For European Rail Getting Solutions on Track
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EUROPEAN ENERGY POLICY POLICY PAPER #261 MARCH 2021 CHALLENGES #GREENDEAL #MOBILITY FOR EUROPEAN RAIL GETTING SOLUTIONS ON TRACK © Peter Wormstetter on Unsplash. Bernina, Switzerland ▪ MATTHIAS RUETE Executive summary ▪ Senior Research Fellow, Jacques Delors Trains were born in Europe. This European Year of the Railways should be an opportunity to make Institute, Paris. rail transport the major player in clean European mobility, even though its overall share of the various modes of transport has become relatively low. The railways do not have a problem with decarbonisa- This Memo contains my personal tion but with attractiveness. opinion and binds nobody else. It draws on my experience but is in Strengthening this attractiveness requires, at the European level, improving the conditions of equality no way connected to my mandate with other modes of transport according to the polluter-pays principle. This also requires significant as European Coordinator for TEN T public investment, which the European recovery plan should facilitate. Making railways a major provider (ERTMS) of mobility and logistics also requires that it be able to operate within a single European framework and that the digitalisation of the sector be accelerated, particularly in terms of rail signaling and traffic management. Europe's major role in the railway industry must be protected against unfair competition from the rest of the world. Finally, the railways must be attractive to users, in particular through better interconnections and the ongoing revival of night trains. The extension of the dedicated infrastructure should contribute to this, making these network corridors our European "silk road". The ambition is also to build a more crisis-resilient European rail network in order to avoid disruptions in freight supply chains. A European Year will not be enough to bring about major upheaval. However, if taken seriously, 2021 could become the year to launch key actions for the renaissance of rail in Europe as a major player in the transport network. PENSER L’EUROPE • THINKING EUROPE • EUROPA DENKEN 1 ▪ 16 1 1 ▪ 2021 IS THE EUROPEAN YEAR OF RAIL “European Years” are often empty slogans, much hyped at the beginning and forgotten almost before the year ends. The European Year of Rail 2021 has a prospect of staying in the memory of the European citizen for much longer. This is because we are at a turning point on mobility in Europe. Transport will be much more multi-modal, based on the concept of mobility and logistics as a door-to-door (or b2b) service. Green deal and digitalisation will be the major drivers disrupting transport post COVID, while the pandemic itself has already produced impressive changes of mobility. Rail can prominently feature in this major, customer-oriented transformation of mobility and logistics in the next ten years. But rail can also be the looser. Major focus is now more on making other modes of transport as green as rail, rather than on increasing the share of rail in transport and making rail more efficient and more responsive. Rail industry (operators, infrastructure managers and suppliers) needs to grasp the coming opportunities, forge a strong alliance with citizens and public authorities. We need to put flesh on the bones of the European Year of Rail and make rail a prominent actor with an integrated approach on transport, rapidly advancing with digitalisation and building on its climate credentials. BOX 1 ▪ The European Year has been preceded by a Commission communication on sustainable and smart mobility (December 2020)2 , with announcements of a revision of the TEN T Regulation, EU rail (passenger and freight) corridor initiatives (in 2021) and revised digitalisation standards for signalling, traffic management and automatic train operations (in 2022) . This is accompanied by substantial resources being made available for rail under NextGenerationEU and the EU Multiannual financial framework3. 1. Decision on proposal of the European Commission of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament December 2020 https:// data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/PE-48-2020-INIT/en/pdf, and link to-European-year-of-rail websites: Commission: https:// europa.eu/year-of-rail/index_en and EP: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/eu-affairs/20210107STO95106/2021. See also 7th Monitoring Report Rail market report ,COM (2021) 5 fin and EU Agency for Rail, Fostering the Railway Sector through the European Green Deal, July 2020: https://www.era.europa.eu/content/report-fostering-railway-sector-through-european-green-deal_en 2. COM(2020)789 final of 9.12.2020 ; and staff working document, SWD(2020)331final, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/ PDF/?uri=CELEX:52020SC0331&from=EN 3. However, no specific EU resources were earmarked for the European Year. PENSER L’EUROPE • THINKING EUROPE • EUROPA DENKEN 2 ▪ 16 2 ▪ RAIL HAS MANY ADVANTAGES BUT RISKS LOSING OUT IN THE GREEN DEAL The European Union is about to set itself a goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 2030 by at least 55% and to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Transport generates 25% of all greenhouse gases in the European Union 4 and should reduce GHG emissions by at least 90% by 2050. Indeed, transport is the only sector which has increased its share of GHG emissions since 1990 (from 15% to 25%) in relation to other sectors and industries. The rail share of GHG emissions is very low (0.4%5 ). The major contributor is road (passen- gers and freight) with a share over 70% of transport GHG emissions. FIGURE 1 ▪ The rail share of GHG emissions in Europe Share of GHG emissions of transport EU 27 in 2018 ( rail, road, domestic aviation, domestic navigation, pipelines) Source : EC 7th RMM Report 4. Excluding international maritime, Statistical Pocketbook 2020 https://ec.europa.eu/transport/facts-fundings/statistics/ pocketbook-2020_en 5. This low figure is in part explained because GHG emissions of electricity are catered for elsewhere under the heading “energy” which is already subject to the emissions trading system (ETS). However, overall, this depends on transforming electricity generation to a no- emissions scenario. PENSER L’EUROPE • THINKING EUROPE • EUROPA DENKEN 3 ▪ 16 Moreover, rail is also one of the most energy efficient modes of transport. However, rail‘s overall modal share of transport is relatively low with 7.8% for passengers and 18.7% for freight6. Progress over the years (2007 to 2018) has been slow with the share of passenger rail increasing in the EU by only 0.5% and for freight even sometimes falling7. If this share is not considerably increased, rail risks remaining relatively marginal and the task of reducing GHG emissions will be for road, maritime and aviation. BOX 2 ▪ Modal share of rail in selected Member States Average EU 27 figures hide wide differences between Member States: • In passenger transport (EU average: 7,8%) Austria (12,1%) , Netherlands(11,1%), and France (10,5%) perform best with a modal share of over 10%, followed by Slovakia, Sweden, Germany , the Czech Republic, Hungary, Denmark, Belgium, and Poland, all above or at the EU 27 average. • In freight (EU average 18,7%) the three Baltic republics stand out (over 45%) followed by Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, and Sweden with freight volumes of over 30%. Finland, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Croatia, Germany, and Bulgaria are all above average. France (9.93%), Spain (4.97% ) and Belgium (10.48% ) are very far away from the average and even more from the benchmark of 30% share set by industry itself for 2030. 6. EU 27 tkm/pkm; Figures for 2018, modal share of rail in relation to all land transport modes. In absolute terms, rail traffic volume increased in the years from 2015 to 2018 by 2.5 % for passenger and 4.1% for freight. 7. The share of metro and trams would increase this figure by 1.7%; freight varies over the years from 17.3% to 19.2%. PENSER L’EUROPE • THINKING EUROPE • EUROPA DENKEN 4 ▪ 16 3 ▪ RAIL NEEDS TO INCREASE ITS MODAL SHARE CONSIDERABLY TO BE THE BACKBONE OF A NEW MOBILITY STRATEGY. The major issue for rail is therefore to increase the modal share rather than to reduce GHG8. Rail does not have a decarbonisation but often an attractiveness problem. Ideally, the best way to increase the share of rail would be to make rail more attractive, more innovative , to ensure that rail is more reliable and punctual , that the offer of rail services is better and more varied, that costs are lower, and that rail is better integrated in a multi-modal system where the last mile connection is also assured. Rail also needs to be more attentive to the use of other green modes of transport such as cycling etc. This is already part of the recently agreed changes to the rail passenger rights regulation (in the process of adoption) and should be a major focus of the revision of the urban mobility package announced by the Commission for this year9. If these are the goals, what are the levers from a European perspective? 3.1 ▪ Lever ONE : Better level playing field: Polluter – user pays principle. The cost of transport needs to be fairly reflected. The external and infrastructure costs of each transport mode need to be measured and internalised: the user or polluter pays principle. This is not an easy task since cohesion and social concerns intervene. The Com- mission announced recently a ‘comprehensive set of measures to deliver fair and efficient pricing across all transport modes’ 10 including the extension of the ETS system, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies, progress on effective charging of infrastructure use11 and better information on the most sustainable choice of transport mode. Putting a price on CO2 for all modes of transport (not necessary through the extension of ETS) will indeed contribute to create a more level-playing field for rail transport12.