On 19 December the CEOs of four rail freight companies – DB Schenker Rail (Germany), TX Logistik (Germany), SBB Cargo (Switzerland) and BLS Cargo (Switzerland) – presented their requirements in Berlin for the development of the European rail freight transport corridors defined by the European Commission.
Under the impulse of the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER), the four companies agreed on a joint position which will be actively promoted to policymakers and national infrastructure managers.
Given that the growth forecast for European rail freight mainly concerns cross-border corridors, for example the Corridor Rotterdam-Genoa, it is important to eliminate infrastructure bottlenecks along those routes. On the Rotterdam-Genoa Corridor, bottlenecks are in Oberhausen, Basel, Chiasso and Milan.
Furthermore, capacity can be increased if priority is also given to freight trains, if operational processes are harmonised, and if train paths are constructed based on market needs.
Keeping in mind the objective to improve economic efficiency, any new infrastructure should generally be designed to accommodate 1,500-metre trains. Moreover, there is a need to simplify and improve processes in order to minimise the number of operational stops.
Interoperability in particular is essential for rail companies to remain competitive with road transport.
EU Regulation No. 913 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight, which entered into force in November 2010, aims to increase the competitiveness and quality of international rail freight. The network should be organised in such a way that the most important economic centres are linked in a more reliable and faster way, allowing more volumes to be transported. Nine international rail freight corridors, giving more priority to freight trains, are to be established by 2015.
Corridor 1, also known as ERTMS Corridor A, connects Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Zeebrugge (Belgium) with Genoa (on the Italian coast) via Cologne, Duisburg, Mannheim, Basel, and two parallel routes in Switzerland. This corridor is one of the most important routes in the European rail network. It was therefore selected for investigation by the four rail operators.
Dr Johannes Ludewig, CER Executive Director, concluded that the four companies’ recommendations are groundbreaking with regard to the implementation of the EU Regulation. “CER started the political corridor discussions with former EU Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio back in 2003. Since then, a lot has happened on the operational as well as on the legislative side. CER strongly believes that operators’ involvement is paramount in shaping corridor developments. The corridor concept will only be successful if operators are directly addressing the corridor-management with their concrete market-oriented requirements. The signal sent today in Berlin is thus a very important step.”
(Source: SBB)