“Across 90 per cent of the network,” Genidounias continues, “drivers have no indication whether they are going down a side pass, no indication that they have to reduce speed at that location, everything becomes arbitrary even at speeds up to 160 km/h. The same goes for all train personnel: trainmasters, points-men and others work without electronic systems. You ask the train points-man, ‘Hey Kosta, have you turned the key’, and he’ll answer ‘yes I have’. But you can’t check if he has actually done it; you just have to trust the person telling you that they have done it”.

Later, Mr. Genidounia was more open and informal: “I’ll give you one more example to better understand the situation. A train today will leave Athens with telegrams, the same way train movement was organized in 1975. For example, yesterday I did the route from Athens to Larisa. I left Athens and continued until the Acharnes Railway Center: the trainmaster gave me permission to continue to Kiourka, then they gave me permission for Inoi, then for Tithorea, Lianokladi, Palaio Fasarlo, and finally Larisa. All this is done with a wireless at each station.”

“The problem is that throughout the whole route we go through side-passes with no indicators, no traffic lights. 80 per cent of the lights that actually exist are shut off, or red! Only the route between Athens Airport and Acharnes Railway Center has electronic management systems and traffic lights. With the suburban line reaching the airport, that system is pretty well maintained. At the moment, in total, only 30 km of the whole rail network has functioning train traffic lights. This isn’t just minimal: it’s less than the minimum. Over the past decade, Greece has seen the implementation of projects which have been due since the 1990s: the Kallidromo, the Othris tunnel, electromobility, Larisa Station in Athens, projects which have given trains in Greece some new-found energy. Even so, up until now, no security system is functioning”.

“Overall, the signage doesn’t function,” confirms Mr. Genidounia’s colleague Panagiotis Paraskeuopoulos, points-man at the Dekelias Station in Athens and president of the Panhellenic Federation of Railways. Talking about the new system, he stresses that “if it worked, the overall distance of the Athens-Thessaloniki route would be reduced from the four hours it is today to three and a half hours! With an electronic management system, the driver would always know exactly what he is doing. Even if he was reckless, it’d be impossible for him to make a mistake, because the system would show him a red light. It wouldn’t let him pass with a red light, like it does now. ‘Pass a red light at your own risk’: this is how train circulation is handled today. And when people work 28 days a month, with exhausting hours, a mistake is waiting to happen; statistical speaking, at some point you’ll make a mistake”.

 Photos: MIIR

The project was finally completed in mid-2018, after repeated delays and extensions, and after two penalties were imposed because Ansaldo-Hitachi failed to meet its contractual obligations. 2014 marked the first reduction  of the project, as an additional ETCS LEVEL 1 upgrade subsystem was removed and the period for implementation was extended. In 2016, due to Ansaldo’s inability to meet deadlines, it was decided that the contractor should equip 26 fewer trains, delivering 88 trains instead of 114. In parallel, the contract’s value was to be reduced  to €21.3 million. However, payments  recorded on the database of the National Strategic Reference Framework’s projects show a reduction of only €1.1 million: was it decided to pay the contractor part of the amount for the 26 remaining trains (worth approximately €3 million)?

While most wagons were delivered, the same never happened for the installation of ETCS on the tracks of the main railway route of Greece, the Athens-Thessaloniki-Promachon route. Two separate contracts for horizontal signage with joint ventures are still in progress, leading to additional public spending.

The contract for the “Supply of ETCS Level 1 Line System with Related Services” was published  during the same period as that for trains, and was also part of the National Strategic Reference Framework for 2007-2013, starting in 2007 with a budget of €3.8 million  . The installation was undertaken by Terna SA, one of the largest construction companies in Greece, together with French colossus Thales, active in the fields of electronic defense and security systems, air navigation, space, and of course transport. The French state holds the largest stake in the company. In Greece – in addition to significant cooperation with the armed forces – the company has supplied the METRO Line 1 train and communication system, as well as a large part of the air traffic control systems. Thales has also undertaken the supply of signage and telecommunications systems to the new section of  the Kiato-Rododafni (Aigio) line.

Despite this, the French group failed to stand up to its reputation with regard to the installation of ETCS. Supply of the equipment could not be completed within the original deadline: an additional €12.5  million were added to the budget, bringing the total to €16.3 million. However, the new delivery date of 2017 was missed again, and the project received a new extension  . The project is still incomplete; according to the estimated track record on the database of the National Strategic Reference Framework’s projects, it is expected to be completed by the end of December 2020.

The total budget rapidly increased: the Tomi-Alstom contract rose by €9.5 million  and it came to incorporate the first supplementary contract as an additional sub-project, with an additional public expenditure of €12.5 million.  As a result, while the project was to cost €41 million when it was awarded in 2014, it joined the National Strategic Reference Framework for 2014-2020 at an increased cost of €63 million: an increase in public expenditure by €22 million, more than 50 per cent of the original budget – which forced the Greek supervising authority for the co-financed European programs to blame ERGOSE for mismanagement, and seek a refund of €2.5 million.

How did this happen? The responsibilities are multifaceted and involve both OSE and ERGOSE, as well as the Tomi-Alstom consortium.

Πηγή: ergose.gr

Από τα 41 εκ ευρώ, δηλαδή, που κόστιζε το έργο όταν έγινε η ανάθεση το 2014, έφτασε να ενταχθεί στο ΕΣΠΑ με αυξημένο κόστος της τάξης των 63 εκ. Ευρώ. Μια αύξηση της δημόσιας δαπάνης κατά 22 εκ, ευρώ, ποσοστό πλέον του 50% του αρχικού προϋπολογισμού, αναγκάζοντας την αρμόδια αρχή ελέγχου των συγχρηματοδοτούμενων προγραμμάτων να καταλογίσει στην ΕΡΓΟΣΕ κακοδιαχείριση και να ζητήσει επιστροφή 2,5 εκ ευρώ της ευρωπαϊκής χρηματοδότησης.

Πώς όμως συνέβη αυτό; Εδώ οι ευθύνες είναι πολύπλευρες και εμπλέκουν τόσο τον ΟΣΕ και την ΕΡΓΟΣΕ, όσο και την κοινοπραξία «ΤΟΜΗ-ALSTOM».

The consortium claimed that it was not possible to upgrade the existing equipment on the tracks, so it proposed to replace all the signage equipment marked for reset. OSE and ERGOSE disagreed with this proposal, as it was incompatible with the technical description included in the contract. However, at the end of 2016, after the two-year deadline had expired, ERGOSE under Christos Doukakis asked the Special Service for the Management of the National Strategic Reference Framework 2014-2020 approval for the conclusion of an additional €16 million contract for the replacement of all equipment marked for reset.

The supplementary contract was obstructed In February 2018 by the Court of Auditors, which attributed responsibility for improper auctioning to OSE and ERGOSE, judging that there were no “unforeseen circumstances” to justify additional funding. Four months later, however, another composition of the Court overturned this decision. The judges’ decision directly links the renewal of the signaling system to the effective operation of ETCS, calling “unforeseen” the adoption of EU Regulation 2016/919 on interoperability of the rail system. Following the green light, the first supplementary contract was added  , with a completion deadline set to the end of December 2020. An amending act  later reduced the overall length of the line to be upgraded from 519km to 402km, without however reducing the cost of the project. As of now, it results that the project has yet to be contracted. 

The drama concludes with a report of the audit committee for the co-financed programs of the Ministry of Finance, calling on ERGOSE to return €2.5 million of EU funds for irregularity in the definition of the subject of the contract and for failing to meet contractual requirements.

Age-old mismanagement by state authorities and contractors, coupled with the technical difficulties involved in adapting the European Rail Traffic Management System to national railway networks, appear to have already cost tens of millions of euros in public funds. This only applies to the costs of horizontal signage projects, not to the signage costs associated with mixed electrification installations. Maladministration and missed deadlines have not only cost money, more importantly they have cost human lives. As long as modern safety systems remain inactive on the Greek railway network, Greece will hold a blood-soaked first place for European rail accident indicators and fail to keep pace with new developments. MIIR’s research confirms that the sign we imagined earlier for the Greek rail network will continue to flash for a long time to come: “Warning, No Signal”.