Uniform quality performance statistics for rail freight, especially of the cross-border type is not available in Europe. Most national infrastructure managers publish punctuality statistics, as well as these are also shared through the Rail Market Monitoring Scheme (https://transport.ec.europa.eu/transport-modes/rail/market/rail-market-monitoring-rmms_en), however these are national statistics, which hide the delays collected during border crossings, when often the train identification number and with it the train path on which the train runs is replaced. National punctuality data reflects on the punctuality performance of particular train numbers (train paths) and not a cross-border train end-to-end.
Rail Freight Corridors (https://rne.eu/corridor-management/rfc-network/) publish cumulated data for a large number of trains, but not all that run along the corridor lines, but typically this data is limited to the time when the train runs on corridor lines.
Operators of intermodal freight trains collect data on their own trains and often clash with infrastructure managers, but this information is often incomparable with the data reported by the infrastructure managers, therefore the discussions often result in a dispute without a constructive output.
The agreed rate of freight train punctuality has declined to around 50-55% when measured against the 30-minute threshold. Infrastructure managers claim that trains on time at departure, even cross-border trains, feature an 80% punctuality rate.
A prerequisite to collecting undisputable punctuality data for cross-border freight trains is the introduction of European train identification numbers (https://rne.eu/it/rne-it-strategy/digital-train-information/ ), which do not change from start-to-end even if the train path under which the particular train runs in a given country is replaced by the railway undertaking (traction service provider) for whatever reason.
The adoption and use of uniform delay reasons is a second necessary measure to understand the nature of the delays suffered by freight trains. Several initiatives aim to establish a set of mutually accepted delay reasons and reason codes, but to this day there is no accepted set of European delay reasons.
Finally, the monitoring of trains should be extended on both ends to the terminal of origin and the destination terminal, not the nearest train station as it is often the case today. For this reason, terminals are now invited to become part of RNE’s Train Information System ( https://rne.eu/it/rne-applications/tis/what-is-tis/ ) to provide data and also to receive data in return.
Akos Ersek
Chief Policy Advisor
