economic level favouring unbalance between players, limiting free initiatives and innovation and sometimes favouring massive, barely legal actions. We can still appreciate that steps are taken on the continent to the right of the Atlantic, although not at the same pace or with the same impetuosity proven by railways on other continents or by other close and rival industries.
The Association of American Railroads has recently announced private investments in the American railway system of USD 29 Billion in 2015, while JR Central announced at the end of last year to have received the approval of investing USD 45 Billion in a new maglev train system. Also, Thomson Reuters has recently published an analysis of innovation in the automotive sector that identified over 40,000 registered patents in this field only in 2014.
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