On 2 and 3 November, the International Union of Railways (UIC) and the International Freight Forwarders’ Association (FIATA) held the third edition of the Market Place Seminar with the support of the Spanish railways (RENFE), French railways (Fret SNCF) and the Port of Barcelona.

More than 100 people from 15 countries participated in the seminar entitled “The French-Iberian rail link – fostering European connectivity”, which dealt with the opportunities and challenges arising from the opening of the new UIC standard gauge (1435 mm) railway line between Barcelona and the French border. “We are really pleased with the seminar. All the relevant stakeholders were present and we had excellent discussions among the participants. This shows a strong interest in rail transport. After these two days I am convinced that rail transport’s market share will increase between Spain and France”, says Oliver Sellnick, UIC Freight Director.

The new line, expected to be inaugurated in mid-December 2010, will allow the railways to operate longer trains (750 metres as opposed to the previous line’s capacity of 450 metres) between Spain and France. As previously, no transhipment of the goods will be required at the border.

Among the high level speakers from railway undertakings, freight forwarders and shipping lines were Manuel Acero, the newly-appointed CEO of RENFE Freight, Sylvie Charles, CEO of Fret SNCF, and Jose Luis González, Land Operations Chief of Port of Barcelona, who provided their vision of how the new UIC standard gauge line will impact the railways’ market.

Manuel Acero informed participants that RENFE Freight had already decided to leverage the new line’s characteristics to their maximum by investing in 6 new locomotives (4 tri-voltage electric locomotives and 2 diesel locomotives) and wagons for operation between Spain and France.

Sylvie Charles stressed that Spain is a very attractive market and explained that Fret SNCF was open to all kinds of partnerships. Currently, Fret SNCF is assessing all the solutions allowing dynamic use of this new rail link between Perpignan and Barcelona, with the aim of increasing rail transport’s productivity and market share in trade between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe.

Jose Luis González, Land Operations Chief of the Port of Barcelona, described the port’s ambitious investment plan. The port is forecasting a growth in rail transport and its long-term goal is to increase rail’s share of hinterland transport to 25%. The Port of Barcelona will invest €377 M in the near future and by 2013 the port’s railway area will have been tripled (expanded to 5 ha), with 6 tracks of 750m each all able to handle both gauges (mixed gauge tracks).

Participants in the seminar were also informed that several rail freight companies are already working on new products which will take advantage of the new line’s features. For example the Spanish-French rail link is of great interest for Trenitalia Cargo, which participates actively in the “Sustainable Iron and Steel Transport by European Railways” (SISTER) European project. The steel market is one of the leading sectors with considerable flows between Italy and Spain and here rail can play a pivotal role by offering the final customer competitive door-to-door solutions. Another example presented at the seminar is the “Barcelyon Express” (train service between Barcelona and Lyon) which, when the new line is opened, will transition its operations onto the new line with a service offer including more frequent departures (three services per week instead of two) and higher capacity (750 metre long container trains as opposed to 450 metres). Seminar participants were also informed that more regular services between Barcelona and other dry ports in France are under development.

The Seoul-Busan axis is Korea’s main traffic corridor. In 1995, it housed 73.3% of Korea’s population, and conducted 70% of the freight traffic and 66% of the passenger traffic. With both the Gyeongbu Expressway and Korail’s Gyeongbu Line congested, the government saw the need of another mode of transport and decided to launch the project in 1989. The first proposals for a second Seoul-Busan railway line originated from a study prepared between 1972 and 1974 by experts of France’s SNCF and Japan Railway Technical Service.

The Daegu–Busan section of the Gyeongbu HSR construction started in June 2002. The 124.2 km long section follows a long curve to the northeast of the existing Gyeongbu Line, with new stations for Gyeongju and Ulsan built well outside of the city centres. With the exception of the sections across Daejeon and Daegu, the second phase went into service on 1November 2010, after an official inauguration held on 28 October 2010.

As someone with a professional interest in the development of high-speed rail in Korea and more generally speaking in Asia, Mr Jean-Pierre Loubinoux was pleased to be invited by official authorities and Korean Railways to participate in this inauguration.

With the opening of the Daegu-Busan section on 1 November, the fastest Seoul–Busan services using all of the Gyeongbu HSR reduce the shortest travel times by 22 minutes to 2 hours 18 minutes. And with the completion of the sections across urban Daejeon and Daegu, a further improvement of the travel time to 2 hours 10 minutes between Seoul and Busan is expected. The section includes 54 viaducts with a total length of 23.4 km and 38 tunnels with a total length of 74.2 km. The two sections across the urban areas of Daejeon and Daegu, altogether 40.9 km, will be finished by 2014, and will reduce the Seoul–Busan travel distance to 417.5 km.

The Seoul-Busan high speed line will largely increase Korea’s overall railway passenger transport capacity by 3.4 times from 18 million passengers per day to 62 million, and its railway freight transport capacity by 7.7 times from 39 million containers per year to 300 million.

The UIC and the InfraGuidER partners have the great pleasure to invite you to the InfraGuidER Final Conference in Brussels (Belgium) on 24th November 2010.

Do not miss the opportunity to gain a comprehensive, one-day insight into this Coordinated Action research project. Find out the results and achievements on rail infrastructure’s environmentally sustainable management of relevant material, components and services. An innovative eco-procurement model based on good practice in sustainability will be presented. You are invited to come and discuss its possible implementation with the project partners and all stakeholders.

Conference Highlights :

• Eco-procurement Guidelines for decision makers for seamless integration in regular procurement (including key eco-indicators for material, components and service eco-performance calculating and ranking)
• Results of analysis and evaluation of main rail infrastructure material flow accounting
• Recommendations for further developments and research activities after InfraGuidER to continue improving the environmental performance of the rail network

Please register at http://www.uic.org/forms

The online registration will close on 10th November 2010.

For this conference UIC and Resotel Belgium offer a special web application for facilitating your hotel booking : https://plus21.safe-order.net/resotel/forms

Please find all information on the official InfraGuidER website http://www.infraguider.eu

The UIC and the ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG are jointly organizing the 2nd UIC Energy Metering & Billing Day on 3rd February 2011 in Vienna, Austria.

Metering and Billing of traction energy of railways is a means to efficiently reduce energy consumption and costs as well as CO2 emissions of railways. The UIC Energy Metering & Billing Days provide an inside view on latest trends and developments on the implementation of energy settlement systems for traction energy in Europe.

Key questions such as ‘What is the benefit?’ and ‘What are the costs?’ of metering and data handling systems will be discussed as well as the further steps and needs for an efficient implementation of the systems. Latest developments in the regulatory framework and standards as well as technical solutions will be presented.

The preliminary program and online registration will be available soon. The workshop is free of charge.

The executive boards of the Swiss Transport Police and SBB have decided to fully integrate the transport police into SBB. This new set-up will ensure compliance with the new law on transport company security services, which enters into force on 1 January 2011.

SBB is convinced this new organisational structure will form a solid basis for security in public transport. Nevertheless, efficient cooperation between SBB and the cantonal police remains essential to ensure a high-level of security. Cooperation between Securitas and the transport police shall continue under the new set-up.

SBB’s security strategy has three founding principles: prevention, dissuasion and enforcement.