Eurocrats' war against trucks thwarted by shippers' clear preference for road over rail
 Shifting freight from road to rail has long been the cause of the state bureaucracies and the goal of environmental lobbies worldwide, and no more so than in the European Union.
What amounts to a war against trucks and trucking, is a campaign championed by health and safety lobbies and encouraged and funded to promote policies the bureaucracy is pre-disposed to carry out for reasons of its own.
Because health and safety statistics that would justify such a war are hard to come by these days with everyone being healthier and living longer than ever before, what's left is environmentalism - saving the planet from dire predictions of global warming. While these never come true in any palpable way, they are hard to contradict because proof reside safely in the unproveable future.
Unfortunately for the Eurocrats, European shippers simply prefer trucks to trains - because they get the freight to where it wants to go, particularly in tightly packed consumer-rich western Europe where the money is.
This is the lament of the EU's Directorate-General for Internal Policies' study called "Freight on Road: Why EU Shippers Prefer Truck to Train".
Not for all freight, of course. Heavy bulk transport such as coal is mostly moved by rail, while lighter and more perishable goods go by road. But the EU researchers also conceded that road haulage over short distances was preferred by many for bulk cargo too. And given that western Europe is blessed with short distances, this involves more bulk being trucked than one would think.
For most everything else, shippers in France and Italy find rail too expensive while in Spain in Poland it was found to be unreliable plagued by bottlenecks, the big German complaint, and in need of better connected infrastructure everywhere.
Rather like the eastern US, where population densities approximate those of western Europe, rail becomes competitive with road at distances of over 200 to 300 kilometres. West of the Mississippi, in Big Sky Country, that figure runs more that 800 kilometres, but the principle remains the same.
Like the generality of electorates of EU member states, who reliably vote against the settled wisdom of their betters in Brussels, European shippers have increasingly turned their back on the rail freight option over the years despite incessant blandishments from Eurocrats and their eco nusiance lobbies.
On average, rail freight transport has experienced low levels of absolute growth across the EU since 2000, declining in the face of rising road freight use. Germany and the Baltic states have had increases while France, Bulgaria and Slovakia have had declines. From 2000 to 2012 road haulage increased 7.3 per cent while rail was up only 0.4 per cent. What rail increases there have been were influenced by discrete local initiatives or ambient conditions, having little or nothing to do with the EU's blatant anti-truck campaign.
A number of initiatives targeted at modal shift from road to rail have been introduced at the EU level. These include Eurovignette Directive, a road tax, coupled with a few high-hanging sugar plums for planned railway reform, opening freight markets to competition, improving interoperability and funding programmes. But the taxes come sooner and the sugar plums come later - after stakeholders are consulted.
Member states have implemented a raft of pro-rail measures, including direct financial support targeting rail infrastructure development, for instance by providing better gauge clearance for heavier trains and reinstating sidings in anticipation increased demand, which the EU study conceded had not materialised.
Taken together, the study also conceded, that such measures had not had an impact on modal shift. A realistic market share of rail freight would 20 per cent. Hopes for growth are based on the Eurovignette Directive, a road tax coupled with projected rail reforms.
The EU's Shift2Rail initiative should enhance capacity, consolidate reliability, the study said. Strategies should recognise that longer distance, cross border transport is the most likely to shift from road to rail, it said. The implementation will require funding. "More effort will be needed to reverse the trend of decline in the mode share of rail freight. Future strategies should prioritise pro rail policies with high leverage potential and receive an adequate level of funding." it said, obliquely recommending more debt financing.
The one bright spot for rail is the Port Barcelona where rail freight has prospered. Though this has little to do with EU efforts to effect a modal shift, and more to do with local plans to snatch Asia-Europe cargo as it transits the western Mediterranean, then divert it north overland to the consumer-rich "blue banana" of Europe's Northern Range.
While this did not work as planned for reasons of the high costs of overland shipment, not to mention and awkward rail gauge change from the Spanish to the French system. But the initiative proved serendipitous nonetheless. Within Spain, and more importantly within the patriotic Catalan community, the Port of Barcelona grew and prospered. Rail traffic to and from the port has grown to from three to 12 per cent. Still small compared to Hamburg's 42 per cent, but showing double digit growth in the midst of glacial 0.4 per cent pan-Euro growth.
Rail services in Catalonia transported 19,331 TEU, an increase of 200 per cent. Moreover, new products were carried by rail, including the transportation of 100,000 cars and 385,000 tonnes of bulk cargo from the mines of Siuria in northern Spain and Sallent north of Barcelona.
"This," the study says, "demonstrates that rail can compete for freight transport over relatively short distances if rail access to key facilities is established."
Elsewhere the study notes "the share of rail observed in Switzerland and the United States, where half the inland freight is carried by rail, could usefully inform long term policy." What is perhaps missed in this bureaucratic analysis, is that the failure to note the greater private sector involvement in American and Swiss railways. US railways are privately owned and while the Federal Swiss Railway used to be a government institution, but since 1999 it has been a special stock corporation whose shares are held by the Swiss Confederation and the Swiss cantons. Canadian National underwent a similar transformation from state ownership to joint stock company as well - to its considerable profit.
The over-arching EU plan is the Trans-European Transport Networks (TEN-T) that covers road, rail, air and water transport networks, and is part of a wider system of Trans-European Networks (TENs), including a telecommunications network (eTEN) and a proposed energy network (TEN-E or Ten-Energy). In 2017, it was decided that it would be extended into Eastern Europe and would include Eastern Partnership, states: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and the Ukraine.
What effect this might have on the road and rail dichotomy is anyone's guess, but given the EU's record on the issue, it is doubtful it will have much impact in its long-sought modal shift for the forseeable future. |
