30 by 2030 – EU:s godsstrategi för att flytta transporter till järnvägen
Kampanjen har tagit fram ett White Paper: 30 by 2030 – Rail Freight strategy to boost modal shift (pdf)
Executive Summary
The European land freight transport market with its fleets of millions of trucks and tens of thousands of freight locomotives, wagons and barges is an important economic sector. Its impact on the environment and society is often underestimated but massive: 275 million tons of CO2 emissions and 50,000 premature deaths/fatalities are caused each year. The sector is expected to grow by 30% by 2030 and volume growth will most likely have a high affinity to the road.
Transport growth should not, however, rely predominantly on road due to its heavy impact on the environment and society. If the current modal split with 75% road freight, 18 % rail freight and 7% inland waterways persist (already an optimistic base scenario), annual CO2 emissions will increase by 80 million tons by 2030, severely endangering the attainment of the Paris 2030 goals. Moreover, existing road congestion will further worsen with an expected economic loss of 1% of GDP per annum. The number of fatalities and additional premature deaths due to air pollution will cause significant societal costs.
Compared to the road, rail freight has a six-times lower specific energy consumption, mainly due to its intrinsic and persisting physical advantage of the low friction of steel wheels running on steel rail. This translates into six-times lower external costs compared with road regardless of the energy source (while rail is even less polluting since it mostly operates on electric energy). In light of accelerating climate change, this advantage must become an eligible source of compensation for the existing direct cost disadvantages of rail transport versus road transport. A higher modal share of 30% rail freight by 2030 is a better macroeconomic solution for European transport growth. The European rail freight sector is also convinced that this ambitious target is achievable, if the “way of doing business” is substantially changed, with more multi-modal solutions, and the required prerequisites are in place.
Decisive action is required by Railway Undertakings, Infrastructure Managers and Authorities to achieve the desired modal shift. The initiative to boost rail freight traffic, which was launched by the member states with the Rotterdam Declaration and supported by the declaration of the entire railway sector (Sector Declaration) in 2016, represents a valuable basis for these actions. Rail Freight Forward, the vision and action plan of the rail freight undertakings from across Europe, builds on the previous achievements and aims at a rapid implementation on the entire European Network going beyond the Rail Freight Corridors.
Our vision is to transform rail freight into a high-performing, efficient and sustainable backbone transport system for a European multi-modal logistics industry.