The increase of the rail freight transport share, both nationally and internationally, remains an objective of the companies and institutions dealing with this activity segment. According to Eurostat statistics, of April 2016, the share of rail transport was of 18.4% (in 2014), while that of road transport was 74.9%. These figures clearly show the need to have a legal framework that encourages rail transport, the importance of increasing competitiveness and the need for allocation of investments to boost performance, reliability and quality of transport services.
In the European Union, legislative acts that need implementation are constantly elaborated, revised and updated. Under these circumstances, the freight transport sector is expected to readily adapt to the new legal requirements and to customers’ demands. The latest development of a legislative framework includes liberalisation, on the one hand, and new TEN-T guidelines and related initiatives and projects within the Connecting Europe Facility, on the other hand, and most recently the review of Rail Freight Regulation and of Combined Transport Directive. “We are constantly building legislation, but what is the sector doing? If we pay attention to the latest statistics and reports, the rail freight transport sector is not doing well. Why is that? The simple answer is that the sector is still thinking in the traditional way and is ignoring the demands and trends of today and tomorrow. Unless we change our mindset and behaviour, we will not succeed,” Maria Price, Head of European Policies and Public Affairs – UIP said during Railway PRO Investment Summit.
According to UIP, there are 4 priority areas that require great attention and that have an important impact on the rail freight transport business.
The market: While it is still important to improve the framework for the transport of heavy, bulk, construction and dangerous goods, there is also a great need to develop further intermodal, combined or container traffic. To that end, for the increase of its competitiveness, freight transport needs an “intermodal framework”, an adapted attitude to the ongoing changes of the retail and other industries, that is affecting the way goods are transported. There is also the increase of cross-border traffic which needs to be considered.
Customers: there are still bilateral and fragmented contracts, but there is no “logistic or supply-chain” thinking. In fact, the rail freight sector limits itself too often only to the railway operators and the infrastructure managers. “We have to consider all actors along the supply chain and the end users; for example, from the operator to the keeper, railway undertakings to the infrastructure manager, shippers to the operators, and consumers to suppliers,” Maria Price explained.
Infrastructure, facilities and terminals is an area that has an impact on the entire freight market. “We are still restricting ourselves to just looking at the railway network that is high-speed and passenger oriented and there are some services that only focus on night traffic (that could be a problem to some member states that may not have the possibility for the night traffic). We have to think not only about the key core freight corridors, but to consider as well the importance of the secondary lines, the feeder lines, and last mile infrastructure links in order to cover the complete rail freight operations and offer a level- playing field for intramodal activities,” Maria Price said.
The role of logistics providers is another point that UIP discussed in many meetings in Brussels, and its view is that very often the rail freight sector forgets about the key actors in the supply chain like shippers, as well as the end customer. “When we think about logistics providers, we have to facilitate their work with tracking and tracing, the ongoing development of the electronic live updates on delivery, in order to develop the freight transport.”
According to UIP, looking at the market liberalisation is not enough to develop competitive rail freight. Other issues to be addressed are related to the development of the infrastructure and its capacity, the allocation of funds, the development of proper intramodal competition rules and, the removal of technical and administrative barriers. “The way forward must concentrate on the mind-set, by convincing ourselves that competition is good. This must be the starting point. Once we believe this, we can change our attitude, and that can be done through cooperation, looking at alternatives, which includes ways to reduce charges. After that, we may show what we can do together both at sector and political level, and that is focusing on what we can deliver – like the improvement of the corridors, the mobilisation of EU and national investments, simplifying the processes, facilitating the cross-border operations. After all of these, you can see the results and you can say that you are able to deliver goods to the customer, you can enhance the economic growth and in this way we are contributing to the development of a sustainable transport,” Maria Price explained.
by Pamela Luica
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