More than 30% of Brazil's rail network is unusable, says CNI.
A study conducted by the CNI (National Confederation of Industry), entitled "Rail Transport: Putting Competitiveness on Track," based on data from the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT), shows that more than 30% of the country's railway track network is unusable and 23% is inoperable.
Brazil Agency - A study conducted by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI), based on data from the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT), shows that more than 30% of the country's railway track network is unusable and 23% is inoperable.
The study, entitled "Rail Transport: Putting Competitiveness on Track," is part of a series of 43 documents on strategic topics that the organization will deliver to the candidates for President of the Republic.
The document suggests that overcoming bottlenecks in the sector necessarily involves increasing system connectivity, network size, and average train speeds.
Problems
According to experts, the country's rail network is a system with specific deficiencies and difficulties involving the concessionaires, as well as a lack of competition in the market and failures in the interconnection of the networks. The study indicates that the characteristics of the concession contracts signed in the 1990s generated these problems.
CNI's Executive Manager of Infrastructure, Wagner Cardoso, said that one way to seek the sector's recovery is to authorize the early extension of these concession contracts, so that concessionaires, from the renewal onwards, are obliged to reserve a portion of the railway's installed capacity for sharing and to invest pre-established amounts in improving and expanding the networks.
"Not renewing the contracts means prolonging the already low volume of investment for the next ten years and, consequently, the bottlenecks and saturated sections throughout the railway system, freezing the current transport capacity of the country's railways," said Cardoso.