Study completed with UIC’s support

In August 2013, after several months of preparation, the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and Transport (Ministerio de Fomento) created a Technical-Scientific Committee for the Study of Improvements in the Railway Sector.

The aim of this Committee was to analyse, for the first time in the history of railways in Spain, and probably in the world, the Spanish railway sector as a whole, including everything that enables the operation of a national system of railways (railway companies, the supply industry, universities and all the institutions and organisations relating to the railway sector).

The chairmanship of this Committee was delegated to UIC, represented by its Director of the Passenger and High Speed Department, Iñaki Barrón de Angoiti, and was composed of 12 renowned Spanish experts from the many different areas of the railway sector: operators, industry, universities, etc.

The Committee undertook to present a report within six months and, once the main draft of the final report was presented, three more months were dedicated to internal discussions in the ministry and formatting it. By June 2014, the report – containing around 400 pages and completed by a summary report and several appendices – was finally presented to the representative from the Spanish railway sector and the media, as well as published on the website of the Ministry.

The first part of the executive summary presents a series of specific proposals which may prove useful, given their strategic value, to the decision-making process as it concerns railways in Spain. These are the decisions that will shape the railway sector, and the transport system in general, that will be used by future generations of Spanish and European citizens.

Mr Loubinoux wishes to stress the importance of such work, performed at the request of the Spanish minister and at the service of the Spanish railway community and our members. This is an evident recognition of UIC’s long-standing experience in the fields of operation and maintenance, its absolute neutrality in the sector, its aptitude to coordinate the work of senior experts, and its capacity to have a long-term vision in the interest of railways and their contribution to sustainable mobility and economy.
UIC is happy and proud that its contribution will support the future of rail in Spain.

Due to the interest of this report, the innovative concept of the railway sector’s analysis and full content, the executive summary was translated into English and recently published on the website of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works in order to be useful not only for Spanish speaking countries, but also disseminated on a more general level around the world.

The full report and its Executive Summary (in Spanish), as well as the English version of the Executive Summary, can be found and downloaded from the website of the Ministry of Public Works (Ministerio de Fomento):

http://www.fomento.gob.es/MFOM/LANG_CASTELLANO/DIRECCIONES_GENERALES/FERROCARRILES/INFORME/

The Spanish railway sector in figures

• The Spanish railway sector is technologically powerful, and one of the most important in the world.
• The turnover of the rail transport and supply industry in Spain is approximately 2.15 billion Euros and 4.35 billion Euros a year respectively; of the latter figure, 1.85 billion Euros are spent in Spain and the other 2.5 billion Euros correspond to exports.
• Leaving aside training, research, legislation etc., the railway sector represents approximately 6.5 billion Euros per year.
• The rail supply industry consists of 600 companies and represents the main activity for 220 of these, 75% of which are small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Employment in the sector represents a total of just over 145,000 jobs, of which 45,000 correspond to railway companies and the rest (some 100,000 jobs) to the supply industry, plus the corresponding figures for the civil engineering sector.