Elmia Nordic Rail – creating future opportunities ON 6-8 OCTOBER 2015 IT IS TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR ELMIA NORDIC RAIL – THE MOST IMPORTANT RAILWAY FAIR IN THE NORDIC REGION. It brings together decision-makers, experts and industry players to set the agenda for the infrastructure of the future. “Here you can meet ‘everyone’ in the railway industry in one place,” says Jörgen Nyström, Business Manager for Elmia Nordic Rail, as well as Elmia Future Transport and Elmia Nordic Road. Infrastructure investments in the Nordic region are increasing – both in number and size. Over two years, the Förbifart
Stockholm bypass alone will see more than 20 billion Swedish kronor being spent on contracts. Altogether the project encompasses some 50 contracts worth between 300 million and 3 billion kronor. This makes Förbifart Stockholm a historically large infrastructure project in Sweden, and one of the biggest in Europe at the present time. However, Förbifart Stockholm is far from the only infrastructure project in the
Nordic region. Norway is facing massive road investments, while its railway sector needs restructuring. Denmark has the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link, and in Sweden construction of some stretches of the future high-speed line is under way. So clearly the Nordic countries are facing historically large infrastructure investments, and there is almost a trillion Swedish kronor in the national transport plans relating to investments in railways, roads, bridges, intermodal terminals, technology and maintenance. Never before has a Nordic railway fair been so important as it is now. Every day we hear reports of how unfit for purpose the Swedish railways are, while more and more passengers are choosing public transport and the need for sustainable transport is rising. “This is a delicate dilemma, and I’m not claiming that we’ll solve it during Elmia Future Transport, Elmia Nordic Rail and Elmia Nordic Road – but a quick look at the conference programme does suggest we will make some progress,” says Nyström.
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