International Railway Journal - May 2008 - (Page 56)

The last word Liberalisation brings benefits for everyone Giuseppe Sciarrone, head of one of Italy’s open-access freight operators, tells David Briginshaw that he is a firm believer in railway liberalisation and says it has expanded the overall rail market. A COMMON assertion by Europe’s incumbent national railways is that open-access freight operators simply cherry-pick the best traffic flows and bring nothing new to the table. But this is firmly refuted by Mr Giuseppe Sciarrone, CEO of Rail Traction Company (RTC) since its inception in 2000, who knows both sides of the fence as he was formerly a senior manager of Italian Railways (FS). RTC was set up in February 2000 at the start of European railway liberalisation when only the market for international railfreight was open. It was formed by the company responsible for the Brenner Pass highway linking Italy and Austria (en route to Germany), which was refused permission to build a third lane on each carriageway to relieve congestion because this would have exacerbated already high levels of pollution and noise through the fragile alpine landscape. So the road operator turned to rail. “Our first train ran in October 2001,” says Sciarroni. “Our goal was to improve the quality of the rail service though the Brenner. At the end of the 1990s it was very poor: punctuality was closer to 40% than 50%. When we started, our punctuality was about 80%. Trenitalia then started to work much better and they reached a similar level of punctuality to us, which now varies between 70% and 80%. RTC is currently operating 32 trains a day between Italy and Germany, plus two per day between Milan, Naples and the southern-Italian port of Gioia Tauro. “Our market share last year of ItalyGermany intermodal traffic incumbent has of us as cherrypickers is wrong; our goal is to change the modal split on the main corridors. “During the 1990s, prior to liberalisation, the annual growth rate of intermodal railfreight on the Brenner route was 2% to 3%, but during the last five years it has varied between 15% and 20%. This is the effect of liberalisation which was very close to theory: growth for both the incumbent and the The impression the incumbent has of us as cherry-pickers is wrong; our goal is to change the modal split on the main corridors. Giuseppe Sciarrone though the Brenner was 54%, and our share of all Brenner railfreight was 30%, which is much higher than our first business plan,” says Sciarrone. “Total intermodal railfreight on the Brenner grew by 18% in 2006 and 16% in 2007. All our new trains on the Brenner route during the last four years are derived from new rail traffic, and not from Trenitalia. The impression the newcomer.” Sciarrone says the introduction of competition on the Gotthard and Simplon routes across the Alps has had a similar effect: growth of the total market. Sciarrone does not believe railfreight operators should try to operate everywhere. He says the major traffic corridors are the only places railfreight can be justified from an economic and technical point of view. Sciarrone concedes that it will be very difficult for rail to get a higher market share of international traffic, but hopes the total market will continue to grow so that RTC can continue to introduce two new trains every year. The completion of Italy’s north-south high-speed artery from Turin and Milan to Naples next year, will free-up a lot of capacity for freight, cut transit times and improve reliability. It takes 15 to 16 hours for a freight train to run from Milan to Naples today, but this will come down to 11 hours in 2010, which means that the number of drivers per train can be reduced from three to two. Until now, there has been a shortage of 3kV dc electric locomotives for domestic freight services forcing RTC to use expensive multi-system locomotives. But now Bombardier has produced a suitable locomotive and RTC is leasing four of them from Angel Trains. Sciarrone says that a survey last year of freight shippers revealed that if rail could achieve these improvements they would be willing to consider rail. On this basis, Sciarrone believes that RTC should be able to achieve strong growth in the domestic market, which is where it is now turning its attention. IRJ 56 IRJ May 2008

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of International Railway Journal - May 2008

International Railway Journal - May 2008 Contents This Month News Transit News Market News Technology News News Analysis Italian Railways on the Road to Recovery High-Speed: On the Home Straight Korea Develops High-Speed Ambitions Setting New Standards for New Rolling Stock India Solves Traction Motor Conundrum Weathering the Storm with Climatic Testing Technology Drives US Train Inspections Rendezvous Full Contact List Advertisers Index The Last Word

International Railway Journal - May 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.