23 October 2020
Held on 21 and 22 October in Istanbul, the first Turkish Railway Summit organised by the Turkish Ministry of Transport and Turkish State Railways (TCDD - Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları) aims to foster the exchange of information and development of rapports between national and international stakeholders in the railway sector.
So as to converse with representatives of leading countries in matters of change, expected developments and emerging strategies, the summit devotes an entire session to the Reform of Railways. In particular, TCDD and the Turkish authorities are strongly interested in gathering information on the process of liberalisation and separation between transport network and service management, receiving information from the entities that have already gained experience in the field.
Amongst those invited were the main European incumbents who have already implemented reforms: in addition to FS Italiane – whose participation was requested by TCDD’s Chairman of the Board and Director General, Mr Ali İhsan Uygun, in view of the fruitful collaboration between the various players – those present included Deutsche Bahn (Germany), Administrador de Infraestructuras Ferroviarias (Spain), National Railway Infrastructure Company (Belgium) and Rail Cargo Austria.
For years, the FS Italiane Group has been developing a close collaborative rapport with TCDD across several areas, in particular for many engineering projects with Italferr and certification schemes with Italcertifer, recording complete customer satisfaction. What’s more, under the Memorandum of Understanding renewed in May this year, additional training contracts were acquired, which are to be run through FS International. Possible further activities are currently being studied.
FS’ talk presented evidence of the transition in Italy, which in its process of reforming the sector, greatly anticipated that which was subsequently prescribed by the European Directives. In reference to the separation between infrastructure and transport service management, explicit reference was made to the main models available: the Separate Model that outlines complete division (also in terms of ownership) of the network management entities from those dedicated to transport, and the Integrated Model based on the enhancement of vertical integration through a holding company but with the creation of different legal entities engaged in network management and transport respectively. Also of use is the summary of the main advantages deriving from the adoption of the Integrated Model (Holding), ultimately pushing both DB and FS towards this preference.
High levels of interest and appreciation were shown towards FS for its contribution to the discussion, also confirmed in the speech given by TCDD’s Chairman of the Board and General Director.