On November 3, 2015 three EU Rail Freight Corridors (RFCs) – the Scandinavian-Mediterranean RFC, the Baltic-Adriatic RFC and the North Sea-Baltic RFC – have become operational, marking the completion of the European Rail Network for Competitive Freight totalling nine corridors. Six other RFCs have become operational already in November 2013.
The RFCs form the rail freight backbone of the multimodal Core Network Corridor of the EU. They are a key initiative of the Commission to achieve the Single European Rail Area for rail freight, and the Commission is providing co-funding for their activities through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
The RFCs foster co-operation across borders both at the level of Member States and rail infrastructure managers and strengthen the involvement of users in the development of the European rail freight system, most importantly through Advisory Groups for Railway Undertakings and Terminals.
The RFC concept aims at providing capacity of good quality for international freight trains by co-ordinating capacity planning, traffic and infrastructure management and setting up Corridor One-Stop-Shops as single contact points for the customers.
” It is an achievement which strengthens the competitiveness of rail on the European freight transport market. The Rail Freight Corridors will now enter into a new phase, which requires ambitious developments in terms of quality of service, capacity and standards. Rules and procedures must be harmonised and the corridors must develop as a network, focused on market and customer needs,” European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc said.
Map: Rail Net Europe
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