„Basically, no section (of railway stipulated – ed.) in the NPRR has a chance of being completed on time, in 2026”, underlines ProInfrastructura in a material analyzing the current stage of railway infrastructure modernization projects in Romania.
According to NPRR regulation, EU states must pay back funds received for NPRR projects that are not finished by the end of 2026.
ProInfrastructura gives the example of the Poieni – Alesd section that does not even have a construction permit at the moment.
The National Railway Transport Company CFR, the management of the Ministry of Transport, but also the Government are responsible for the exceedingly slow progress of railway investments, not having taken notice on time of the dysfunctions blocking the drawing of available funds. Administrative problems that would have been solved in a month or two in the case of highways, require whole years in the case of railways, states ProInfrastructura.
Examples of inefficient management of issues that arose during projects development:
- The removal of a few trees near the Bătuța tunnel from the forest floor took 5 years.
- Archeological works at the Micia site blocked construction works for 6 and a half years, while those at Varadia held up construction for over 7 years.
- Moving a high-voltage like took 6-7 years, near the town Mintia as well.
- A bridge expertise in Brasov took almost 4 years, blocking the entire station as stunned travelers saw the billions on the presentation board.
The pace of road investments accelerates, railway sector at a standstill
The pace of development and modernization of the railway infrastructure is completely contrary to that recorded by the road infrastructure, where investments have been made and advanced consistently in the last year. Consequently, while works on the plain and hill lots of the so-called big road have a monthly physical progress of 3-4%, railway modernization projects reach 5-8% per year.
The Cluj-Oradea and Arad-Caransebeș modernization projects, totaling eight sectors of the NPRR, have the same pace of progress. Even the best performing one (Aghireș-Poieni) registers a 2% advance per month and is blocked at the Ministry of Culture, because of the Poieni station. It is the most advanced railway section being modernized with NPRR money, but it reached a physical stage of execution of 22%, although traffic is completely closed to support works.
Similar situation in the case of locomotives rebuilt through NPRR
The Railway Reform Authority (ARF) blocked the authorization of Softronic „cars” and there is a risk that those rebuilt at RELOC will also be refused.
The other locomotive packages (SCRL Brașov) are delayed, with little chance of reaching 2026, the end of the NPRR, ProInfrastructura also writes.
Railway sector – All indicators in constant decline
In the first nine months of 2024, rail passenger transport had a share of 17.5% in total passenger transport, being far surpassed by road transport, with a share of 75.6%.
The number of passengers who traveled by train in the first nine months of 2024 was 53.718 million, down 4.4% compared to the same period of the previous year, according to the NIS.
The most important indicators, significant decrease
· The average daily distance traveled by passenger cars (km/day) and the average commercial speed of passenger trains (km/h) decreased by 3.4%, the distance traveled by locomotives diminished by 3.2%, trains traveling distance dropped 3%, and railcar distances lost 1.3%.
· In terms of rail transport of goods, the volume dropped 11.1% compared to the January-September 2023 interval, with 32.861 million tons of goods transported, of which 78.6% in national transport.
However, almost all the technical-economic indicators of the use of rail transport vehicle fleet recorded negative developments compared to the period January 1 – September 30, 2023:
- the average daily distance of locomotives used to transport goods (km/day) decreased by 13.3%
- wagons loaded of the national transport company CFR were 12.7% less
- loaded wagons from abroad lost 11%
- average daily distance of freight wagons (km/day) decreased by 8.8%
- average commercial speed of freight trains (km/h) diminished by 6.6%
- the average gross weight of freight wagons (tons/train) decreased by 3.6%.
Railway statistics in the EU context (2023 data)
In 2023, 8 billion passengers (the total includes multiple journeys made by a single person, not the number of distinct individuals) made national journeys in the EU, covering a total of 407 billion kilometers.
Moreover, passengers traveled 22.4 billion kilometers in international travel.
Relative to population, this equates to an average of 906 kilometers per capita for domestic travel and 50 kilometers per capita for international travel.
Railway passengers in Austria and France traveled the longest average distance in the case of national journeys, 1,463 and 1,361 kilometers per capita respectively.
Train travel in Greece stands out for the shortest average distances in the case of national travel, with 65 kilometers per capita.
Minister Marcel Boloș on the „historic opportunity” of European funds for railway infrastructure
In an interview for StartupCafe, the Minister of Investments and European Projects, Marcel Boloș, stated that the total budget of EUR 20 billion that Romania can access for railway infrastructure, through the Cohesion Policy and the NPRR, is a historic opportunity. If this is lost, the time will come when Romania will want to deal with this field, but this „huge budget” will no longer exist:
„Now, in terms of railway infrastructure, the pace of implementation probably still has room for improvement and measures to speed up implementation, because Brașov-Sighisoara is well-known and it is similar in complexity to Sibiu-Pitesti. I could somehow compare them in terms of level of complexity and that is why it is a section as important as Sibiu-Pitesti, so we might also have a railway infrastructure corridor inaugurated here. The opportunity that the transport infrastructure sector has, to have a budget of 20 billion euros coming from the Cohesion Policy and the National plan for Recovery and Resilience, is historic. That is, if we do not take action now, while we have this great opportunity provided by the Cohesion Policy and the National plan for Recovery and Resilience, then the time will come when we would like to do it, but we will no longer have this huge budget that Transport has and through which I am convinced that he will implement the projects at the most appropriate pace for Romania”, declared Minister Marcel Boloș.
According to the NPRR Monitor, EUR 3 billion have been contracted so far for the modernization and renewal of railway infrastructure.
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