The new year is off to a blasting start, at least if you’re wondering about what rail freight parties want to achieve in the near future policy-wise. After Germany, the Netherlands and European rail freight, it is now the Combined Transport (CT) association UIRR that is putting its policy expectations for the years 2024-2029 on the table in a 12-page document.
“Door-to-door combined transport is ideally suited to serve as the backbone of European freight logistics, as a carrier of regular flows of goods throughout the European Union and between continents”, UIRR writes. However, it points out, a failed attempt to revise the Combined Transport Directive, decreasing impact of support measures, high pressure on freight transport prices and demand fluctuations are leading to a loss of impetus for growth.
The association says that the CT community can deliver up to 20 per cent with the assets it already has. To make that happen, European policymakers need to change the existing regulatory framework.
“This includes incorporating the currently externalised costs of infrastructure, congestion, accidents, pollution, noise and greenhouse gas emissions”, explains UIRR. “Once these adjustments are made, door-to-door Combined Transport will be ready to serve as the backbone of European freight logistics.”
Five measures
In short, UIRR is calling for five concrete measures to be taken: The EU needs to open legislative dossiers, such as the new Railway Infrastructure Capacity Management Regulation. It also needs to revise the Combined Transport Directive, and open additional initiatives, such as the Track Access Charging Guidelines and the new CountEmissionsEU Regulation.
Secondly, it wants to correctly implement outstanding European law. This includes the new TEN-T Guidelines Regulation, “every piece of EU law aiming to internalise the current external costs of freight transport”, and the eFTI regulation.
Crisis management
Third, UIRR wants a European transport crisis management mechanism, to make the sector more resilient. It also wants an “effective and standardised European digital framework facilitating the smooth data sharing among intermodal stakeholders”.
Lastly, the CT association puts forward a number of additional expectations. It wants more organisational support from the EU’s Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport (DG MOVE).
DAC and ERTMS
UIRR says that technological developments such as Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) and ERTMS should “take the peculiarities of Combined Transport into account”, with an “indisputable positive indication of a targeted cost-benefit analysis taking every parameter of intermodal transport into account.” The CT association also wants carbon certificates in freight transport and a uniform European codification regime for intermodal freight transport.
