Joint Paper: Alliance of associations calls for more speed in European rail freight transport policy 04/06/24

---->>> Download the full joint paper as a PDF at the bottom of this page (English & German versions)

UIRR joined forces with the European Rail Freight Association (ERFA), and two of its national peer associations Die Güterbahnen in Germany and the Dutch association RailGood to produce a short paper that directs the attention of the upcoming Council of Transport Ministers of the European Union to Rail Freight. It will also directly address the political groups running for the European Parliament in this weekend’s European elections.

Resilient growth of the European economy should be based on a relentless pursuit of all-out resource productivity of labour, energy, infrastructure and environmental performance.  Door-to-door Combined Transport substantially outperforms its unimodal road alternative in each of these categories.

Rail freight is a very important pillar of door-to-door Combined Transport. 
The infrastructure network must be developed with a view on the needs of intermodal trains, while adequate quality and quantity of track capacity should be allocated to freight trains.
The regulatory framework should be developed in a mode-neutral way, building on the principles of intermodality as a network, harmonisation and homogeneity.

The opportunity to engineer a leap in modal shift towards Combined Transport is here and now.