The regulation on the set-up of the nine freight corridors of the European Union is an important milestone of the European railway policy in the development of railway freight traffic. It will help increase the railway freight transport capacity where the railway is already experiencing a comeback of transport volumes, as well as the market share, and will support the improvement of rail freight transport competitiveness as regards the quality of services and the efficiency of the countries where rail transport still needs to recover.
With a view to strengthening the Railway Undertakings’ “message” in the European Corridor structures as defined by Regulation 913/2010, UIC has initiated a project designed to streamline processes across all railway undertakings and across all corridors.
“This project ties in with UIC’s mission to develop a pragmatic vision of technical and administrative interoperability between stakeholders”, Jean-Pierre Loubinoux, UIC Director General said.
Concretely the project will provide the necessary coordination and exchange of information between the advisory boards which will ensure Railway Undertakings’ needs are promoted efficiently and, secondly, it will set up a structure to monitor progress and designed to provide regular feedback which will help put in place the necessary improvement measures whenever required.
With the coming into force of the European Regulation 913/2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight, corridors are being established at their own pace with no obligation of coordination between them.
According to Regulation 913/2010, Railway Undertakings only play a consultative role in activities to improve the corridors, within corridor-specific “advisory boards”.
In their consultative capacity, European railway freight operators wish to underline that, while each corridor may require specific action to improve its own freight operations, a coordinated approach to corridor improvements should be pursued across Europe. Indeed, rail freight undertakings typically operate on more than one corridor. It is therefore important that operational and administrative rules are as consistent as possible across all corridors in order to promote rather than impede interoperability.
The European rail freight undertakings have therefore developed a number of “Uniform Requirements” towards infrastructure managers to take into account the paramount need to enhance interoperability and seamlessness.
A coordinated railway approach is becoming even more pressing as the transport market studies of some of the corridors are already being published. The results of these studies are in fact expected to be translated in the corridor implementation plans and, in particular, in the corridor investment plans.
However, the Community of European Rail and Infrastructure Companies (CER) believes that railway undertakings should be involved in governing these freight corridors, because they are market-driven and likely to carry out or be affected by decisions taken.
The Regulation on a competitive European freight transport network will significantly improve cooperation between the infrastructure managers and other parties interested along the railway freight transport corridors. Joint objectives will be defined for these corridors helping all the players in the market to act for a common goal, said sources from DG MOVE for Railway Pro.
The poor reliability of international trains and the reduced transport speeds are only few of the problems affecting the international freight traffic. Freight trains run on many international corridors at speeds of 18 km/h, while speed on internal routes is 25 km/h. This is due to the time lost with cross-border operations, but also to the lack of cooperation between transport operators. The result is that railways cannot serve the transport of certain cargoes which then head to the faster road transport. This Regulation (effective since November 2010) will substantially improve cooperation between infrastructure managers and other parties interested along the railway freight transport corridors. Joint objectives for these corridors will be soon defined helping all market players to join efforts for a common goal. An implementation plan will represent the foundation for setting the new corridors (9) in three to five years since the coming into force of the Regulation.
The first Memorandum of Understanding was signed for Corridor no. 7 “Orient” (previously called Corridor E), 2013 being the year when it will become operational. According to a recent report of UIRR, the structuring of this corridor took place in November 2011. Corridor “Orient” is the most complex of the 9 corridors mentioned in Regulation 913/2010 as it crosses several of the EU member states: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. In Romania, Corridor “Orient” intersect the pan-European Corridor IV.
The European rail freight transport receives a new stimulus due to the latest norms of the European Union aimed at promoting the development of a high-quality management of the rail infrastructure at international level.
“In my opinion, in 2050, the railways will be predominantly used for freight transport over distances longer than 300 km. These freight corridors, single ticket offices and increased cooperation stipulated under the new legislation will allow rail freight transport suppliers to attract additional customers towards this eco-friendly mode of transport”, said Siim Kallas, European Commissioner in charge of transport.
In order to evaluate objectively the benefits of the measures aimed at the establishment of the freight corridor, the performance of the rail freight services along the freight corridor should be monitored and quality reports should be published regularly. The evaluation of the performance should include the outcome of satisfaction surveys of the users of the freight corridor.
Moreover, the development of intermodal freight terminals should also be considered necessary to support the establishment of rail freight corridors in the Union.
In order to guarantee the consistency and continuity of the infrastructure capacities available along the freight corridor, investment in the freight corridor should be coordinated between Member States and the infrastructure managers concerned, as well as, where appropriate, between Member States and European third countries, and planned in a way which meets, subject to economic viability, the needs of the freight corridor. The schedule of these investments should be published so as to ensure the proper information of applicants that can operate on the specific corridor. Investments should include projects on the development of interoperable systems and increase of train capacity.
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