A strong industry presence at the UITP exhibition in Madrid could not disguise the fact that some exhibitors were questioning why they should be there.

THE changing nature of the railway manufacturing and supply industry and the way that operators are now purchasing equipment is having a knock-on effect on events such as major exhibitions. While the UITP exhibition in Madrid last month had two halls full of exhibitors, some were beginning to question the true value of their presence.

The relationship between operators, manufacturers, and suppliers changed for ever when operators abandoned the practice of purchasing on the basis of highly detailed technical specifications in favour of much simpler performance specifications.

This left most of the technical choices with the manufacturer, and the effect of this for medium and small-scale component and sub-system suppliers was that the operator was no longer their customer. Suppliers then had to deal direct with the manufacturer. Under the old scheme of things, exhibitions were ideal venues to meet scores if not hundreds of operators. But with industry rationalisation, the number of "new" customers has shrunk to the Big Three, Alstom Transport, Bombardier Transportation, and Siemens Transportation Systems, followed by companies such as AnsaldoBreda, CAF, and Talgo.

While quality is always more important than quantity in the visitors to any individual stand, a good number of exhibitors, including some major ones, felt the show was "a bit low key" and that there might be better ways to achieve their commercial ends than attending some of the large number of exhibitions on the international calendar. Even the biggest, most successful companies, will sometimes admit that they attend not because they see positive benefits in the exercise but because they know their major competitors will be there and cannot be seen not to be there. Additionally, in an industry in which products may have a life span of up to 40 years, no-one can come up with an exciting new offer every few months.

Of course, there is another side to these events and one must never discount the value of the personal contacts made, nurtured, and sustained over the years. There is also a public relations value. But whether there are now too many events to meet those needs is something organisers and participants collectively need to look at Or perhaps market imperatives will sort out the situation.