Private railway transport operators are increasingly having difficulty doing business and the state is ignoring their demands to be compensated for losses incurred due to restrictions related to infrastructure and work on the modernisation of railways, a conference heard on Wednesday.

The conference, focusing on the sustainability of the railway system, was organised by the Railway Alliance association.

Milan Brkic, head of the sector for railway transport at the Croatian Employers’ Association and director of the private company Railway Cargo, said that railway cargo transport operators faced problems such as limited capacity and restrictions related to infrastructure, caused both by modernisation as well as poor maintenance.

“It has become practically impossible for us to do business because we cannot contract and provide transport services on a continual basis and are faced with the dissatisfaction of our clients,” Brkic said, noting that last year private railway transport operators incurred losses but despite that, none of them owed their workers wages or contributions to the state.

Therefore they demand that plans for investments and modernisation work on railways also include compensation to railway operators due to lack of access to infrastructure, as envisaged by contracts on access to railway infrastructure they sign every year.

The losses of private railway transport operators would be covered by between 10 and 30 million euros, Brkic said, noting that the competent ministry had refused their requests for compensation on several occasions.

Mladen Niksic of the the Zagreb Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences said that new railways were being built and the existing ones revitalised in Croatia, welcoming the government’s announcements of investments in railways over the next decade.

He said that the revitalisation of railway corridors was very important because they are important for both cargo and passenger transport, noting that one should not forget also local railways because of their great potential.

Niksic admitted that the railway system was an inert system where changes do not happen fast, and expects that the first results benefitting both users and transport operators could be seen only in five to ten years’ time.

The head of the Railway Alliance, Ante Klecina, said that the average state of the railway infrastructure in Croatia was not good even though some sections were recently upgraded and some would soon be upgraded.

He called for better organisation as well as a better personnel policy in the railway sector, noting that Croatia should have a quality commuter system as well as multimodal centres for cargo transshipment to provide better logistics to industrial zones, etc.

In Croatia there are 19 railway transport operators of which 11 are cargo transport operators and one is a passenger transport operator. Railway modernisation is underway and in the next ten years more than 4 billion euros is to be invested in railways and 800-1,000 kilometres of railway tracks are to be upgraded.

The EU estimates that in future at least 50% of passenger transport and up to 75% of cargo transport in its territory will be conducted by rail.