The government in Amsterdam will reduce track access charges (TACs) next year in the attempt to be consistent with the Germans, which will halve TACs this year. The measure is also intended to make rail freight more accessible in the Netherlands.
To subsidise this reduction, the government will provide an annual budget estimated between EUR 12 and 14 million, for the period 2019-2023. The measure will be implemented in 2019 and in 2021 an evaluation of its results will be carried out.
This measure is part of a package of actions agreed with the railway sector, after years of negotiations with Spoorgoederentafel, a platform that brings together railway operators, shippers, ports and the manager of the Dutch railway infrastructure, Prorail. Spoorgoederentafel will be responsible for preparing the short and medium-term implementation plans for the measures.
Among the planned actions are also the transition to the ERTMS system, the necessary modifications to operate freight trains of up to 750 meters, the use of quieter and more ecological locomotives and research on the possibilities of low vibration bogies.
The aim is to raise the volume of goods transported by rail to a share between 54 and 61 million tons in 2030, from the 42 million tons registered in 2016. And, ultimately, the aim is to reduce the transport of goods by road and the emissions it generates.
The Dutch ministry of Infrastructure and Water assigned infrastructure manager ProRail with the task of developing a new calculation method of the track access charge. This new calculation method applies to the the minimum access package (VMT), which relates to the direct costs of managing and maintaining the railway network. Furthermore, a new structure was proposed to levy mark-ups varying in height per market segment.
The track access charge will on average not be very different from what it is today, ProRail said. Although new mark-ups will be levied, the VMT will also be lowered. “Where operators will pay EUR 3 million more in mark-ups, this same amount should be deducted from the VMT, ending up with a zero-sum difference”, the infrastructure manager commented, admitting this could be different per market sector.
The difference is mostly felt by freight operators, as the heavy-weight trains will be charged a lot more: if trains of 1-120 tonnes are charged 1 euro, trains of 601-1600 tonnes are charged 3.55 euros, trains of 601-3000 tonnes 4.27 euros and trains more than 3000 tonnes 4.63 euros (indicative prices). “The problem here is that more than 80 per cent of rail freight trains are between 600-3000 tonnes, so many rail freight operators will face higher charges than what they used to pay”, explained Hans-Willem Vroon, director of lobby organisation Rail Good.
The rail freight sector of the Netherlands competes heavily with neighbouring Germany, where track access charges will be reduced by half.
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