New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is the United States’ largest public transit agency. Kevin Smith reflects on outgoing chairman and CEO Thomas Prendergast’s recent interview with Railway Age editor-in-chief William Vantuono, where he outlined some of the agency’s current challenges and successes as well as the organisation’s plans for the future.

Abellio Germany has steadily become one of the leading players in Germany’s regional concessions market both in securing operating contracts and pushing for greater transparency and competition, as CEO Stephan Krenz explains to Kevin Smith.

Transnet signed a 20-year contract with RailRunner to haul lorry trailers on its 1400km Capecor corridor in 2016, with the aim of delivering a dramatic uplift in rail freight traffic, as Paul Ash explains.

THE quest to bring standard-gauge rail to Africa has gained traction following an announcement from the Tanzanian government that it is seeking bidders for the construction of the final portion of the new line that it plans to build between Dar es Salaam and Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

LAST autumn, Unife and Roland Berger published the sixth World Rail Market Study which predicts further investments in rail systems and stable growth for the world market for rail equipment (infrastructure, train control rolling stock and services) of 2.6% per year until 2021. In the last decade, the Middle East with its emerging new mainline and mass transit systems was a contributor to this growth. But what will the future market developments look like in light of the low oil price?

KIWIRAIL enters 2017 facing a number of short and long-term challenges, and how these issues are tackled will determine the future nature and extent of railway services in New Zealand over the coming decades.

THE north-south interstate rail corridor between Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne managed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), has struggled against competition from road and coastal shipping for many years, with a market share well below 10% for inter-capital traffic.

RUMO is now Brazil and Latin America’s largest rail freight company. Operating a network of over 12,000km covering four rail concessions in Mato Grosso, São Paulo, Paraná, and southwestern Brazil, the railway’s fleet of 1000 locomotives and 25,000 wagons primarily transports agricultural products from the heartlands of the country to port for export.

RUSSIA’s railway is currently going through a turbulent time. The rail sector is set to undergo a further wave of reform in the next three to four years, with some areas such as its administrative setup, tariff system, client policy and approach to client relations already experiencing major transformation.