Currently it takes 18 hours to travel by train from the Uzbek capital Tashkent to the city of Urgench located further west. Uzbekistan extends 1,425km from east to west, more than twice the width of Germany. The operation of high-speed trains can reduce this travel time to just seven hours. This requires the conversion of the 452-km Bukhara-Urgench-Khiva rail section to electric traction.
DB Engineering & Consulting will supervise the electrification project, which will start in the fall of this year. In addition to reducing travel time, it is expected to increase the tourism potential of the Republic of Uzbekistan, increase the capacity of transit corridors, and reduce CO2 emissions.
As part of a strategic partnership with the Uzbek Ministry of Transport and Uzbek Railways, DB Engineering & Consulting is already providing construction supervision services for three other rail projects. These include the construction of the Qamchik rail tunnel on the Angren-Pap line and the line extension of the Tashkent subway.
The transport industry and, specifically, rail transport are important sectors of the economy in Uzbekistan and therefore a priority for the government. In 2021, political decision-makers and representatives from Uzbekistan and Germany discussed how the successful cooperation for the development and expansion of the Uzbek transport sector could be intensified.
A joint working group comprising the Uzbek Ministry of Transport, Uzbek Railways and DB Engineering & Consulting drafted recommendations on how to improve the organizational structure and management of the rail companies, increase financial stability, expand logistics potential, and transit corridors, push ahead with digitalization and boost the competitiveness of rail transport.
In May 2019, during the visit of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, an agreement was reached to establish a partnership for optimizing activities of the Uzbek railroads. Over the next five years, the partnership for transforming the rail sector will continue to be expanded.