Megatrends

Railways for the future

Railway infrastructure serves as catalyst to economic growth and overall lifestyle prosperity. Commonplace urban sprawl justifies the ongoing development of more intercity and commuter services which in turn support the demand trend for more leased rolling stock capacity.

Passenger rail cars

Key component of the overall railway infrastructure

As important as they are within the operators' value chain, passenger rail vehicles are often out of reach for their high investment cost or long delivery times. Just as was the case in the airline sector in the first decade of its liberalization, the procurement best practice is thus trending towards leasing structures, freeing up operators' capital and management attention to 'divide and conquer': ROSCOs focusing on "all things vehicles", and operators focusing of operational and retail excellence.

Quality connection

New induced demand is estimated by industry experts at approximately 700 thousand seats by the year 2030. This translates to approximately 10 thousand vehicles that OEMs are not prepared to shoulder. The ability to repurpose second hand vehicles thus unlocks opportunities worth billions of euros..

Prohibitively long lead times

Wasted billions

Paradoxically, due to the successful & momentous liberalization of the passenger rail sector, the European OEMs are overbooked and unable to deliver vehicles to operators within actionable timeframes; the procurement of rolling stock becomes the bottleneck of further development. This problem has a straightforward solution -- repurposed second hand and standardised and scalable new built stock.

Price for 'seatkilometer'

A path to modal competitiveness

Financing and rolling stock capacity must not be obstacles to operators' growth. Only when capacity is offered as financed for and at competitive 'seatkilometer' cost vis-a-vis intercity bus and low-cost air modal comparison will the passenger rail shift into yet a higher gear of its growth.

It is in the low cost per seatkilometer that lays the hidden face of sustainability.

Vehicle flexibility

More efficient capacity

Leasing vehicles instead of procuring, financing, owning and maintaining them enables operators to quickly react to market demand trends, opening new markets or doubling-down on existing ones, giving managements an actionable gauge on their companies' growth pace.

Liberalization of passenger rail

A catalyst for demand

Liberalization within the passenger rail sector brought better quality of service, lower cost for governtments as well as for passengers, which, in a 'flywheel principle', further increases demand by the public which then translates to more services at further reduced --unit-- cost to taxpayer and passenger. Naturally, the one result of the trend is more demand for --second hand as well as new-- rolling stock.

More railways...

...less CO²

Transportation is one of the key contributors to greenhouse gases. Passenger rail, already electrified or inherently electrifiable --and assuming more and more electric is sourced sustainably, not from fossils-- is the key lever to further pull politically when aiming to decarbonise the transportation paradigm as a whole.

Higher quality of railway connections

Less flights, cars and buses

64 % of transport emissions are attributed to cars, 10 % to buses. That amounts to 500 tonnes of CO² per person, every year. Those happen to be emissions which can be substituted -- with higher quality of railway services has been steadily drawing people from cars to trains. At LMM we pride ourselves to be an enabler of this trend.

Higher frequency and connections' capacity

A better quality lifestyle for all

What is better? Leaving old houses and apartments and building new ones or repurposing and using old ones? Railway connections with high frequency and capacity 'shorten distances between cities', figuratively speaking. Train connections lead to what becomes 'rational urbanism' and make commuting a virtue. This trend then leads to general reduction in emissions produced by communities and regions.

Refurbising of old cars

Saving tonnes of CO²

Why build new when repurposing old can generate decades more of useful [vehicle] life cycle? Building a new passenger rail car produces thousands of tonnes of CO². Refurbishing a second hand vehicle reduced that footprint by 70%. We repurpose hundreds of second hand railcars which have their best years still ahead of them.

Room for longer connections

Effective reduction in airline connections

Long distance passenger rail must be competitive vis-a-vis low-cost airlines. For operators that means leveraging capacity and frequency to drive down seatkilometer cost to beat airlines' value proposition. Airlines in the EU last year have contributed 24 % to overall emissions. Passenger rail stands to mitigate those by drawing consumers to its value proposition. At LMM we provide operators the main tools -- quality cars at actionable terms and at scale in order to achieve frequency and capacity that becomes the value proposition vis-a-vis fossil fuel powered airlines and buses.