“Rolling stock procurement is a complex project and is the responsibility of the Romanian Railway Reform Authority, under the law. The project will take about 36 months, 24 months according to the most optimistic scenario if things go well and if there are vehicles in the market that can be purchased directly from rolling stock manufacturers”, said Iosif Szentes, General Manager CFR Calatori, during the Railway PRO Investment Summit, organised by Club Feroviar and Railway PRO with the support of the Romanian Railway Industry Association (AIF) in Bucharest on 3 and 4 October.
Without the procurement of rolling stock, the railway system will not be capable to take over the citizens’ mobility needs and the number of passenger-km will drop by up to 75% until 2030 according to a prognosis carried out based on trends, while data in the General Transport Master Plan suggest a 21% decline in 2020 and a 40% downfall by 2030.
“If there are no investments in new rolling stock, then a decline will begin leading to market share losses and a reduction of the people’s mobility in Romania and of those who want to travel in Romania”, said the General Manager of the Romanian national railway transport operator.
“At present, CFR Calatori has an active fleet of 870 coaches and 127 multiple-units, but we would like this rolling stock fleet to be a lot bigger so that the mobility demand in Romania could increase. As of 2011, CFR Calatori has no longer received subsidies for rolling stock procurement. The bad news is that by March 2018, another 250 coaches will be put off service as they require urgent repairs”, added Szentes.
During his intervention at the Railway PRO Summit, CFR Calatori’s General Manager presented a short analysis on the continuity of activity with and without investments. The difference between the two situations is that in the scenario with investments, CFR Calatori could register an additional one billion passenger-km in 2021.
In the scenario without investments, the number of passengers travelling with CFR Calatori is expected to increase by 2019, a period when the daily average traffic of multiple-units is also expected to increase thanks to the introduction of the rest of Desiro trains that are currently in need of repairs, and then this number is expected to drop as of 2020 because the active fleet will shrink once the worn out units are removed from traffic (an average of 5/year).
On the other hand, in the scenario with investments, the demand forecast statistical model shows an increase in the number of total passengers due to the introduction of Desiro multiple units by 2019 and of the new electric units by 2024, when CFR Calatori estimates the commissioning of 120 electric multiple-units. However, the company’s estimations show a drop in total passenger-km due to the poor condition of the obsolete rolling stock, despite the increasing traffic ensured by the new electric multiple-units.
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