The economic crisis had a negative impact on the railway freight sector, as well as on other transport modes, such as road cargo transport. Considering the strategic importance of the rail sector in Europe, it is important to understand the causes of this relative decline. This situation can be explained through various factors related to the fact that the policy measures introduced in the past decade have not been accompanied by vital frame-conditions such as appropriate infrastructure investments and fair measures for all transport modes.
Studies show that the quality of rail transport mostly depends on the quality and availability of railway infrastructure. However, the rail sector suffers from severe under-financing of the infrastructure which affects punctuality and reduces the competitiveness of the rail freight transport compared to the other transport modes in spite of the efforts made by this sector to consolidate its attractiveness”, says the CER study “Rail Freight Status Report 2013. Rail freight after a decade of EU rail policy”, (April 2013).
In EU15 and Central and Eastern Europe, the highest share of investments in the transport infrastructure (over 2/3 in 2009) is dedicated to road infrastructure and this lack of balance has been accentuated in CEE since 2002 generating a significant drop in the investment shares allocated to railway infrastructure. This is a serious issue given the negative impact of insufficient investments in the railway infrastructure over the quality of freight transport. “The trend should be reversed as a matter of urgency in order to reinforce the competitiveness of rail freight and to trigger further improvement of the quality of rail freight services”, the report says.
The acute under-financing of the railway infrastructure is visible when we compare the development of railway infrastructure to that of road infrastructure in the EU15 in 1970. In 40 years, the length of lines was reduced by 14%, while the length of road infrastructure increased three-fold; although confronted with few investments, the railways have managed to increase their transport volume by boosting productivity. Meanwhile, even though road has benefited from a much greater share of the public budget, the growth of volumes transported by road has not matched the growth of motorway’s length, indicating a deterioration of road freight productivity.
Also, the insufficient allocation of investments in infrastructure has a negative impact on transport punctuality which is an important element of railway transport. Therefore, the punctuality level depends not only of the individual processes and efforts of railway companies, but also of external factors, among which the infrastructure. An appropriate network is an essential parameter in ensuring the punctuality of the transport process.
In an increasingly congested infrastructure network, it is more difficult for railways to be punctual. This is even more the case for freight trains. The rise in both passenger and freight traffic in 2010 has probably had an impact on punctuality. This negative trend has been reversed since then, thanks to important efforts by railway undertakings.
Share on:
