Rail freight coalition calls for EU action

UK: Five CEOs of members of the RailFreightForward coalition of rail freight operators recently met EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas to discuss challenges including a lack of high-quality cross-border infrastructure capacity, an uneven economic level playing field and investments in digital technology.

RailFreightForward asked the Commissioner for:

• ‘clear and sufficient’ EU funding for investment in ERTMS and digital automatic coupler projects; Lineas Chair Bernard Gustin said ’with half of all freight trains being international, Europe needs to play a stronger role in co-ordinating the implementation of ERTMS and the financing of the locomotive onboard units’.
• a basic network for military mobility with increased public funding and greater availability of suitable rolling stock and personnel;
• a capacity management framework with clear commercial conditions and key performance indicators aimed at maximising availability. Frédéric Delorme, CEO of SNCF subsidiary Rail Logistics Europe, said ‘freight, passenger and infrastructure works should be optimised at European level’;
• a move towards harmonising national additional requirements for the European driving licence. Henrik Dahlin, CEO of Green Cargo, said ‘the Train Driver Directive, standardised rules and digital licences are key steps toward a more efficient railway sector’.

‘We need, and we want a renaissance of rail’, RFF Chair & DB Cargo CEO Sigrid Nikutta said after the meeting on February 26. ‘And we must act now to achieve it. Because without…