Railway_Digest__February_2018

Rail industry
5th International Railway Summit, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
The above event was held in the Shangri-La Hotel, in Malaysia’s
capital city over three days, 15-17 November 2017. The
conference focused on the issues of Social and Economic
Sustainability for Rail Transport and was attended by 250
delegates, representing a significant cross-section from 100 countries.
The summit was hosted by IRITS Events, in association with the
International Union of Railways (UIC) and Huawei Technologies. All
the big players were in attendance with representatives from all the
Malaysian railway systems, Chinese delegates representing suppliers,
railways, metros, European operators, vendors, leaders and experts.
On the first day of the summit, 40 rail industry professionals were taken
on a tour of KL’s Light Rapid Transit, Ampang Line and a visit to its
Operation and Control Centre.
The increased use of digital technology was a focus of the summit,
showing how it is transforming the rail industry. A central theme of the
conference was that there are huge challenges that the rail industry
must face. It must become the land transport mode of the 21st Century,
with the mobility of rail being its backbone for an effective, integrated,
multimodal transportation system. It has distinct advantages over its
competitor, road transport in terms of capacity, safety, reliability and
environmental acceptability, which need to be emphasised emphatically
over and over again to achieve the dominance its warrants. Freight traffic
is expected to increase by a factor of three by 2050 from 112,000 to
329,000 billion tonne-kilometres. Global passenger transport will more
than double between 2015 and 2050, from 50,000 to 120,000 billion
passenger-kilometres with a major focus on urban and intra-city mobility.
Massive urbanisation over the coming decades in developing countries
will be a certainty. In 2050, 66% of the world’s population will be urban,
up from 54% in 2014. A major issue though is the lack of infrastructure in
developing countries which will need to be addressed.
From an Australian perspective, the talk by Tony Frazier, GM
Operations Services, Interstate Network, Australian Rail Track
Corporation was of particular interest. The ARTC network, consisting
of 8,500 kilometres serviced by 1,200 staff, handles 450 trains per
day from Brisbane through Sydney, Adelaide via Melbourne and
Broken Hill and across the continent to Kalgoorlie. The network will
expand with the construction of the Inland Railway from Melbourne
to Brisbane via western NSW. It will be 1,700 kilometres long, using
1,200 kilometres of existing tracks and will include a 6.38 kilometre
tunnel in the Toowoomba Range. The Kagaru to Toowoomba section
will be delivered through a Public Private Partnership. From Gowrie
(west of Toowoomba) to Kagaru a distance of 133.6 km, 100 km will
be greenfield line, there will be 11 crossing loops to cater for 1.8 km
trains, 8.5 km of tunnels, including the abovementioned Toowoomba
Tunnel, 11 viaducts totalling eight kilometres, 51 bridges totalling four
kilometres. Construction will take four years with the first trains to
operate in 2024/25. Double stacking operation will be available as will
axle loadings of 25 tonnes at 80km/h, with future proofing for 30 tonnes
at 80 km/h.
The conference was well organised and staffed, utilising an excellent
venue with very good facilities and transport connections. KL is a vibrant,
exciting, growing city and it is tackling its transport issues with considerable
foresight, fully aware of the potential transport nightmares that can afflict
those places that don’t plan properly for the future, such as Bangkok
and Jakarta.
Shane O’Neil
Top: Norman Frisch, Chairman of the eLTE Industry Alliance and Marketing Director, Transport Sector, Huawei, leads the Digital Railway
Transformation Panel Discussion, late afternoon on Day Two.
Centre: The large Huawei display at the Summit, which featured interactive displays and, of particular interest to a country such as Australia, a display
of equipment that can be used for controlling remote grade or level crossings utilising solar panels. Huawei was a major sponsor of the Summit.
Above: The hard-working team of IRITS Events staff from left to right: Akshata Kamath, Chandini Saikia, Raluca Boroianu-Omura, Anuja Raut
and Vasena Kularatna-Rodgers at the information desk on Day Three. All images Shane O’Neil
4
RAILWAY DIGEST