Special attention should be paid to urban rail transport taking into account the fact that it complies with the requirements on the resolution of environmental problems, but also the transport needs in metropolitan areas.
According to a study of ERRAC (European Rail Research Advisory Council) and of UITP – “Metro, light rail and tram systems in Europe”, of 189 tram or light rail systems in Europe, 169 are part of the EU27 states (or 90%); 126 systems (66%) belong to EU15 and 43 systems (23%) belong to the new member states (the study is made with complete statistical data for 2009). Compared to 2004, the study shows that 16 systems have been developed in 5 years (an increase of 10%). The 189 tram and light rail systems transport approximately 10.4 billion passengers each year, and compared to the suburban and regional railway transport (6.8 billion passengers), they transport a significantly higher number than the suburban and regional railway network. Therefore, at European level, the first five positions, according to the number of passengers and rail transport networks, are held by Germany (2.28 billion passengers), Poland (1.7 billion), the Czech Republic (681 million), France (576 million) and Romania (551 million).
All these statistics clearly show the importance of rail transport systems in urban environments, which comply with the EU requirements regarding the environmental impact of transport market needs. Therefore, the authorities should focus on the extension and construction of new lines and should include viable projects in the budgets for the period 2014-2020. “Over the next 7 years, 2014-2020, transport authorities have to negotiate the budget granted to economic sectors and public transport should be one of the priorities. Local transport should focus on eco-friendly vehicles and starting from 2016 Romania should purchase eco-friendly vehicles based on environmentally friendly technologies. At national level, cities need to develop urban transport, and the authorities should start developing the railway transport segment and to allocate money for investments”, declared Adrian Popa, Vice President URTP and General Manager of the Transport company in Sibiu.
“For a well-developed public transport, railway transport is a priority and should be actively promoted and the authorities should be aware that public transport means long-term and not short-term investments. For example, large European cities have implemented new strategies on public transport financing for increasing its market share and they’ve made it. Romania has to identify viable opportunities for public transport financing. If you have a quality transport system, citizens will be encouraged to use public transport instead of individual transport. I can say that financing influences society and that is why you have to rethink public transport on the long run”, declared Hans Verner Franz, Chairman of the European Metropolitan Transport Authorities (EMTA) and CEO -Verkehrsverbund Berlin Brandenburg (VBB).
For the construction of urban railway networks, according to the ERRAC study, the new EU states and those in EU15 will have to invest an average of EUR 15.8 Million/km of infrastructure, and in case of the European states which are not a part of EU27, the costs reach an average of EUR 5.6 Million/km. Under the circumstances, the states will have to consider the strategies on the development of the urban rail transport and should take into account the challenges imposed by financing granting, by demographic change and implicitly by necessary costs.
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