ARUS takes place at Eurasia Rail 2023 held in Istanbul on 21-23 June 2023 – Dr. İlhami Pektaş
The 10th edition of which was held at the Istanbul Expo Center this year, Eurasia Rail 2023, Türkiye’s only and the world’s 3rd largest International Railway, Light Rail Systems, Infrastructure and Logistics Fair brought together the most significant actors of the rail systems industry in the region.
By implementing national and international collaborations more comprehensively and strongly than ever before, ARUS hosted many domestic and foreign guests in its activities taking place simultaneously with the exhibition for 3 days and shared the cluster’s member companies’ capabilities, products and projects with all participants.
The opening ceremony on the first day of the 10th International Railway, Light Rail Systems and Logistics Exhibition Eurasia Rail, was held with the participation of the Republic of Türkiye Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu, government officials, country representatives and leading names of the sector. The opening ceremony was participated by over 200 representatives from 34 countries including Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Czechia, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, India, Italy, Kosovo, Moldova, Nigeria, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, UAE, England and Uzbekistan.
Republic of Türkiye Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu underlined that our railways were made suitable for combined transportation by providing the connection of our railway lines of strategic importance between Europe and Asia to ports, airports and logistics centers with railway investments that had been neglected after 1950 but revived in 2003 and amounted to over 906 billion TL. Uraloğlu indicated that the high-speed train lines currently serving in 10 provinces in Türkiye will serve in 52 provinces by 2053 and that 90 percent of the design work of the National High-Speed Train, which has an operating speed of 225 kilometers, has been completed. Minister Uraloğlu gave the good news that the 8-car train set will start transporting passengers in 2025.
Visiting the stands after the opening ceremony on the 1st day of the exhibition, Republic of Türkiye Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Abdulkadir Uraloğlu visited the ARUS stand with the accompanying delegation. The Cluster’s Coordinator Dr. İlhami Pektaş informed our Minister and the delegation about the national and international activities carried out by ARUS.
On the first day of the exhibition in the “Capturing the Age in the Railway Sector” session moderated by Prof. Dr. Mehmet Turan Söylemez and attended by TCDD General Manager Hasan Pezük, TÜRASAŞ General Manager Mustafa Metin Yazar and ARUS Coordinator Dr. İlhami Pektaş and TÜBİTAK-RUTE Institute Director Dr. Tolgahan Kaya as speakers, all participants were informed about the projects, targets and R&D studies that have been made, ongoing and to be made in the field of rail systems in Türkiye.
The “International Cooperation within the Scope of Research & Innovation in Railways” session organized in cooperation with ARUS on the second day of the exhibition was moderated by TÜBİTAK-RUTE Project Manager Hamdi Uçarol. Veronica Elena Bocci from Italy’s DITECFER Cluster, Robert Hopkin from the University of Birmingham in the UK and Florence Masbernat, European and Academic Director of the French Railenium, attended the session as speakers and evaluated the potential collaborations between European cluster companies by providing information to the participants on R&D and innovation projects in the European railway sector.
On the 3rd day of the exhibition, B2B cooperation meetings were held and the issue of joint projects was discussed between ARUS members and CZECH Rail System Cluster ACRI members.
In addition to the events during the exhibition, ARUS visited the stands of the cluster’s participant members one by one for 3 days and received information about their new projects and investments.