The 8th edition of the Railway Days 2013-Wider Black Sea Area Railway Summit concluded with the drafting of a position paper elaborated by Club Feroviar (the summit organiser). The document was elaborated based on the debates concerning the challenges and opportunities that economic operators and WBSA investors are facing in developing the business segment in this region, topics intensely debated on by the 300 participants and over 70 international speakers.
Entitled “Development of the railway system in the Wider Black Sea Area – horizon 2028 Railway, logistics and sustainable urban development = life quality improvement”, the document details the context in which the railway transport activities are carried out and the social and historic background of the WBSA. Turning into account the continuity of centuries of pan-continental trade routes, WBSA joins 28 countries and territories in Central Europe up to Central Asia with common objectives on increasing freight volumes on surface routes. The document is structured in railway-specific objectives, grouped in 5 main categories: (1) interurban railway infrastructure; (2) railway freight transport & logistics; (3) railway passenger transport; (4) urban transport and infrastructure; (5) innovation and the implication of the private sector.
The increasing role of railway transport in international trade, but also in boosting the sustainable mobility of people creates se-
veral objectives, identified by the participating organisations in the Summit.
Considering the divisions and reconstructions of commercial and political relations over the past two decades, developing an efficient connection between Europe and Asia continues to generate intense debates. The political and administrative agre-ements signed by the different countries which gravitate in this huge area confirm this perception. The slow and progressive shift of the production centre to the east that we’ve witnessed in the past decades brings new financial and environmental opportunities, challenges in the transportation sector.
“Maritime transport, the cheapest and most eco-friendly mode of transport, becomes an obstacle in ensuring the supply flow, once large ports, channels and straits become congested. In order to solve this issue and to maintain low environmental effects, it is imperative to build leverages to carry out a quality transport in the platform between Asia and Europe”, the document states.
In this context, the Wider Black Sea Area (WBSA), median area of the Eurasian platform that holds a strategic position, witnesses an intense economic evolution which needs to be supported and stimulated through railway investments so as to facilitate the interconnection of regional, national and transcontinental railway networks, thus increasing the sustainable mobility of freight and passengers.
The intensification of industrial activity, the increase of domestic consumption, the increase of foreign direct investments, especially for the eastern part of WBSA, the increase of trade volumes between the East and the West are factors which increase the development opportunities for railway transport.
In the urban infrastructure segment, WBSA represents a widely extended surface with a low density of urban centres and the communications networks developed in a dense network in Western Europe or the Far East have led to a series of corridors that link the large production and consumption centre. “Shipping companies can be attracted to this area while considering the two roles of the infrastructure: the technical and the administrative one. Improving the technical conditions of the existing infrastructure and filling-in the missing links are not enough to ensure the best speeds for the transport of goods and passengers if there are no appropriate regulations to permit easy transfer from one territory to another. Eliminating bottlenecks depends on the quality and capa-city of the actual infrastructure, but also on the legislation and regulations in force”, the document states.
Thus, three challenges need approaching if infrastructure is to develop: the inconsistency of the two gauges (1520 mm and 1435 mm) which creates a fracture area on the borders of the countries where transfer from one system to another takes place, the high administrative-territorial fragmentation of the region which does build barriers for long-distance transit and extremely varied environmental and geographical conditions.
In the chapter “railway freight transport & logistics”, by building the WBSA freight transport platform we might stop the fall of the railway freight market share and attract new customers and volumes to railway transport. This objective can be built on this median platform between the Far East, Middle East and Western Europe by facilitating freight transport on long distances and, thus, reviving the traditional old trade routes. “Starting from the statement that any reform is actually an acknowledgement of past and present good practices, the financial and administrative facilities for the development of multi-modal hubs and railway terminals will help attract carriers. Freight access to the railway network is essential in increasing the attractiveness of transport offers and this can be achieved only by providing railway infrastructure to the large industrial platforms.”
Regarding railway passenger transport, stopping the decline of the market share of railway passenger transport is a WBSA objective for ensuring life quality and “jointly with national and local policies for building proper services, a broader vision of WBSA is necessary. Developing the region as a trade platform means ensuring the mobi-lity of people for trade and transport. This is possible if the number of passengers increases on the long-distance routes which provide links between the main urban centres of the regions. This should be done by extending the railway services focused on connecting the main urban centres of the zone. Daily or less-frequent commuting involves a good interconnection of railway transport offers with the other public transport modes as well, which is not possible without organising the main urban centres as passenger interchange hubs for international and regional/local traffic. Encouraging private initiatives will transform the rail stations into urban attraction areas thus helping increase railway transport attractiveness and revenues from auxiliary activities. Thus, the development of a single journey planning system for all regional operators, integrated with other transport modes and information systems will enable and enhance the development of the railway end-to-end journey plan.
For WBSA, urban rail transport is an important element of mobility which has constantly developed in the past years due to the awareness on the importance of sustainable mobility built around less polluting transport modes with reduced impact on traffic congestion and which help urban areas develop harmoniously.
Metro, trams and regional trains have to be the backbone of transport in this area, as urban and transport policies focus on the reorganisation of road traffic by prioritising the traffic of trams, as main transport mode, next to the metro. The development of rail transport also includes the development of a plan for the procurement of vehicles, the introduction of new station systems to provide easy connection between transport modes or between the vehicles of the same mode. Also, “the introduction of European and international standards included in the directives and regulations on public transport should offer WBSA countries support in the integration of urban, regional, national and international public transport by introducing management principles. The main instrument should be the Public Service Contracts to introduce transparent and multiannual rules and to establish a fair division of risks between public authorities and public transport companies”, the document states.
Last but not least, the document deals with the problem of innovation and the implication of the private sector in transport projects, while encouraging research and innovation as one of the key points of railway development in this area. In all these sectors, attracting private initiatives in the organisation of transport and in industry can lead to the sustainable development of the region, but can also remove the financial burden of public authorities so as to develop and modernise the railway system. “Facilitating the development of new innovative railway services for both freight and passenger railway transport has to be the core of WBSA strategies. All these, jointly with alternatives methods of financing large projects (PPP, bond issue, stake sales, sell and leaseback etc.) will speed up the development of transport services and the generation of revenues.
Encouraging strategic partnerships for the introduction and rapid localisation of new generation technologies in the industry will stimulate the general technological progress and will build a sustainable transport system in the area.
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