The report offered the blunt conclusion that there “is still no level playing field in the EU for intermodal freight transport compared to road transport.”
The authors of the research add that this is true due to the following:
- weaknesses in the design and monitoring of the EU targets for intermodal transport within the context of greening freight transport.
- regulatory provisions that counteract the aim of incentivising intermodal transport.
- challenges in the development of terminals and linear infrastructure.
The report argues that the competitiveness of intermodal freight transport in the EU can only be increased if these issues are addressed urgently.
In addition to this, the report states that the EU has “no targets for intermodal transport” and that its environmental targets “are still unrealistic”.
The Commission says this is the case as “the underlying assumptions were not based on robust simulations of how much modal shift could be realistically achieved considering (i) existing long-term infrastructure constraints for rail and inland waterways and (ii) regulatory barriers affecting the competitiveness of intermodal transport.”
Another damning conclusion was that “member states developed their own modal shift strategies and set their own targets, which were not aligned with their EU equivalents and were even more ambitious.”
As for what should be done, the report says The Commission should do the following:
- specify, in close cooperation with the member states concerned, targets per Core Network Corridor regarding the modal share of freight traffic flows, including intermodal flows.
- require the European Coordinators to report on the achievement of these targets and identify the investment needed to comply with them.
- improve the collection of national data on intermodal freight transport, in collaboration with EUROSTAT and the national statistical offices, notably by assessing the need for data provision requirements to be included in a legislative act.
Also, when it comes to the revision of the regulatory framework, the report recommends the commission should prepare for the following:
- rail to remove the existing regulatory obstacles so that it can be a competitive alternative to road-only transport. In particular, provisions are needed on capacity management to better suit the needs of freight services, and to regulate technical and operational standards that are currently national.
- both combined transport, enlarging its scope to intermodal transport, and road-only transport. These revisions should aim to reduce the diversity of implementation by member states, include provisions on the digitalisation of
information flows, and reinforce the incentives for intermodal transport in comparison with road-only transport.
A third recommendation was for The Commission to provide member states with clear guidelines on how to perform
the market study and draw up a terminal development plan, with particular regard to cross-border aspects and along the Core Network Corridors.
Finally, the report recommends the following measures to further stimulate modal shift with EU-funded projects:
- require beneficiaries of projects funded by the Connecting Europe Facility (direct management) and targeting a modal shift (in particular terminal or port infrastructure) to include in the cost-benefit analysis that is already a mandatory part of grant applications a quantified estimate of the project’s potential to generate modal shift and the level of charges at which a modal shift would be induced.
- for projects under shared management, promote the aforementioned concepts under to managing authorities, in particular when designing operational programmes, and to the monitoring committees of the programmes.
Photo: – FelixM – / Flickr / CC0 1.0