Hellenic Railways in big crises

As the unique Public Transport Users Association in Greece, we want to inform you briefly about current evolutions in the Hellenic State Railways (OSE) and the main points of the Transport Ministry’s Rail Restructuring Plan, from the rail transport user point of view.

OSE is a holding company, containing 4 daughter companies – one for the Infrastructure Management named EDISY, one for the Modernisation Works (financed from the EU Funding Programs) named ERGA-OSE, one for the Real Estate Development of their real estate named GAIA-OSE and one last for the Operation / Passenger and Freight Exploitation of the Network, named TRAIN-OSE.

The lack of state subsidy for 35 years and the combined cost of infrastructure maintenance and unprofitable passenger operation have created a deficit of about €daily. For this reason, the Greek Government decided to implement a Restructuring Plan for the Hellenic Railways. This Restructuring Plan has the following parameters (concerning passenger services) among others:

1. Complete separation of the Operational Company of OSE (the TRAIN-OSE) from the rest OSE Holding Company and merger of ERGA-OSE, EDISY and GAIA-OSE into one organization, responsible for infrastructure management, modernisation and real estate.
Rationalisation of the internal function of TRAIN-OSE, introducing one-man operation in suburban services, implementing modern management practices and offering benefits for early retirement to a big part of the existing staff in spite of significant shortage of personnel in prime line positions.

2. Creation of an independent authority for Accidents and Safety Affairs, in parallel to the Greek Rail Regulator, in order to fulfil the prerequisites of application of EU Rail Guidelines to the Greek system, pending the introduction of competition into the Greek railways planned for 2010. Completion of the current modernization works on the core network Patras-Athens-Salonica-Grecomacedonian border (conversion of the existing MG or SG line into a 200 km/h high speed line) and of the development of the Suburban Railway of Athens and total abandonment of the rolling improvement works in the regional rail network. That means that in the long term only 700 km of the existing 2500 km network will survive.

3. Further restriction of the already limited rail services in regional lines (now the majority of them has 3 – 8 services per direction daily, with the exception of the Salonica Suburban System, the Larissa-Volos line and the Kalamata Suburban System which have an hourly service throughout the day). Characteristically the line which serves the Historical site of Ancient Olympia has only 5 services every morning with no afternoon services!).

4. Restrictions will take place even on the main Athens-Salonica line services. These will be reduced to the half of the existing services, in spite of current trains (11 pairs daily) travelling overloaded and increased demand. Direct services from Athens or Salonica towards the branches of the main Athens-Salonica line (Volos, Kalampaka, Alexandroupolis etc) will be suspended.

5. Although EU-funded works on the MG Korinth-Tripolis-Kalamata line have finished last spring, and the line is now operational, no services have started so far. There is a plan to monitor performance and “profitability” of the line with only 3 daily services for only three months, in order to decide whether to keep it in operation. We consider this an indirect way of closing the line, as neither the frequency nor the time frame are sufficient for any successful usage. Greek Government is unwilling to pay Public Service Obligations for the regional train services, with the exception of a small number of them.