Lineas has released a memorandum highlighting the crucial role of railway freight transport for the industrial development of the Belgian Regions and tackling major societal challenges such as road congestion, climate change and the energy transition.
This memorandum presents the key strategies and actions that are needed to improve the competitiveness of the rail freight sector, ensuring it remains a sustainable transport option.
Lineas halved its losses in 2023 and is optimistic about approaching break-even in 2024, with profitability expected in 2025, provided the Belgian and Regional governments address some key priorities.
Indeed, railway freight transport plays a critical role in connecting the Belgian industry and ports with Europe, safeguarding competitive advantage over neighbouring countries such as France and Germany. Moreover, Lineas is essential to the success of rail freight in Belgium regions as with its customer centricity and quality focus, the company stands out as the first and largest private rail freight company in Europe.
The memorandum highlights five key actions that are necessary to support the shift from road to rail and to ensure a level playing field.
The proposed actions for supporting rail freight transport include:
- Competitive fairness: the distortion of competition by State-owned competitors should be addressed, by stopping (illegal) State aid;
- Reciprocity in facility access: there must be reciprocity in access to essential facilities in Europe such as shunting yards to create a level playing field for competition;
- Balanced support for road and rail: Lineas recommends reducing support for road transport and reallocating it to rail infrastructure and safety projects, such as ERTMS;
- Infrastructure investment: the implementation of Infrabel’s multi-year investment plan and the optimisation of capacity allocation between passenger and freight trains are essential to improve the use of rail infrastructure;
- Multimodal transport promotion: creating incentives for road transport companies to adopt multimodal solutions, this will improve the integration and efficiency of all modes of transport.
The memorandum emphasises the need for a collaborative effort by Federal and Regional governments to strengthen the role of rail freight within a sustainable industrial development and a competitive transport market.
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