08 April 2022

PUBLIC CONSULTATION ON BOOSTING CROSS-BORDER RAIL

The European Commission has opened a public consultation on the initiative to ‘Put in place measures to better manage and coordinate international rail traffic, including if necessary through revised rules for capacity allocation and infrastructure charging in rail’. The public consultation will remain open until 22 June.

This initiative will propose measures to better manage, coordinate and thereby increase the capacity of railways, in view of increasing its modal share, in line with the goals of the EU’s Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy (SSMS).

CLECAT is currently assessing the questionnaire internally, in view of providing its recommendations on how to increase the share of rail freight traffic. In its response to the call for evidence CLECAT noted that the European Commission has correctly identified the problems that need to be tackled, including the insufficient competitiveness of rail freight transport, based of inefficient management of capacity and problems of reliability and quality. It notes that the lack and inefficient use of available infrastructure capacity further decreases the attractiveness of rail freight.

Whilst freight forwarders are willing to make increased use of rail freight services, such a decision is conditional upon significant improvements in the current quality provided, both in terms of infrastructure and services.  If service quality remains unchanged, or even deteriorates further, the achievement of the modal share objectives will be practically impossible.