Lander moves into the rail market in Australia

LANDER has again moved close to its antipode with a recent contract to supply driving simulators to Transport for New South Wales.

Although the first LANDER equipment to travel more than 20,000 km were the units built together with Auckland Transport in New Zealand, 7 years on we will be covering the same distance to undertake an ambitious simulator project, this time in Australia, a country with a unique geographic and social and economic characteristics, that have helped develop a mature railway sector with experience of driving simulation equipment.

Australia has an area of 7.69 million square kilometres, making it the world's largest island, and simultaneously its smallest continent, spanning 3,700 kilometres from north to south and 4,000 kilometres from east to west. It also administers another eight islands and the Australian Antarctic Territory. These peculiarities are also reflected in its connections, and investment in mobility and communication networks. The current population is almost 24 million, although this figure is expected to double by the year 2050. More than 80% of the population live in the coastal areas to the east and west, within a perimeter of 100 kilometres, and this feature has encouraged urban transport systems.

Within a zone of huge spaces, and a heavy population concentration, land transport has become an ideal choice for supply of goods and urban mobility. This means the Australian rail network is the world's seventh longest, at over 33,000 kilometres. It is structured in accordance with the peculiarities of an enormous country, with a considerable slice of the population resident in cities in the coastal areas to the east and south-east: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra, the capital. These days the country continues to invest heavily in the sector, and in 2017-2018 a package of 10,000 million Australian dollars (6,832 MEuros) was approved for the next 10 years.

TfNSW's acquisition of two mobile simulators has been in association with the purchase of new regional trains to be built for the organisation by manufacturer CAF, to replace the old fleet of regional trains in New South Wales.

LANDER is extremely grateful for the opportunity to start into the last part of the year with this major challenge, which we feel we are undertaking in the best possible way, on the strength of thousands of kilometres already travelled on all 5 continents.