As EU has set up its long-term objectives for railway passenger transport and since these objectives include the transfer to railway and maritime transport of around half the number of passengers currently using road transport, without significantly changing mobility, we cannot encourage fair competitiveness and stimulate the railway transport market share to reduce the carbon footprint and climate change.
As compared to other transport modes, eco-friendly transport is sometimes too expensive and this is where political will has to intervene and harmonise legislation for an improved business environment.
EU objectives for 2020 focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20%, getting 20% of its energy from renewable resources, and another 20% for improving energy efficiency. Although the European legislation strongly encourages the increase of railway transport share for reducing the negative climate impact, “currently, there is a 29% growth in CO2 emissions (compared to 1990), and modal shift is also going in the wrong direction, the market share of road and air transport being higher than that of railway and maritime transport. We are still confronted with a disloyal competition between transport modes and policies are still indicating a planning of priorities in the wrong direction”, believes Michael Cramer, Member of the European Parliament.
To reduce CO2 emissions it is necessary to change modal balance between the means of transport with the highest share in generating CO2 emissions to the transport modes which can contribute to the improvement of the current environment. The shift of railway transport to roads is not due to the lack of competitiveness of “green” transport, but to a deformation of competitiveness.
Railway infrastructure costs vary a lot and the countries which don’t charge road infrastructure access for trucks still have very high railway infrastructure access charges.
Also, “there are also privileges for air transport, to the detriment of railways: there is no charge for kerosene, subsidies amount to EUR 14 Billion, air corridors are not charged (except for Siberia) and there is not VAT applied to international flights.
There is no fair treatment for public transport either. For example, in Berlin, the cost for parking lots dropped by 2% (from EUR 0.51 in 1995 to EUR 0.50 in 2012 for 30 minutes), while the price of tickets for public transport increased by 21.7% (from EUR 1.89 in 1995 to EUR 2.30 in 2012); penalties also vary a lot. The sanction for incorrect parking has a maximum value of EUR 25, while sanctions for passengers travelling without ticket reach EUR 40.
To even the significant differences between transport modes, the authorities have to introduce charges which could then be directed to the transport projects which support sustainable mobility. Therefore, political factors have to implement a legislation to create a fair legislative framework between transport modes to also increase the share of the most environmentally friendly means of transport which is railway transport.
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