Rail freight in Europe

We are at the beginnig of the year, a period of good intentions and one of them for companies could be to contribute to reduce pollution.
Tranport of goods is an area to make some improvements for instance changing shippings goods from trucks to rail.


The Rail Freight operators generally propose three means of transportation:

Segment	Description	Commodities	Share of volume
Single Wagon	The client wants to transport a few wagons	Chemicals, Vehicles and Machinery	50 %
Full train	The client has enough goods to fill a train (600 meter or 24 4-axle wagons)	Coal and Steel, Construction materials	35 %
Intermodal	Transportation by container: the container or trailer is lifted on the wagon	Finished goods, Containerized goods	15 %

source: UIC


 

Traditionally rail freight transportation was proposed from one national provider but a few years ago deregulation was decided following EU legislation. Nowadays competition is allowed in almost every European country. For instance more than 151 different railway operators exist in Germany (source:www.vdv.de).

Rail freight transport is enjoying good growth prospects in Europe, with overall demand for transport continuing to rise and structural congestion phenomena emerging on roads and motorways. 

Traffic increases of between 50 and 100% over the next ten years seem realistic. Rail’s situation is even better on the other continents, where it is often the key mode of transport, clocking up market shares of 40 % and more (that is the case in China, India, Australia, South Africa and the United States). 

The demand for the four land transport modes (road, rail, inland waterways and pipelines) in the EU27 added up to 2 595 billion tkm in 2006. Road transport accounted for 72.7% of this total, rail for 16.7%, inland waterways for 5.3% and oil pipelines for the remaining 5.2% (source: European Commission).

Some advantages of rail freight are:

-Competitive price

-Environment

-Safety

Concerning the issue to adress in this post: environment.

Rail is an alternative. If we compare road to rail, 90% of the total domestic transport emissions come from the road whilst rail is responsible for only 0.6% of diesel emissions. Between 1990 and 2005, the European railways managed to cut their CO₂ emissions by 21% (source: UIC).

Rail freight is the eco-friendly solution to transport more goods in a better way for the climate. CO₂ emissions are indeed 8 times less then the road and rail freight is actually the most energy efficient transport mode (soruce: UIC). It is also the most efficient transport mode from a land use point of view because it avoids congestion and guarantees safety. And one should not forget another of the major advantages of rail: the reduction of exhaust emissions, often highly concentrated in cities because of the cars.