PROGRAM - IRFC 2013 - RailConference.com

At the moment, almost half a million TEU or standard containers could already be transported on the railways between Europe and Asia. However, rail still doesn’t seem to be fully recognised by customers and carriers as a serious alternative to sea transport.
A Study carried out by UIC 18 months ago developed a market model that identifies available routes, analyses the prerequisites for success and details specific improvement measures. To capitalise on these findings, UIC, in close cooperation with key actors, continues to proactively promote the development of transcontinental rail freight corridors through a dedicated platform which initiates and steers projects designed to create the right framework conditions for developing long-distance rail traffic.

UNIFE :
- Presentation of UNIFE, the European Rail Industry
- Research & Innovation : Key challenges for the industry
- Current participation to the “Marathon Project”
Preparing the future : UNIFE for SHIF’RAIL
- Challenges
- Research Pilars
- Freigh priorities (IP5)
- Main Players

Various untapped intermodal opportunities exist between transport operators and shippers (manufacturing industries). Success criteria for co-modal transport depend on new forms of horizontal collaboration between partners & competitors, sharing data, bundling of cargo and green logistics. Name of the game is turning sustainability into profitability; profitability into sustainability with rail as backbone for intermodal transport. Empiric industrial research results will be included in presentation.

The Common CIM/SMGS consignment note and the accompanying CIM/SMGS Consignment Note Manual for international CIM/SMGS freight traffic by rail became available for widespread use by customers and carriers on 1 September 2006. The Common CIM/SMGS consignment note is recognised as a customs transit document by DG TAXUD for the EU and EFTA and by the customs authorities of Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine. It can also be used by customers for documentary credit operations.

The Common CIM/SMGS consignment note is increasingly being used on traffic axes in Europe and in the Russian Federation and the Ukraine. Customers say they want to use extensively the Common CIM/SMGS consignment note also for transcontinental movements along the land bridge between Europe and China and for movements to and from Central Asia. The CIT together with OSJD are preparing in 2009 further steps to extend the use of the Common CIM/SMGS consignment note for Railway Cargo Transports between Asia and Europe.

The issue of the harmonized CIM/SMGS liability both in terms of the custom-carrier relationship and among the carriers themselves is being given increased attention. The CIT, together with the OSJD and the rail companies involved, have been dealing with this issue within the working framework of the CIM/SMGS Legal Group and elaborated the Special liability conditions CIM/SMGS.

The third phase of the project “Legal interoperability of CIM/SMGS” includes the creation of standard rules for uniform rail transport law on contractual base. This has been the declared long term legal and political goal for the next ten to fifteen years. Whilst waiting for the states to create this new uniform legal framework the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is encouraging the railways and the international railway associations involved to achieve harmonised solutions on a contractual basis.

Projects and development and investment on Rail business in Turkey, recent and last decade investments on Rail freight sector.

The European Commission outlined future perspectives of the rail transport in its White paper 2011. In order to achieve ambitious targets it is necessary to set accordingly number of regulatory provisions as well as investment decisions. Growing utilisation of rail system that will support decarbonisation of transport demands adjusting level-playing field across all transport modes at first place. Second, a massive investment into the rail infrastructure, removing current bottlenecks, improving quality of conventional network and extending the high-speed system is enabler of a rail attractive to its customers. Last but not least the provisions for rail market opening have to be completed – this being a subject of the currently presented 4. Rail package. The rail sector welcomes the completion of the EU rail regulation but calls for corrective measures allowing fair intermodal competition.

The corridor 1 – between Rotterdam – Genoa - is one of the most developed and actual the most important corridor through Europe.
All stakeholders are phasing on different problems which has to be avoided in near future, otherwise rail will loose competiveness against road. BLS raises some actual questions on technical, operational and political issues, as well as presents some possible solutions which could be also helpful for other freight routes.
Here BLS wants to show you some experiences and recommendations from a smaller RU perspective.

What Effect Does Membership in International Railway Organizations Have for Small and Medium Enterprises

Efficient rail freight
Focussing on making rail a back bone for international rail freight in an intermodal transport system.
Direct rail links between Asia and Europe is a growing market and should be supported for obvious reasons. However, rail can and should also play a growing important role in intermodal transport between the two markets.
There are a number of harbours in Europe with direct calls from Asia with the largest container vessels in the world. Focussing on harbours with direct call of container vessels gives rail many advantages. It draws from the benefits of low cost of sea carries and large volumes. By combining sea and rail with local road distribution into dry harbours inland all parties involved gain huge advantages.
Thanks to the dry port concept combined with efficient customs clearance inland and a great variety of rail shuttles operating fast overnight services this is a significantly growing market for rail. And since it feeds mainly into existing logistics with little modification; this is a fast way of increasing rail freight. Apart from being truly customer oriented the concept is sustainable and a green argument.
The example of the RailPort concept from Gothenburg is a striking one. Today more than 50% of the freight is handled by rail. 26 daily rail freight shuttles operated by 6 railway undertakers every 24 hours connect to 24 dry ports in Sweden and Norway.
By staying customer oriented we can also make the most out of existing rail infrastructure. By applying the 4 tier model a number of efficient and fast measures can be made before launching large investments.
One example of this is the BasePort concept which with fairly small modifications has significantly lowered transportations costs for the paper industry StoraEnso. By using the full potential of the loading gauge each unit has increased its loading capacity more than twofold.
Trafikverket is keen to co-operate with important stakeholders in freight especially regarding intermodal transport solutions. We co-operate with DB Schenker in improving road freight transport thus making transportation more environmentally friendly. Trafikverket takes part in a number of business networks e.g. fashion and sport group; grocery retail trade, forest industries etc.

ZSSK CARGO is a leader rail operator in Slovakia. Has a majority market share on rail transportation and nearly exclusive position on Ukraine and Slovak border with transhipment and re-pumping facilities (interface 1435/1520 mm).
World financial and economic crisis has (in the end of 2008 and 2009) has a strong impact to company transport volumes and revenues. Year to year decline in transport performance and income achieved more than 30%. Due to high dependency of rail sector to metallurgy and petrochemical industry in Slovakia ZSSK CARGO was strongly affected for the last four years with and slowly refreshing transport demand little bit improved its economic situation.
In 2011 was the company for the second time in the process of private investor attracting (first time in 2005). The Slovak state as an exclusive stockholder has decided in 2012 to restart the company from negative situation with defined restructuring plan.
ZSSK CARGO in liberalized market (35 newcomers) has an ambition as soon as possible to decline its debt and to start international activities as well as to modernize its rolling stock.
The company plan is ambitious nevertheless the Slovak economy is constantly changing, there is insufficient support from state – infrastructure fees, taxes, external cost system and very strong competitor – road transport with higher flexibility, lower prices and better services.

The Czech Republic is situated in the central Europe in the heart of the railway lines. That is the reason why the Czech railway network has to become an integral part of the European interoperable network.
SŽDC Railway Infrastructure Administration assumed the management of the state property mainly represented by the railway infrastructure, which means Railway infrastructure of the National Rail as well as regional rails owned by the state. With very small exceptions, it practically covers the whole railway network in the Czech Republic – approximately 9500 km of lines.
Our organization is aware of the fact that it is necessary to build railway lines of high quality in the main directions of west – east and north – south. Globalization of the world economy requires the transport infrastructure to be adjusted. In particular, connecting with ports of the Western Europe towards the south, southeast and the east. As for the passenger transportation, big European cities should be interconnected.
Thanks to its geographical position, the Czech Republic has optimal conditions for transit traffic in every direction and fulfilment of this goal cannot be achieved without international cooperation.
SŽDC provides modernization of four main national corridors as parts of European backbone network. Besides modernizing the transit corridors in the Czech Reopublic, we are also dealing with the modernization of other lines where it is meaningful and efficient.
Not even „small“ constructions represented by renovation or reconstruction of cross-border lines and crossings are not avoided by SŽDC.
Last but not least, there is a program focusing on the interoperability – ERTMS, ETCS and GSM – R.
SŽDC as an Infrastructure Manager in the Czech Republic has to offer a fast, reliable, safe and high-quality railway infrastructure.
It is crucial to harmonize conditions and create equal conditions for all modes of transport.
This harmonizing is not a problem just for the Czech Republic, the same situation can be seen in Europe and we hope that our international cooperation in this field will produce better results in the future.

Erex system is an open railway systém that helps train operators to reduce energy consumption and save money. With Erex train operators pay just for the energy Theky actually use. Train companies using Erex have seen upto 20% reduction in energy esed and cosi. www.eress.eu

The “2012 Report on Combined Transport in Europe” is the fourth in this series. Previous editions published in 2006, 2008 and 2010 concerned respectively the years 2005, 2007 and 2009.
The 2012 Report was researched and prepared on behalf of UIC by KombiConsult and provides a snapshot of the combined transport industry in 2011.
This periodic publication stems directly from the UIC DIOMIS (www.uic.org/diomis) project, which analysed the prospects, constraints and development conditions of Combined Transport (CT) in Europe by 2015-2020.

With this series of Reports, the UIC wants to:
- deliver evidence of the importance of the intermodal industry in Europe to stakeholders
- provide market data for the intermodal industry
- establish a time series on the evolution of the intermodal industry
- put intermodal/combined transport at the heart of the discussion on modal shift
- underline the importance of a close cooperation of the stakeholders of the combined transport chain
- encourage modal shift towards rail and show the pertinence of the various combined transport techniques in achieving this.
As in previous editions, the Report focuses on:
- domestic and international intermodal transport data for 30 European countries
- growth forecasts for domestic and international combined transport
- market structures
- business models
- market shares per traffic segment
- combined transport’s contribution to the overall economy.
In addition, the 2012 version of the Report features:
- an O-D matrix for the main routes served in accompanied and unaccompanied transport
- traffic data for the main European ports
- an analysis of the carbon footprint of the industry
- an analysis of the most striking developments in the combined transport industry for the period under review.

Competition has intensified dramatically over the last decades in virtually all parts of the world. In today’s global environment not only separate companies (including multinationals), but also entire nations are trying to achieve competitive advantage on a global marketplace. However, national prosperity is not inherited. but created through deployment of the available national resources in the most efficient way. Export of transportation services is an important source of income for a state budget. Eurasian rail freight transports are source of renewable and environmentally friendly services which not only increase wealth of the stakeholders but also lessen environmental footprint and contribute to the greener world.

The Energy Division of the Austrian Federal Railways represent a modern energy supplier in an international european context. Main topics are CO2-emission, green energy supply and energy saving strategies for rail freight traffic.

Chinese Continental Bridge Transport: present situation, problems and Countermeasures
A review of the new Eurasian Continental Bridge (China) development process, expounds the Continental Bridge opened 20 years of operations, that Continental Bridge 's contribution to China's regional economy is large, continental bridge has constructed a large market system, relying on the mainland logistics industry has been developing rapidly, the international exchange and cooperation deepen. Analysis of the existing problems in the Continental Bridge operation. Mainly has : with the " 1520 union " monopoly consciousness, Siberia continental bridge the competition brought greater pressure; obstacle clearance policy; the natural environment is unfavorable factors, information flow and logistics operation problems. On this basis, and puts forward the Countermeasures of the new Asian-European passageway facilitation, think to want to strengthen countries along the new Eurasian Continental Bridge and the regional coordination; optimization of regional customs clearance and inspection and quarantine environment, carry out the customs clearance policy; strengthen the public logistics information platform construction of the new Eurasian Continental Bridge; optimization of container multimodal transport organization and management, in order to promote the healthy development of the new Eurasian Continental bridge.

Track Tec is a leading supplier of track superstructure materials. The main elements in our product range are from our own production. We are a European company with strong polish roots. About half of all track sleepers and every second turnout in the Polish rail network come from Track Tec Group plants. With its decades of experience and consistent innovation, Track Tec supplies top-quality products. We verify our high quality standards with numerous international approvals, certificates and references. Our main corporate objective is providing all-round satisfaction for our customers. Products: We produce in our concrete plants prestressed concrete sleepers and other concrete elements for all relevant European rail systems. Our turnout factory, operating according to high international standards, manufactures turnouts and crossings of all types for public rail networks, industrial railways and light rail transport. We run two impregnation plants for the production of ready-to-install wooden sleepers and poles, which we have modernized to meet international requirements.

Overview about the possibilities to overcome the technical hurdles from standard gauge 1535 mm to wide gauge 1520 mm

Cílem prezenatce je seznámení s praktickými přínosy systému METEOR jako nástroje pro snižování nákladů spojených s nákupem trakčního paliva. Prezentace vychází z praktických zkušenností železničních dopravců v České a Slovenské republice. Systém METEOR je koncipován jako komplexní nástroj a lze ho implementovat postupně za cílem dosažení co největších efektů.