"DAC won’t save us. If the railway sector bears the costs, the customers will pay for it," says Metrans CEO Peter Kiss

Peter Kiss warns that unless the railway sector receives sufficient subsidies to implement DAC, the costs will be passed on to customers, making rail transport less attractive. Instead of blind investment, he believes we need to use common sense and manage resources effectively.

We’re meeting today at the Rail Summit. Could you tell us the main purpose of this conference?

It’s quite a grand name – Summit. We’ve gathered people responsible for the railways. Germans, Austrians, Slovaks, Hungarians, and Czechs are all here because the railway needs help. We’ve forgotten about the railway, about its importance. Representatives from the railway associations needed to meet, because while we each fight our battles in our own countries, it's time for us to come together, so our voice is heard louder.

So the aim was to unite forces. Can you tell us what topics were discussed today and what conclusions were reached?

Yes, the first goal was to unite forces. Each country has its own specifics, but there are topics that are pan-European. Whether it’s ETCS or the Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC). Unfortunately, large railway companies have enough influence to shape policy and further development. We smaller railway operators have been somewhat left alone, and no one is paying attention to us. So, today’s goal was for us to express our opinions, to agree on what we think, and the problems each country is facing. Why are we being forced to implement ETCS, and DAC? We’re not against innovation, we’re not against progress, but it has to make sense. As a result, there will be a short resolution stating that we are indeed not against progress. Progress must happen. But progress has to bring us something as well. We can’t just keep investing, investing, making railways more and more expensive, making them less competitive. I believe we’ve laid the groundwork today. The next meeting will likely be more open, the partners now know each other, and I think it has a good chance of success.

So you see this as an initiative that you definitely want to continue, and together communicate with European agencies like DG Move?

Yes, we must. There’s no other option. We can’t fight alone. We have to fight together.

ETCS and DAC are hot topics right now. When it comes to DAC, there’s a lot of talk about the overall investment and support for freight railway operators. The latest news from Brussels suggests that subsidies may only cover fifty percent. Freight operators from ŽESNAD.CZ have said they expect 100%, if not 120% because there will obviously be additional costs. What’s your stance on this, and how do your international partners see it?

If the railway sector has to pay for DAC, it will be the customers who bear the costs. Railways will become less attractive, and more expensive. Today, there’s no other solution but to pass it into the price of transportation. If there are no subsidies, we’ll see where it ends. Pioneer trains, as they’ve been called by experts, are supposed to start soon, and we’ll see the results. My colleague from ŽESNAD.CZ put it well today – we’ve found a new grail, and everyone is running after DAC because we think it will save us. No, it won’t save us. We’ll be saved if we start using some common sense and managing our assets wisely, instead of just throwing money away.

Proponents of DAC claim it will increase railway capacity and bring significant savings in labor costs. Do you think that’s realistic?

When we talk about prices ranging from 25,000 to 50,000 euros, and I’ve even heard higher sums, for one coupling, one wagon, we’d have to have a lot of those yardmasters and colleagues working with wagons to justify it. I don’t think this argument, that we’ll save on human resources, is the right one. The right argument should be innovation and what we want to achieve. Yes, increasing capacity – but DAC alone won’t solve this. We should be talking about whether we can extend trains because today we have lines where we run 500-meter-long trains. Why can’t we run 1,000-meter-long trains? What would we need to do that? There are many other questions we should be asking in connection with DAC. I think if we did, people would be more open to it. Right now, they’re telling us: "Yes, this will be done, maybe in 10 or 20 years it will bring something." But we’re not convinced yet.

You mentioned that DAC and ETCS are making railways more expensive and less competitive. Isn’t this somewhat counterproductive to the EU’s goal of shifting more transport from road to rail?

It’s completely counterproductive. We’ve forgotten what we set out to do, forgotten what we wanted to achieve by 2030, or 2050. Today, we’re working on something completely different, and it’s wrong. We won’t meet the goal of shifting transport from roads to rail. Instead, we’re losing more business to other sectors. The railway is seen as dirty, unreliable, expensive, and unattractive. We’ve forgotten what we have on the railway.

There’s talk of a crisis or downturn in rail freight volumes at the moment. Do you see this as a trend that’s deepening, or is the market starting to recover and return to previous levels?

We have to differentiate. As Metrans Group, we’re in a slightly different segment. Intermodal transport is doing relatively well. It requires investment in money, time, and energy, but it’s relatively stable. The conventional rail sector is facing challenges, and that’s unfortunately a European problem. Europe has slowed down, it’s asleep, it’s not consuming or producing, and I fear we’re headed for another crisis.