Railway freight transport recovers after the decline in the downturn years, with modest, yet constant growth since 2010. In Romania, this mode of transport has benefited from several recent private initiatives in the development of intermodal terminals or in setting logistics railway routes. In Romania, but also in other countries from Eastern Europe, these initiatives are still facing problems remained unsolved from the years before the crisis, among which the poor condition of the infrastructure ranks first.
For the European Union, the beginning of July marked the final vote of the European Parliament for the directive on setting the European single railway area (the recast of the first railway package). The vote continues a railway reform process began in the European Union over 20 years ago. Identifying the quality of the infrastructure as main cause of the low level of investments in railway transport, both public and private, the European Commission is now coming with imposing a coherent and stable financial architecture for infrastructure managers.
Member states will have to public an indicative renewable strategy for railway infrastructure development over the next two years to cover maintenance, renewal and development for a period of at least 5 years. This would give players the alternative of better previsions for business opportunities. In turn, the infrastructure manager will adopt a business plan that will include investment and financing programmes.
New previsions could considerably improve the investment level especially in the Eastern countries of the Union, where figures continue to show a low level, despite needs.
The statistics published in June by the International Transport Forum, concerning investment and infrastructure maintenance costs, show once again the gap between the way in which railways are seen in the East and in the West of Europe.
Thus, the railway transport investment rate has increased from 15% to 23% for OCDE from 1995 to 2010 while in Western Europe, the railway infrastructure investment rate has increased constantly from approx. 20% of total land transport infrastructure investments in 1975 to 30% in 1995 and to 40% in 2010. This data reflect, however, the political commitment to the development of railways.
Central and Eastern Europe countries continue to prefer to direct investments to roads, the share of investments in road infrastructure increasing from 65% in 1995 to 82% in 2010. So, we thus wait for more commitment, better strategies and… investments.
by Florentina Ghemuţ, Club Feroviar Consultant
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