For Inclusion in the Regional Section of Our Website Under Railways

Juderica,

For inclusion in the Regional section of our website under railways.

Thanks ----- Forwarded by Gerald Paul Ollivier/Person/World Bank on 02/11/2004 11:42 AM -----

Luisa Velardi To: Anca Cristina Dumitrescu, 01/20/2004 06:18 PM Paul Amos 34964 ECSIE cc: Paulus A. Guitink, Gerald Paul Ollivier, Vladimir Skendrovic, Philip W. Moeller, Motoo Konishi Subject: Re: TTFSE scaling -up: proposed concept note for your comments on the railways part

Dear Anca,

I agree with you that the railway part could be narrowed.

However, it is important to remind that a railway is a system and that investments or interventions in only one direction often don't yield big results. The classical example is EU, where the customs don't operate anymore but the freight trains stop, and change locomotive, and change driver, and perform all the safety checking, and exchange papers, and re-write papers, and meanwhile the trains wait...

That's why when I wrote the railway part of the concept note I tried to address the railway as a whole.

Anyhow, if we want to focus only on the border issues, the points 3.1.1. and the investments on the fleet and the infrastructure can be cancelled.

Here I am attaching the draft paper I submitted to Motoo. It is even broader than the concept note. There is also the 'annex' which is the paper aimed in particular to address the freight service in the Balkans.

Cheers,

Luisa.

BalkanJan16.doc Annex.doc Luisa Velardi Sr. Transport Specialist World Bank Europe & Central Asia Region phone +1-202-473-4964 fax +1-202-614-0900 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433, USA Anca Cristina To: [email protected] Dumitrescu cc: Paulus A. Guitink, Gerald Paul Ollivier, Luisa Velardi, Vladimir Skendrovic, Philip W. Moeller 01/20/2004 10:53 AM Subject: TTFSE scaling -up: 89754 ECSIE proposed concept note for your comments on the railways part

As discussed earlier, here is the final concept note for the expansion of the TTFSE that we plan to present to our counterparts as an introduction to the new potential program, and on which we expect feed-back. We are seeking all kinds of proposals, provided that they have a regional connotation.

We are not sure if we don't need to narrow a bit the railways part; it is somehow broad, and addresses policies rather than trade facilitation issues. We will not be able to address all that in a TTFSE II program, but we can make a start. I am copying it below for your review and suggestions on what we could focus on in the Balkans, but it would be useful if you could also glance at the whole paper to see where we started at what we are aiming at. Is that concept "compatible" with the EU plans?

Luisa, perhaps you can also share your views as well as the paper which you prepared for Motoo. Many thanks.

Scaling up TTFSE 0104.doc

3.1. Railways. In the first stage of the TTFSE program, the Freight Railways issues have been addressed only through the pilot study ‘Improving the quality of dispatching of International Trains between Sopron and Southeast Europe’. This study helped draft a strategy for the extension of the TTFSE to the railways. The main points of the strategy are the following:

3.1.1-liberalization of the railway market. The Balkan countries are intending to use the railway model proposed by EU, and therefore they plan to separate operations and infrastructure and to liberalize the use of the infrastructure. This will eventually open the railway market to competition and establish international railway companies able to operate across borders. This process should be accelerated and some of the elements of the liberalization process should be anticipated to allow international companies to operate even though the restructuring process has not yet been completed in all the countries of the Region;

3.1.2-changing the custom control and border crossing procedures. The Customs control should be relocated at the major rail terminal/shunting stations to reduce (if possible to eliminate) the need for stopping en-route (a train running between Turkey and Austria crosses four borders). To this end, important technical and procedural changes should be introduced, including bilateral border crossing agreements between States. Regarding the procedure for the railways, in addition to facilitating the establishment of international railways companies, the national railways should reach confidence agreements to reduce the technical inspection and therefore the time losses during the change of locomotives and crews at the border.

3.1.3-physical investments. Three kinds of physical investments are necessary:

- investments to relocate border agency controls and improve information flows/ communication systems, -investments to modernize rail fleets, logistics and equipments, -investments to upgrade the main railway corridors through the Balkans, i.e. Corridor X, Corridor IV, and Corridor V. The TIRS and REBIS studies have identified some physical investments, such as projects to electrify some sections of the corridors (and therefore to improve their interoperability) and to rehabilitate bridges and lines damaged or destroyed during the war, which would ameliorate the freight services in the Region.

The TTFSE II program could include in particular the first and third kind of investments, linked to the liberalization of rail services and change in railway and border procedures.

------Anca Dumitrescu Transport Specialist Europe & Central Asia Region tel: 1-202-458-9754 fax: 1-202-614-0900

Have you visited the ECA Transport Website? http://ecaweb.worldbank.org:8080/Transport.nsf (for internal users) http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/ECA/Transport.nsf (for external users)