The head of France’s state railways, SNCF chief Jean-Pierre Farandou has warned that, if the modal split between road and rail is not evened up, trucks will strengthen their already dominant position in freight transport. In a document published by French think tank, the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, Farandou, set out the challenges facing rail transport, including freight.
He highlighted that road haulage’s modal share of the freight market in France currently stands at 85 per cent compared to only 10 per cent for rail-borne goods. “If no measures are taken to rebalance this modal split, then HGVs will take everything, or almost everything, as they do in Italy and Spain. They will take up more capacity on the roads that run through French villages, in parking facilities and on motorways where they already occupy a dedicated lane in an uninterrupted line, to the detriment of private cars.”
‘Imitate countries with higher rail modal share’
He also argued that it would be difficult to build new road infrastructure to accommodate the continued growth in truck traffic. “If we collectively want to reverse this (modal) trend, we know what needs to be done – follow the example of European countries where rail’s market share fluctuates between 20 and 35 per cent: grant rail operators operating aid approved by the European Union, invest in capacity infrastructure for goods trains, and make HGVs contribute more to external costs and road wear and tear.”
Competition with road remains unfair
He claimed that HGVs cause up to 10,000 times more damage to roads than a car, and yet use of A-roads in France is free for them. “On the Paris-Bordeaux motorway, for example, a truck pays only three times as much in tolls as a car. We need to redress the balance,” Farandou urged. At the beginning of last year, a French Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry published a report on the nation’s rail freight sector, providing 28 recommendations to restore equity and fair competition with road transport.
It recommended the introduction of an environmental tax on HGVs using major highways in France, excluding those under concession and where tolls apply. The report noted that road transport does not pay for its negative impact – namely, air pollution, noise, accidents and road congestion – benefiting from a tax system that takes no account of the specific costs this mode represents for society.
Road freight, therefore, enjoys an “artificial competitiveness”, stemming from the fact that society bears part of the costs generated by its activities instead of the hauliers and their customers. If these so-called “external” costs were included in hauliers’ balance sheets, the competitive gap between road and rail would be reduced, the report argued. However, almost a year on, there has been little or no progress in putting the report’s recommendations into practice.