The “5th Annual Middle East Rail Opportunities” exhibition has ended on a high note, underscoring the fact that Saudi Arabia was the focus of the global railway industry, judging from the participants who came from all over the world.

“These are exciting times as far as Saudi Arabia is concerned. It’s in the process of undertaking a modern and massive integrated railway project,” said Paul Wren, strategic business development director at Saudi Arabian Public Transport Company (SAPTCO).

Wren said that SAPTCO and RATPDEV recently won a bus project for Riyadh from the Arriyadh Development Authority (ADA).

He was speaking on behalf of Khalid Al-Hogail, SAPTCO’s CEO.

Stephen Webb represented RATPDEV in his capacity as regional director.

In undertaking such a project, Paul Wren said Saudi Arabia was making a leap of about 150 years, adding that if and when it completes the project, it would be joining — as it were — London whose metro underground system is 150 years old.

Wren said: “We — SAPTCO and RAPTDEV — support the transportation development in the Kingdom which aims to integrate bus and rail and that a railways station will be a transportation hub in the future. There will also be an integrated service in issuing tickets as well as information.”

He said: “Buses will be able to feed metro services and will link with metro stations.”

Wren added: “That’s why were are here. We see real development. We are looking for opportunities. We provide global strength. Our strength is graphically demonstrated by our success in locking up a bus deal with the ADA recently.”

Italcertifer CEO Carlo Cargonico, who addressed the forum on the second day, said Saudi Arabia is indeed embarking on an enormous project so that it needs all the expertise it could muster.

“Europe has a long history as far as integrated railway project is concerned. It would be a good idea for the Kingdom to find out what it can pick up from the experience of the European continent,” he said.

He said that European Railways can be considered as a reference for railways worldwide because:

l The traffic intensity and network complexity is the world’s biggest,

l The mix of high speed lines and traditional ones,

l Very consolidated safety concepts, norms, procedures, standards and technologies,

l Proven experience in the implementation of rules, organizations, technologies and systems,

l A technology market more open and standardized.

During the past years in Europe, he said that big changes had taken place in various sectors such as the railway industry. These include the liberalization concept, a new organization and interoperability notion.

“This has implied important technical, cultural and management modifications practically to the whole rail transport industry,” he said.

The rail undertakings, Carganico said, involved some public and private companies capable of supplying passengers and freight services by using and paying the infrastructure facilities.

On the notion of interoperability, he said that it is the capability of the railway system to allow the safe and uninterrupted circulation of the trains on the lines of different countries ensuring the requested performances.

“This capability is based on a set of the regulatory, technical and operational conditions to be respected to satisfy the essential requirements such as technical compatibility, safety, reliability and availability, environmental protection and health,” he said.

“Everything that is to be used in railway environment (components, subsystems and systems) must be evaluated by well-defined and common procedure to evaluate its compliance with all applicable norms and standards,” said the Italcertifer CEO.

Italcifer is an acknowledged and independent and competent assessor of materials used in the railway industry.

Adel Al Awadhi, Serco Saudi Arabia LLC general manager, also addressed the forum.

He said the Saudi government develops infrastructure projects and that there was a need for operators’ involvement to manage assets, life cycle and operate as well as deliver efficiency in service.

He said that early involvement is key in successful integrated transport mode and efficiency in systems and can work with governments in early stage to give advise on drawings, processes, procedures and plans including operations and maintenance and customer journey experience.

Serco Saudi Arabia LLC is an international company that gives advise to policy makers in design innovative solutions and in integrating system.

Loay Gazah, adviser at Bahrain’s Ministry of Works, also addressed the event, saying that “rail needs more innovation if it is to remain competitive with other modes.”

He said the rail industry spends just 3 percent of its revenue on research and development compared with 7 percent for air transport and 11 percent for road.

“Improvements should be made on energy efficiency where nearly all other modes are outperforming rail. Since 2000, cars have been gaining in energy efficiency by an average of 2.1 percent a year, compared with 1 percent a year for aircraft and heavy lorries, 0.7 percent for buses and just 0.35 percent for trains,” he said.

Other speakers included Shahid Khan of Saudi Binladin Group, Luis Sanchez Monserrat, ADIF; Vince Kerr, L-3 Communications; Ibrahim F. Alghofaily, Arriyada Financial & Economic Consultant center; among others.

Participants expressed satisfaction regarding the outcome of the forum, saying that they were looking forward to the same event next year.

Mohamed Khalaf, Teltronic country manager for Saudi Arabia, said that there were many issues were discussed at the forum.

Companies which sponsored the event, including Arab News, also expressed satisfaction regarding the outcome.

Ismail M. Ismail, consulting engineer at HILTI, said that the big number of representatives attending the forum on the first day underscored the event’s importance.

HILTI provides cutting edge technology to the global construction industry.