(ANSA) - BRUSSELS, OCT 12 - Getting the transport of goods
and passengers to switch from road to rail, which causes less
pollution, has been a priority of sector policy for decades in
many European countries.
These include Italy, which has devoted 25 billion euros of its
PNNR funding to the development of high-speed rail lines with
the aim of doubling traffic on them.
And yet most of the efforts carried out so far for a modal shift
from road to rail have not been very effective, wrote Helmut
Adelsberger, a engineer and the CEO of InfraConsultA, in the
latest edition of TerritoriALL, the magazine published by ESPON,
a research programme specialised in EU regional studies.
Indeed, rail has even lost market shares in recent years,
despite major infrastructure investments and significant
logistical improvements.
The expert examined the case of the Munich-Innsbruck-Verona
Brenner Corridor, the central section of the
Scandinavian-Mediterranean Core Network Corridor.
This section boasts the highest levels of road and overall
transport flows across the Alps.
In 2019, only 27 % of the goods were transported via rail,
compared to the 73% carried by more than 2.5 million trucks.
Adelsberger wrote that the building of the Brenner Base Tunnel,
which is expected to open around 2030, will not shift transport
flows to rail by itself.
The infraðstructure will only become fully effective if
accompanied by a set of measures to remove the technical and
bureaucratic obstacles impairing rail freight transport,
including at a large scale.
The 'Brenner without Borders' pilot project, launched by the MEP
Barbara Thaler and approved in autumn 2020, aims to overcome
these obstacles to make rail transport easier, faster and more
reliable.
The project features a phase, which will start soon, in which
freight trains will try to run from Munich to Verona and
vice-versa without stopping at the Brenner Pass, thanks to
cooperation between the European Commission and the managers of
the rail infrastructure of Italy, Germany and Austria.
The evaluation that will take place in autumn 2022 will show how
rail transport can assert itself against road transport, under
improved conditions in terms of time and costs.
Adelsberger, stressed that, beyond the measures of the pilot
project, EU-wide harmonisation of technical standards and legal
provisions should be envisaged to enable rail to achieve a much
higher share of the EU transport market.
There would be many advantages, going from a more efficient
exploitation of the Brenner Base Tunnel to a reduction in CO2
emissions and enhanced road traffic safety. (ANSA).
Just 27% of goods go through Brenner Pass via rail-EU report
Efforts to switch from road to track 'not very effective so far'