Improving the competitiveness of rail freight to match trucks is a key objective for Europe in the coming years. “Give us a level playing field and we’re happy”, Captrain Deutschland CEO Henrik Würdemann summed up at the annual ERFA event. Both Würdemann and the Polish Deputy Minister for Infrastructure Piotr Malepszak shared some thoughts on how to achieve that.
Rail has a good and strong product, argued Henrik Würdemann during his speaking session in Brussels on 6 May. However, according to the Captrain Deutschland CEO, rail freight cannot live up to its potential. It is structurally disadvantaged by political design, and that needs to change.
Würdemann introduced the example of parking spaces for trucks. These are provided and paid for by the state, not by road transport companies. By contrast, the private sector needs to pay for the equivalent rail infrastructure, as well as bear additional costs like parking fees and shunting fees. This creates an unfair burden for the rail freight sector in first mile and last mile operations.
If rail freight is to compete with the road, this imbalance is one issue to resolve. Similarly, Würdemann pointed to the need for harmonised policies on track access charges (TAC) across Europe. The Captrain Deutschland CEO challenged the audience to imagine formulating a cancellation policy for clients if national infrastructure managers apply different terms and conditions for annulments. Once again, the road does not have to deal with similar complexity and uncertainties — a disadvantage for rail.
Views from Poland
The Polish Deputy Minister for Infrastructure, Piotr Malepszak, also added to the discussion. Malepszak pointed to a discrepancy between rail and road that will sound familiar to many: railway companies pay for each kilometre driven on the tracks, whereas trucks do not nearly pay for all covered distances on roads. The deputy minister wants to force heavy trucks to pay for driving on all high capacity roads to push the scales more in favour of rail.
Simultaneously, Malepszak said that much can be gained by doing small investments. Multibillion investments get everyone enthusiastic, but Poland lost a lot of capacity due to the closures of smaller stations with few sidings, some 20 years ago. Restoring these stations will not involve multibillion euro investments, but can make a tangible difference, according to the Polish official.
This should help bridge the gap between passenger and freight operations: currently, some 7,000 passenger trains run in Poland on a daily basis. By contrast, only 1,500 freight trains operate in the country each day.