Freight transport in the EU is mostly carried by trucks (47.3%), followed by seagoing ships (37.8%), rail (with a share of just 10% today) and inland waterways (3.7%). Trucks dominate inland EU freight transport with a 76.1% share of the tonne-kilometres and about 94% of the CO2 emissions.
One of the great challenges for transport is to reduce the environmental impact of freight transport in the EU without sacrificing its efficiency. The key to efficient transport is the consolidation of large volumes for transfer over long distances, in between the so-called first and last miles. A combination of inland waterway transport and railway transport is a cost-efficient solution for long-distance transport. In the Wider Black Sea Area (WBSA), some of the most functional examples are those of the transport markets in countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkey or China.
While encouraging the use of the most efficient solution in all distances, it is above some 300 km that a significant re-balancing should take place, with 30% of road freight shifting to multimodal solutions by 2030, and more than 50% by 2050.
A first step has been taken by defining the international freight transport corridors included in the core network set in the new TEN-T Guidelines. These corridors dedicated to freight transport have to be optimised from the point of view of
energy consumption and emissions and have to attract railway operators through their reliability, lack of congestion and low levels of maintenance and exploitation costs. The new corridors (of which only 1, 2 and 7 are functional) connect the large urban centres and ports and integrate both regular services by sea, on railway freight transport lines and inland waterways, but also road transport assisted by traffic ma-nagement equipment, alternative fuel capacity and multimodal nodes. By setting a one-stop shop, the administrative task related to multimodal freight transport has consequently been significantly reduced.
“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 responsible for transport.
Removing barriers to market entry and modal integration would strengthen the role of multinational and multimodal logistic operators. Users would have a wider choice among transport services and their providers.
It is estimated that railway freight transport in the European Union could increase by another 360 billion tonne/kilometre by 2050, which would be an 87% increase compared to 2005. Significant investments will be necessary to extend the capacity of the railway network.
“The potential for the annual freight transport between Asia and Europe is about USD 75 Billion. Most of that is currently being transported by sea shipping. How can we attract this amount of freight towards the railways? Let’s take at least a part of this amount and move it to the rail. The Black Sea Region should play an important role in this transportation because that is the region that really connects Europe with the rest of Asia”, Libor Lochman, CER Executive Director said while attending the Railway Days Summit in Bucharest.
“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”, believes Martin Erlinger, joint Corridor Manager of RailNetEurope.
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