The high-speed railway transport is perceived as the future of mobility, due to the benefits brought to the society by providing accessibility, high quality transport services, which make it vital for modern societies and sustainable economic growth.
The impact of high-speed transport on regional economies is different but shares the same feature: it is positive given the increase in the urbanisation level of cities, labour, tourism, social activities, business and including the provision of connections to the other international transport networks.
Nevertheless, at global level, each region, including the state, plans the execution of a high-speed railway network according to the trends in the region/state, and by 2017, due to intense projects of construction of high-speed railway systems, the level of this segment will be a solid one, but smaller than estimated. In the next period, the rolling stock will increase by 5%” shows the study “High-Speed and Intercity Transport – Global Market Trends” elaborated by SCI Verkehr.
“Following the differences in the past years, especially the increase of demand in China and Japan, the reduction of the volume on this market regarding the new vehicles will represent a massive crisis. However, the demand in Western Europe will remain mostly constant. Meanwhile, new individual projects will be launched for the next years, significantly supporting the required volume of the market and the sales will increase by 9% per year due to major acquisitions in the past years”, mentions the study.
The manufacturers and the “after-sales” market in the high-speed transport have a volume amounting to EUR 6.4 Billion. Currently, 3,200 high-speed trains are operating (able to run at speeds of over 190km/h), 90 % of which represent 7 largest markets in China, France, Japan , Great Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy.
Asia is an important market due to China and Japan, the largest increase generated in this region in the past years. Through the completion of most of the new projects in China and the renewal of the rolling stock fleet and the extension in Japan, most purchases of vehicles will be omitted in 2014. But from 2015, China will remain the most important market, but with a considerably lower volume than the previous one.
However, the investments in Western Europe will be constant and the modernisation projects are fewer, compared to the existing network, but it holds a large part of the volume.
In this region, significant differences are registered. However, there are large differences between the states: while Great Britain will launch massive investments in the years to come and France and Germany will wait for the deliveries coming from the biggest contracts, Spain will face overcapacity which will have an effect on the market of new vehicles.
Nevertheless, there are new entrants on the market: in Poland the first Pendolino train was delivered, Morocco will commission its high-speed network, and Saudi Arabia has already granted important projects. For the US, after years of negotiations and discussions, it was decided to build a 1300-km network in California, in the region of South America, Brazil is in the bidding process and Russia decided to build over 2,000 km of high-speed line. Turkey joins these states, introducing the high-speed railway services and the authorities undertook the construction of such a network linking the main cities.
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