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According to the d-fine study called ‘the Roadmap to Zero Carbon Combined Transport 2050’ presented on behalf of UIRR at a webinar on the 30^th November, a public investment of € 490 billion is needed into the TEN-T rail infrastructure in order to handle the growing volume of rail freight until 2050.  

The study indicates that based on the growth forecast of rail freight in the EU, its volumes counted in tonne-kilometres are expected to triple by 2050, from 400 in 2020 to 1150 tonne-kilometre per year. This will lead to an increase of the number of freight trains from 6100 in 2020 to 13800 in 2050. The study argues that more can be reached in terms of infrastructure capacity. A huge gain could be made with the increase of train speed to 100km/h, ERTMS and TimeTable Redesign. The largest boost can  be achieved by eliminating bottlenecks. All these improvements can jointly increase capacity with the existing infrastructure, at 150 per cent. However, further investments are needed, and the study quantifies it to € 490 billion in public funding. In addition, the private sector will need to make investments. The terminal infrastructure and other intermodal assets will require net new capital inflow. 300 more terminals are needed, and these need to be digitalised. Existing terminals need to be upgraded. All of this could add up to a 100 per cent increase of the capacity of terminals. But this would require another 47 billion euros coming from the industry up till 2050.

Source: UIIR