MENA Rail News
Turkey Due to Announce Tender for Supply of 106 Trains
A record tender for a total of 106 train units will soon be announced by Turkish State Railways. The tender, worth 6 billion Turkish Liras, will include the requirement to establish a train factory in Turkey and a 51% minimum local purchasing condition, according to Turkish State Railways, Director Süleyman Karaman.
A number of international firms are believed to be interested , since approval for the tender was received by the development Ministry and signoff is imminent from the Council of Ministers, including German firm Siemens and a number of Italian firms.
Karaman indicated that the tender would be announced in 2 or 3 months.
Turkey is planning significant developments in rail transportation infrastructure under the new development plan covering the next 5 years. At least 2500 km of high speed rail line is planned to link 14 different cities. The framework was announced last month by transport Minister Binaldi Yildrim.
The news comes as Turkey’s Consul General in Saudi Arabia announced that investors from GCC countries would be exempted from paying taxes in Turkey. This announcement was welcomed by members of the Industrial Committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Future of railway industry to be discussed throughout major international conference
The future of the railway industry will be discussed throughout a major international conference in Budapest
Important Hungarian role in the unified European railway
Developments taking place at the national railway companies may increase the rail passenger and freight market share in the European transportation. Due to its location, Hungary has an important role in it and also its government has declared it a priority. The growth potential of Hungary will be discussed together with many other important European railway themes throughout a major railway conference, InnoRail 2013 Budapest, between October 28-30 taking place in Hungary.Budapest, 2013. July 31. The market share of European rail transport is stagnating at a stable level since the economic crisis. According to the Single European Rail Area Unit of the European Commission, growth is achievable through a unified European railway where the national railway companies carry out developments and modernizations. Patrizio Grillo, Deputy Head of this Unit, believes that a high-quality and efficient service could be realized by adequate financing and building up the required infrastructure.
Rail transport has traditionally been a strong presence in Europe. Its volume in the European Union has been steadily increasing up until the crisis. While in 1995, the rail freight transportation recorded 386 billion tonne-kilometers and the rail passenger transport recorded 350 billion passenger kilometers, by 2008 these values were 440 and 411 billion respectively, meaning a 14 and a 17 percent increase. As expected during the crisis, both the rail passenger and freight transport volume has decreased, but after 2009 these volumes began to rise again. This increase, however, did not result in increased market share of the rail transport so, therefore, rail passenger transport stagnated at around 6 percent, while the rail freight transport decreased with more than 2 percent to 10 percent.
According to Patrizio Grillo, the fact that there is still a number of different technologies used by the European railway companies – including different track gauge sizes, signaling, electrical equipment and technical standards -, strengthens the need for a unified approach and steers the discussions towards a single European railway area. „This is an ongoing long term project but the European member states, therefore Hungary plays an important role in it because it is a significant transit country and therefore it has a key position in the European rail freight transport”- said the expert.
“Seeing the growth potential of our national railway transport, we have decided that we would like to help our country`s role in the regional and European railway by organizing an international high-quality railway conference” – said Ágnes Balla, the host and organizer of InnoRail 2013 Budapest conference which will be organized between October 28-30. The purpose of the event is to discuss the present and future of the European railway industry jointly with well-known foreign and Hungarian experts – Ágnes Balla explaining the underlying motives.
The main themes of InnoRail 2013 Budapest:
- Trends in transport policy; strategy, regulatory environment and economic challenges of railway infrastructure development
- Development of Railway Infrastructure, new Technologies
- Interoperability, automation and signaling systems, modern control and dispatch
- Power supply
- Risks and safety
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InnoRail2013 Budapest International Conference – Railway Infrastructure and Innovation in Europe
Between October 28-30, Budapest will invite the railway professionals for a large scale exchange of experiences and joint deliberations on the present of railway transportation, in order to foster its future. A series of professional conferences will be organized every off year in order to provide a forum for an exchange of views between different professional field of railway infrastructure, for the discussion of practical issues and for presenting novel innovative developments, tools and methods.The main themes are: Trends in transport policy; strategy, regulatory environment and economic challenges of railway infrastructure development, Development of Railway Infrastructure and new Technologies, Interoperability, automation and signaling systems, modern control and dispatch, Power supply, Risks and safety. More than 40 foreign and Hungarian railway expert will discuss these topics in details. Among the participants you can find the Hungarian Railway, ÖBB, European Commission’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, International Union of Railways (UIC), Association of the European Rail Industry (UNIFE), European Railway Agency (ERA) and several leading technology companies, such as Swietelsky, Plasser & Theuer, Strabag, Siemens and ABB. For more information please visit www.innorail2013.org
www.railway-technology.com..July's Top Stories..
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