The passenger transport of the 21st century is characterised by an increasing globalisation at the socio-economic level, which could be described by the liberalisation of the national markets, the reduction in State subsidies and the focus placed on the end customer, the passenger. Railway transport, although it holds a higher percentage in intrastate travels compared to other modes of transport, holds a low percentage in terms of international services. The different gauges and signalling systems, the national legislations on certification and safety and the difficulty with which the projects related to major cross-border corridors move forward represent the main obstacles standing in the way of railway mobility development. This issue is all the more stringent in case of transport between Europe and Asia. The routes between the two continents were once some of the most used links in history and the bridges between the greatest civilizations in the world.
Historically speaking, the links between Europe and Asia represented more than a mere transfer of races or populations. The commercial exchanges and the migration of peoples were a major factor that led to the birth of an Eurasian culture that marked the history of mankind and which represented the engine of human development. This is how great civilizations appeared, as well as the inventions that stood at the basis of the evolution of mankind.
Since the beginning of history, an intermediary space was created between the two regions, a space which corresponds to Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. This space operated as a buffer between the two large powers, Occident and Orient, entities that succeeded one another at world dominations. This space was filled with commercial routes and not sustainable state entities. Major military campaigns were organised on these routes, the control of which large conquerors fought for.
This situation had an impact on the modern railway transport as well. Only political reticence and suspicion manifested between the Orient and the Occident, which were transposed into the construction of railway lines with different gauges and voltages, as well as the lack of a dialogue that could harmonise the railway systems of the countries that turned international passenger transport into a purely theoretical concept. At present, despite the adoption of large international agreements, the situation hasn’t changed too much. A train travel between Europe and Asia is more of a tourist adventure, similar to the experience of Phileas Fogg, imagined by Jules Verne in his book “Around the world in 80 days”. Hence, land transport is much more deficient than air transport.
The different gauges and voltages divide Eurasia at railway level
The Wider Black Sea Area (WBSA) is dominated by two types of gauges: the standard, British gauge – 1453 mm, which is used in most European countries, except for the former Soviet countries (the Baltic countries) and the Russian gauge – 1520 mm, which is common to the CIS countries. Aside from these systems, major countries which serve as destination for the passengers travelling between Europe and Asia – Spain (1668 mm), Finland (1524 mm) and India (1676 mm) – use a different gauge system which complicates things even more. Moreover, at present, there isn’t any coherent programme for the unification of all the gauges between Europe and Asia.
In the Wider Black Sea Area, there is still the perception according to which the railways represent a strategic interest for the state, the reason that led to the construction of national railway networks in most of the countries in the area. During the frequent conflicts held in the region, the railways were always the first target and a permanent source of conflict between neighbouring countries. Therefore, it’s no surprise that, aside from the two different gauge systems, we also have to deal with two types of visions which prevent the development of an efficient international transport system.
In Europe, major steps were made towards the creation of a single passenger network, despite the fact that the European Union’s agenda sees railway transport only as a support for freight transport. The fact that railway passenger transport can become a viable alternative to air transport continues to be a unilateral initiative of countries such as France, Germany or even Russia.
Railway passenger transport exists only due to the development of high-speed railway lines, said Jean Bertin, one of the predecessors of the TGV programme. Trains capable of reaching a speed of 300-400 km/h can make thousands of kilometres in less than one day and, thus, attract a higher number of passengers on the rails. To that effect, TGV was a successful project, which should be seen as a European project, which aims at linking large West-European cities – Paris or London, Moscow or Istanbul, located at a distance of 2000-2500 km one from the other. The first steps have been made. Networks such as Thalys, Artesia or the “late” Cisalpino, SNCF-Deutsche Bahn joint services, as well as the French investments made in Slovakia, Poland and, in the future, in Romania, anticipate a bright future for the high-speed sector in Europe.
Another initiative towards the unification of Europe through high-speed was brought by the creation of an alliance between 7 European operators (SNCF, DB, Eurostar, NS Hispeed, OBB, SNCB, SBB), which aim at providing integrated high-speed services. This project was called RAILTEAM.
The lack of an international programme on railway high-speed transport determined the countries to develop their own strategy which, most of the time, was the opposite of a single network. Hence, the countries built railway lines that link the main cities to the detriment of linking their network and the neighbouring networks. Russia launched recently the Sapsan service, which links Moscow and Sankt Petersburg; Turkey will develop the first high-speed line between Istanbul and Ankara; Kazakhstan will introduce high-speed between Almaty and Astana. The same tendencies are encountered in East European countries as well. Exceptions can be seen in Romania, a country which accepts high-speed on the routes that have the highest passenger flow (Corridor IV), and not on the lines that were built on a land proper for the development of such a system, in Austria, whose mountainous relief doesn’t allow the construction of lines which offer a speed of 300 km/h or in the Czech Republic, who claims to be a transit country and, in consequence, the investments in high-speed lines should be supported by the European Union or by the countries interested in creating high-speed links with other countries.
A large part of the funds is used by the non-adapted rolling stock
The scepticism is also motivated by the economic aspects, mainly through maintaining the monopoly on the market, thus preventing national markets from being liberalised. In most European countries, there is only one passenger transport operator owned by the state. In countries from Asia and the Middle East, this situation is generalised; liberalisation is a concept still not accepted by the political governments. These operators hesitate to enter the neighbouring markets, so that the local operator will not do the same for the domestic market. This is the case of SNCF and DB, which focus their attention on the external markets.
A first step may be represented by the separation of the passenger and freight activities within the State-owned company. Such an example is RZD, which created a new passenger operator. This measure was meant to optimize, first of all, the maintenance costs. Rail Liberalization Index, a periodical study elaborated by IBM, shows that the lack of railway liberalisation generates for the European countries additional annual costs of almost EUR 50 Million. One of the causes is the lack of competition on the domestic markets, which contributes to the high infrastructure access fees, the insufficient financing of the passenger transport sector, the high energy consumption, which is due to the non-adaptation of the rolling stock to the transport conditions (the study shows that, on a large scale, short-distance rolling stock is used on long-distance routes and vice-versa, the operators frequently use locomotives for both passenger and freight transport, contributing to the wear of the rolling stock, the use of fuels of poor quality etc.), which overall contributes to the perpetuation of a non-efficient system.
The operational costs influence significantly the passenger transport sector in the Wider Black Sea Area. The East-European countries have implemented a reorganisation process for the railway network. Several sections were closed in order to reduce expenses. A large part of the passenger transport costs is represented by the infrastructure access fees (an average of 70-80% in Europe). Nowadays, many countries pay the price of a process which could be called “railway alphabetisation”, which consisted in the construction, during the communist regime, of overly dimensioned railway networks, to the detriment of the road networks, which became useless after the fall of communism, many passengers choosing other, more competitive, modes of transport. Many countries found themselves in the situation of having to manage a network that is no longer used. Commute seemed to lose ground in all the former communist countries and this process affected the regional transport sector, which reported massive drops in the number of passengers.
In most former communist of soviet countries, regional transport uses non-adapted rolling stock, sometimes even shunting locomotives (the case of Albania), which most of the time causes the loss of passengers, with trains filled only half or less. More positive cases are encountered in Poland or the Czech Republic, where railway transport went through a decentralisation. The local authorities became involved in infrastructure management, especially railway stations, and also put together the tender documentation or even took over plants or depots for vehicle maintenance, thus ensuring an efficient management of the regional transport system. In some countries we can even see a development of multimodal regional transport, many operators developing services that provide road vehicle transport, in order to complete the railway offer. More frequent cases can be seen in Germany, Czech Republic and Slovenia.
The use of multiple units for the provision of such services is still deficient in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries. Here, a high number of classical train sets can be seen operating on the rails. Push-pulls are isolated cases in this region, with only a few evolutions in Poland, Romania and Czech Republic (Regionova).
The procurement of new rolling stock seems to have a more positive outcome, seeing as it tends to replace rolling stock renewal or the procurement of second-hand vehicles. All the East-European countries and the former Soviet countries purchased new trains and have under development several projects for the renewal of the rolling stock fleet. What is very interesting is that the main customers are the State-owned operators and not private operators, who still use second-hand vehicles. A major problem is vehicle maintenance. There have been many cases in which the new trains were stationed in depots while waiting for spare parts (Romania-Desiro, Hungary-Bombardier Talent) or were even sold in the absence of the proper maintenance funds (the case of OSE Desiro, which were sold in Hungary to MAV Start). The causes are multiple, but they are all connected to the fact that frame-contracts are signed without including multi-annual maintenance, clauses related to the equipment’s life cycle; these contracts are most of the time signed just to fit into a project or into a limited, annual budget at any cost.
Speed is not yet a major criterion in case of long-distance services
Long-distance transport in the Wider Black Sea Area is influenced by the state of the infrastructure. Hence, we can observe a drop in the average speed on the West-East axis. The projects for the modernisation of the railway lines connected to Pan-European corridors in order to allow passenger trains to run at a speed of 140-160 km/h affect even more long-distance transport. In former Soviet countries, these services are approached mainly from a social perspective. Routes such as the Trans Siberian and the Trans Caucasian link regions very distant one from the other and the climate has a definite impact on the conditions in which this type of transport is made. Speed and punctuality are sacrificed to the idea of being in the service of the communities located along the route.
The lack of interoperable rolling stock affects the cross-border transport services in the area. Most east-European and former Soviet countries have already made the first steps towards the acquisition of locomotives that are capable of running on the railway networks of other countries. A feature report put together by Railway Pro, related to the effects of the passenger transport liberalisation, showed that the national operators in Eastern Europe aim at consolidating their cooperation with partners in the neighbouring countries, in order to provide efficient international services, which can protect them from the competition of large foreign groups (DB, SNCF, OBB).
One of the changes introduced in case of Intercity trains was the interior design. Many national companies chose to eliminate the compartments in favour of chairs disposed just like in airplanes. The sleeping cars are still very frequent in the fleets of East-European and former Soviet operators.
The ticketing systems in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet countries record a slow progress. There are many demands related to the integration of the train tickets and other means of transport (underground). The possibility to purchase tickets on-line or via SMS are recent initiatives (2008, 2009), which continue to record technical malfunctions. Programmes such as Rail Pass and Rail Europe are expected to be extended towards Eastern Europe.
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