Although railway transport is promoted at European level due to the awareness raised and the benefits brought by this means of transport, statistics show that road infrastructure investments in 1995-2008 were prioritised against railway infrastructure investments. If in 2000, railway investments in the CEE countries amounted to 22.7%, while road investments to 74.4%, in 2008 railway investments dropped to 17.9%, while road investments amounted to 79.7%. “If railway infrastructure investments are not raised over the next years, the freight volume and the number of passengers will constantly drop and shift to roads. Over the next years, railway sector should be characterised by positive figures in order to become a market-dominating transport mode”, declared Matteo Mussini, CER Senior Adviser for Central and Eastern Europe, during the “Railway Days” 2011 Summit, held in Bucharest.
If the goal of the railway reform is boosting the market and not only its liberalisation, which is a vital instrument, then the reform should prove that it is capable to go beyond of what it is established by law and the reform should prove commercial intelligence which is supported by the EU legislation, the CER representative explained.
For additional progress, the multi-annual contracts, the non-discriminatory access to railway-related services are few key points determining the efficiency and capacity of railway transport to impose against road transport, and “the track access charge plays an important role based on direct costs and should be kept as high as the market can bear it”, Mussini said. Consequently, the state has to grant the necessary compensations to the infrastructure manager. To support railway transport, Slovakia has significantly reduced freight transport charges from EUR 10/train-km to EUR 3.5/train-km, due to the additional financing allocated by the Government, funds which cover most of the income remainder. Moreover, the authorities have involved in reforming the road infrastructure charging system in order to balance road tolls with rail track access charges.
Railway Pro: Is the Slovakian model the best example of a real competitive balance between road and rail transport?
Matteo Mussini: It would be too much to say that the mere application of the Slovakian model (i.e. a drastic reduction in the level of rail track access charges, which are now almost comparable to road ones) would solve the unbalances existing between rail and road transport. But it is sure that it would be a first, very positive step in the right direction.
So far, rail infrastructure managers are obliged by European legislation to collect access charges from their clients; and this is not the case for road infrastructure managers. The result is that 99% of the road network is given to the users for free, and that 100% of the rail network is charged. How can you compete like this? How can rail operator compete with road users and how can rail infrastructure managers compete with road ones? How can you aim at modal shift in these conditions?
Without solid and reliable financial flows from the public budgets to the infrastructure managers, the latters won’t be able to decrease their charges. In fact, with a European legislation obliging the member states to apply charges at least for the use of the motorway network, we could have two main outcomes: road network maintenance and development will be cheaper for the public budgets, and rail network will have its chance for an even competition.
Railway Pro: Let’s talk about the EU cohesion policy: what about the co-financing rate for revenues-generating projects?
Matteo Mussini: We are working on this subject together with the European Commission. Certainly, I think that clear signals shall be given by the EU in the direction of the application of the user-pays principle.
In the context of European cohesion policy, what happens now is that EU co-financing rates are calculated on the eligible expenditures of the projects. As motorways are mostly not tolled, there are no revenues to be subtracted from the total cost of the projects, and co-financing rates apply directly on the 100% of the costs of the project. On the contrary, rail infrastructure generates revenues! When you then calculate the eligible expenditure, these revenues are subtracted from the total cost of the projects.
The result is that rail infrastructure managers are discriminated twice: 1) they lose clients (and revenues) because they have to set high charges; 2) they receive less money from the EU because of these revenues. As a consequence, infrastructure managers are forced to set even higher charges, and so on… This is a wicked vicious circle that undermine any ambition for rail development.
Railway Pro: We always talk about a low performance of the rail infrastructure in CEE countries. What can they do for a better infrastructure performance?
Matteo Mussini:Underfinancing is the main problem – no doubt about this. But I admit the list of problems is a little longer. Certainly the sector has to work, for example, towards the improvement of its EU-funds absorption capacity.
On all rail magazines and newsletter, there has been a lot of noise, created by a request from the Polish government to the European Commission to withdraw mo-ney from rail projects and reallocate them to road projects. What I say is that the sector has to work in order not to give good reasons for this kind of requests.
Benchmarking, exchange of best practices, a better use of programs such as JASPERS of the EIB (a program aimed at improving the administrative capacity of the recipients of the EU funds), and – why not? – the creation of very hands-on regional workshops, where different infrastructure managers can meet and reflect on how to improve their performances. This is certainly something we can work on, and something to which I am personally committed.
Share on:
