Another year has passed by, a year of investments in the modernisation and development of railways, with new initiatives and projects in this sector.
This year, Spain announced it planned to invest around EUR 4 billion in railways by 2020, France committed to support railways by granting EUR 46 billion over the next decade, Germany introduced new regulations with significant impact on attracting traffic to railways. Also, Germany is one of the European countries with active implication in digitalisation, especially in the rail sector which, in time, is expected to become one of the key sectors to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
In Austria, by 2020, the railways will receive over EUR 15 billion. If we look to Central and Eastern Europe, in Poland, the National Railway Programme includes massive investments in the development and modernisation of the infrastructure. Starting with 2017 until 2019, projects of over EUR 8 billion will be launched, the contribution of the European financing playing an important role, as Poland is one of the most efficient countries in the absorption of European funds. The Czech Republic announced the modernisation of rail stations, but also the strategy for the construction of a high-speed network. Hungary approved a programme of about EUR 4 billion for the development and modernisation of the rail infrastructure and launched the tender for the construction of the railway to the Serbian capital, a project carefully investigated by the European Union. In Slovenia, a referendum voted in favour of the important line project to the Port of Koper with the support of European funds. Romania announced new tenders for the rehabilitation of Corridor IV and signed a series of contracts for the initiation of works on the same corridor.
The commitment to carry on investments in the European railways and to establish a seamless network has been confirmed, from the very beginning of the year, with the signing of the agreement between the three Baltic states to develop the railway that will provide connection to the European railway network.
New railway investments have also been announced in other parts of the globe, such as the development of the rail public transport system in Sydney, a city which awarded contracts for one of the big urban transport projects, the metro. At the same time, another Australian capital, Melbourne, awarded the contract for the construction of the metro system.
Countries in the Asia-Pacific region signed several agreements to launch infrastructure development projects, especially high-speed projects, such as Kuala Lumpur-Singapore, or Taiwan, which plan to develop their own high-speed network.
Last but not least, in Africa, Kenya commissioned the standard gauge railway to the Port of Mombasa, Egypt plans to invest over EUR 4 billion in the development of railways, Morocco develops high-speed transport, while South Africa drafted the first national railway strategy in its history and implements projects to connect its networks to that of neighbouring countries.
Apart from these national projects, the year that ends has also witnessed the launch of new transcontinental rail transport services, for example, between Europe and Asia, but also with freight transport services between the US and Mexico. New agreements were signed for the development of the rail and urban rail transport infrastructure, mergers were signed, such as Siemens-Alstom, which is considered an important strategy of the European rail industry; the EU approved the merger of Greenbrier-Astra Rail Management GmbH, Wabtec received approval to take over Faiveley Transport, FS Italiane took over Greek operator Trainose and Grupo México took over Florida East Coast, significant shares were procured in companies such as BLS Cargo by SNCF Logistics or others. At the same time, the global rail industry delivered new vehicles to customers – locomotives, freight and passenger cars, LRVs, metro trains, while international financial institutions, together with national and/or regional authorities financed new rolling stock procurement projects.
Considering this flashback of 2017, we can say that, although many projects were developed, there are still challenges to be approached. Globally, the next years will see new investments in railways as the authorities plan to build a sustainable transport system. The acceleration of this process has also been discussed at the latest conference on climate change problems.
With this final issue of our magazine in 2017 and waiting for another year, Railway PRO wishes you a very successful New Year!
Editorial by:
Pamela Luica
Chief Editor
Railway PRO
Share on:
