EUR 5 billion to be invested in railways
PR dla Zagranicy
Roberto Galea
30.04.2015 08:20
According to the Ministry of Infrastructure and Development at least EUR 5 billion from the “Infrastructure and Environment programme” will be spent on rail transport between 2014 and 2020.
PKP Cargo is Poland's largest player in rail logistics. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The Deputy Minister, Sławomir Żałobka, spoke while at the 2015 Forum of Intermodal Transport in Gdańsk.
He said at least EUR 145 million of this would go to intermodal transport, which consists of using more than one mode of transport for a single journey.
The overall sum is EUR 500 million more than was spent 2007-2013, and in addition, Poland is expected to receive EUR 4.14 billion from the EU’s “Connecting Europe Facilit” program, Żałobka said.
Around 9.6 million tons of goods were transported via intermodal transport in 2014, an 11 percent increase on 2013.
The number of firms participating in intermodal railway transport has risen from three in 2005 to 12 last year, with the largest two being PKP Cargo (47 percent market share) and DB Schenker Rail Polska SA (21 percent).
Apart from intermodal transport, the Deputy Minister also said that Poland would aim to modernise at least 522 km of railway on TEN-T routes (Trans-European Transport Networks) by 2020, with the hope that greater speeds will allow railways to compete more effectively against other forms of transport.
Highlighted priorities included modernisation of a section of the E59 railway between Poznan (western Poland) and Szczecin (north-western Poland), which would cost PLN 2.2 billion (EUR 550 million). (sl/rg)
Source: PAP