Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Railways in CEE countries – infrastructure investments Miroslaw Kanclerz Manager CEE

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania General overview (1) years of underinvestment in infrastructure and rolling stock huge backlogs in maintenance and renewal governments in most of the CEE countries place railways at the end of the list of problems to be solved road transport lobbies force decision makers to put more money into roads than railways

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania General overview (2) Media people create picture of costly, non-efficient and needless railways systems Generally railway systems need complex modernization There is a real crisis in the financing of rail

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Chances (1) Accession of new member countries vastly extended European transport market Railways as the most sustainable mode of transport play more important role in the 12 new member countries than in the old 15 Level of car ownership (however it grows quite fast) in “12” is still much lower than in “15”

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Chances (2) Large and growing ‘East-West’ traffic EU promotes and supports development of sustainable means of transport EU “old” members understand that putting money mainly into road infrastructure is a road to nowhere

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Actions to be undertaken - external Promote the idea of sustainable development of transport modes (50/50) Change the picture of railways Find supporters within media and decision makers

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Actions to be undertaken - internal Obtain financial resources from governments to co-finance infrastructure investments Restructure own internal units which are responsible for all stages of infrastructure modernization process to use EU subsidies efficiently Carefully decide which projects should be implemented having in mind that over 50% of investment is in maintenance

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Today Infrastructure managers in CEE take loans to find resources necessary to obtain support from EU Funds Such a situation is unacceptable in a long term perspective Railway infrastructure needs investments and … investments

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Conclusions (1) The key to growth in the railway industry is continual investment in infrastructure The most modern rolling stock is of little use if the infrastructure quality is poor Only modernized rail networks can reduce travel times to the point where they are able to compete with cars and trucks

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Conclusions (2) The investment question is crucial for the expansion and even survival of railways To adopt Western European standards, Central and Eastern Europe requires substantial increase in the amount being spent on rail infrastructure

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Best practices Table II. Grants paid to Deutsche Bahn AG in 2005, €m Numbers concerning infrastructure (examples) Federal grants for infrastructure work paid from road access charges through the Transport Infrastructure Finance Company Federal grants for upgrading and modernizing equipment and infrastructure of the former Deutsche Reichsbahn Federal grants under the Federal Railways Upgrading Law for investment in new lines or upgrading, or for other investment in the existing network Federal grants paid to eliminate temporary speed restrictions and fund short-term signalling improvements - 49

Railway Days, , Bucharest, Romania Thank you for your attention