European countries, and many other third countries, have separated from the railway infrastructure management and development activities from passenger and freight transport services. This paved the road of new railway industry players, favouring the rebirth of the public authorities’ appetite for the rail transport sector. Discussions are, however, led around the legal form which marks management separation of conventional companies. The leaders of these organisations, next to the representatives of the civil society and of the political class, oscillate between total separation and keeping or recreating holdings.
This type of discussion, which reflects the typical conventionalism of the rail sector, is founded on a yet delicate problem. The correlation of investment programmes between the representatives of the “infrastructure” and those of the “operators” is starting to become a rather serious problem, starting from the method of calculating the return on investment.
The systemic revolution that railway transport worldwide is crossing poses serious problems if we are trying to divide tasks between players. We are still accustomed with infrastructure investments to be tightly correlated with a concrete transport activity carried out by the transport division of the same company. The investment budget is correlated between the needs of the infrastructure manager and those of the operator so that the system would function perfectly.
The market structure begins to resemble with that of the other means of transport (referring here to this separation). This being said, the communication between players has to undergo a revolution similar to the institutional one. Harmonising the interests of the infrastructure manager with those of the operator has to stimulate the market growth (expressed in freight volumes and number of passengers, not in other technical elements). At the same time, the infrastructure manager has to define its position in trade relations (it is a services supplier and consequently it has to communicate with the operators and attract new players and not to protect the interests of one of the two). Operators have to communicate and harmonise some of their development plans to send a coherent message on all priority interest areas to the infrastructure investor.
Asia-Europe transport projects and building a single railway area will seriously test this dialogue. Harmonising the technologies dedicated to operators with those dedicated to infrastructure managers will be the key towards increased freight volumes and prevent the risk of futile investments. The border area between networks and cultures (border of the 1435/1520 areas, maritime ports etc.) will be the area where this communication exercise will occur. In the end, the transport goods speed will be important and not the commercial/railway technique.
by Ştefan Roşeanu
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