Saudi Arabia’s Transport Minister Suleiman al-Hamdan will be taking over as head of the Saudi Railway Company (SAR) in a move that some say is directed towards unifying the kingdom’s rail and other forms of public transport infrastructure.

The announcement of Al-Hamdan’s appointment was accompanied by an official statement that the company (SAR) will now be “the owner of… rail lines linking the cities of the kingdom.”

This statement is largely being interpreted that the merging of operations of the kingdom’s main governmental body for the rail sector, the Saudi Railways Organisation (SRO) and the SAR is just a matter of time.

It is unclear how the new announcements will affect, if any, the existing structure.

The SRO has been previously merged with the Public Transport Authority. Formed in 2013, the PTA was established by the kingdom’s Council of Ministers to organise the country’s public transport system, including rail, and attract investments into the sector. Besides regulating, supervising and improving the standards of public transport, the PTA’s mandate is understood to also include reducing unnecessary expenditure.

SRO is project owner of the 450-kilometre Haramain High-Speed Rail (HHR) project between Mecca and Medina and the 2,400km North-South Railway between Al-Jouf and Riyadh, while SAR is the project firm established to oversee the new mineral railway and its expansion into Jubail and Dammam.

The SRO and SAR are regulated by the Saudi Railways Regulatory Commission, whose role entails issuing licences to rail transport companies, setting the standards and technical specifications for rail services, and investigating accidents.

Speaking to MEED, most consultants say their key concern would be the impact of these changes on projects that are currently on hold such as the Saudi Landbridge project.

“It would also be important to know if these announcements impact only the long-distance rail schemes or if it will directly affect the planned metro projects across the kingdom’s key municipalities as well,” a consultant tells MEED.

A local media report, citing a Dubai-based consultant, has indicated that the recent announcement validates the assumption that “there is no point in running two agencies” to oversee the kingdom’s long-distance rail sector.

The concerned agencies in Saudi Arabia are not immediately available for comments.