Regulation 913/2010 is an important basis of the European rail policy in the development of railway freight traffic. This will help it increase the railway freight transport capacity in those countries where railways are already experiencing a recovery in the transport volumes or in the market share. At the same time, it will support the improvement of railway freight transport capacity as regards the quality of services and efficiency in the countries where railways still need to recover. To answer to the very different needs of the different market segment, the Regulation seeks to ensure the pre-established routes and to allocate the ad-hoc capacity.
The Regulation on a competitive European freight transport network will significantly improve cooperation between the infrastructure managers and other parties interested along the railway freight transport corridors. Joint objectives will be defined for these corridors helping all the players in the market to act for a common goal, said sources from DG MOVE for Railway Pro. The poor reliability of international trains and the reduced transport speeds are only few of the problems affecting the international freight traffic. Freight trains run on many international corridors at speeds of 18 km/h, while speed on internal routes is 25 km/h. This is due to the time lost with cross-border operations, but also to the lack of cooperation between transport operators. The result is that railways cannot serve the transport of certain cargoes which then head to the faster road transport.
An implementation plan will represent the foundation for setting the new corridors (10) in three to five years since the coming into force of the Regulation.
The first Memorandum of Understanding was signed for Corridor no. 7 “Orient” (previously called Corridor E), 2013 being the year when it will become operational. According to a recent report of UIRR, the structuring of this corridor took place in November 2011. Corridor “Orient” is the most complex of the 9 corridors mentioned in Regulation 913/2010 as it crosses several of the EU member states: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. In Romania, Corridor “Orient” intersect the pan-European Corridor IV. Recently, new steps have been taken to revive the European freight transport. Thus, on 20 December 2012, the transport ministers of Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed an agreement to set up the legal framework for allocating transport capacities on the international Freight Corridors 1 and 2. The international corridor 1 follows the route Zeebrugge – Anvers/Rotterdam – Duisburg – (Basel) – Milano – Genoa, while the second crosses Rotterdam – Anvers – Luxembourg – Metz – Dijon – Lyon/Basel.
This is a strong signal for the European Union regarding the necessity to harmonise the mandatory norms regarding these corridors around Europe and offers the necessary agreements to support the implementation of the so-called one-stop shops for the management of the infrastructure capacities of a corridor.
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