STHK started in Stockholm as a consulting company focusing on railways, mainly in signaling. Over time, they have expanded their business area to rail vehicles, IT systems linked to public transport and infrastructure, and are now located in several locations around Sweden.
At Train & Rail 2025, STHK will be an exhibitor for the second time and we have talked to Stefan Eklöf who works with communication at STHK about their participation.
What type of company is STHK and what do you work with?
We are a consulting company that started in the railway signaling industry and have worked extensively with railway signaling systems where we have offered different types of experts in competences needed for signaling systems. From test specialists and experts on the European standards to safety professionals and project managers.
Over time, we have expanded our scope and have for many years also worked with railway vehicles, not only on the signaling side but also with maintenance and maintenance planning where we have leading roles, as well as procurement of vehicle fleets and life extension of vehicles.
We also work with IT systems linked to public transport and the digitization that is underway in, for example, travel planning, both with the systems used by transport operators and those used by passengers.
We are also involved in broader infrastructure projects including railroad construction but also road and buildings, where we work with sewerage, telecom, safety construction management and site supervisors to name a few.
We started in Stockholm but have over the years expanded our operations to Gothenburg, Malmö, Örnsköldsvik, Luleå, Stenungsund and Västerås.
Since a couple of years we have a Finnish partner and owner called Welado and together with them we cover even more business areas with several offices in Finland.
Why have you chosen to participate in Train & Rail 2025?
We attended Train & Rail 2023 together with Welado and were very happy with that event. Most of our stakeholders and many in our industry were there. There is a big advantage of a fair in Stockholm as the accessibility contributes to a greater international involvement, which was clear.
We met very interesting companies and people and felt very happy with the result so we simply wanted to do this again.
What is your objective with Train & Rail?
It’s to meet existing and new customers and people we can collaborate with, both as partners but also potential employers. Then, of course, we want to network with the industry, hear what is happening and get information about what is happening in the various companies and projects.
Just walking around the fair also provides a lot of inspiration and a good sense of which areas are chosen to highlight and what is being invested in, which gives you a sense of the current trends in the industry.
What is the most important issue from your perspective for the future of railways and how are you currently working on this issue?
Swedish railways are facing a lot of challenges with ERTMS rollout and maintenance debt, to name perhaps the two biggest issues, and in order to remain competitive, you need to shape, collaborate, simplify and speed up the projects. Do not drag out processes unnecessarily, but increase efficiency so that it becomes a new railway.
It is of course a complex issue, but our contribution is that we have our consultants out in important projects in the railways where we contribute with knowledge and experience and try to simplify and make things happen in those projects.
To give an example, we are working on several equipment projects of ERTMS systems on vehicles where we try to streamline and simplify the approval process around the European standards that we need to follow to make the implementation as fast and cost-effective as possible for our customers.
We want to be a catalyst that simplifies, speeds up and streamlines what needs to be done technologically in the railway industry.
What do you want from industry colleagues and policy makers to enable society to meet the demand, financial constraints and climate goals of future rail transport?
From a political and official point of view, it is a long-term approach and clarity in the requirements and the provision of sufficient financial resources.
This also includes sticking to the choices you have made so that conditions do not keep changing.
This is true both at national and regional level, as we do a lot of work on public transport for which the different regions are responsible.
In general, we in the industry also need to work together to make the railways as efficient and good as possible. I think it’s important that we see the rail industry as a joint project for those of us who work in it, rather than as competitors to each other.