Rail capacity and traffic management

Background

Cross-border rail transport services, especially for freight, continue to suffer from fragmentation at national level. The sustainable and smart mobility strategy envisages measures to better manage and coordinate cross-border rail traffic which continues to face barriers limiting its competitiveness and attractiveness.

The European Commission's initiative aims to increase cross-border rail transport, mainly by optimising the use of rail infrastructure. The goal is to create the conditions necessary to improve rail infrastructure capacity and traffic management, covering all types of rail traffic, and to improve the multimodal integration of rail freight services. The initiative will also take into account progress in the digitalisation of planning, operating and monitoring railway infrastructure and of rail transport services.

Key areas:

1. Railway capacity management to ensure increased use of railway infrastructure;
2. Traffic and contingency management: the real-time management of rail traffic, both in normal conditions and larger disruptions (crisis management);
3. Stronger integration of rail freight transport in multimodal logistics chains;
4. Performance monitoring and management;
5. Conditions for infrastructure use, provision of information and regulatory supervision.

Key points

The EESC:

• welcomes the ambitious goals for rail transport, which is the backbone of a sustainable transport system. More efficiently allocating infrastructure capacity can create much-needed additional capacity in the short term and improve planning for long-term needs.
• calls on the Commission to promote an active EU policy focused on investment in building new infrastructure and maintaining existing infrastructure, focusing not only on international and high-speed long-distance lines but also on local and regional lines.
• calls to come up with a coherent strategy to promote green freight transport in the long term. The proposed Greening Freight Package threatens to lead to a reverse modal shift from rail to road by facilitating cross-border operations for fossil fuel-powered gigaliners.
• urges the European Commission to put in place all necessary measures, not only to make rail transport more attractive, accessible to people with disabilities and affordable for the public but also to invest in the sector's employees and improve their working conditions, skills and competencies.

Additional information

Section: Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and the Information Society (TEN)

Opinion number: TEN/820

Opinion type: Mandatory

Rapporteur: Angelo Pagliara (Workers - Group II / Italy)

Referral: COM(2023) 443 final 2023/0271 COD COM(2023) 443 final 2023/0271 COD

Date of adoption by section: 6 October 2023

Result of the vote: 60 in favour, 0 against, 0 abstentions

Date of adoption in plenary: 25-26 October 2023

Result of the vote: 160 in favour, 2 against, 2 abstentions

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