iconannual 2015 - The European Business and Investment Magazine

OBB
Infrastructure, Transport & Energy
Via
CORRIDORS
to more competitive
railway in Europe!
The European Commission relies
very much on the further
development of the railway by
defining quite ambitious objectives.
More competitive railway
should also help to achieve the employment
and environmental goals
by moving the trucks to the tracks.
Even holding the current rail market
share with the expected growth of
the overall transport volumes needs
considerable infrastructure investments
in the multimodal TEN-T core
network corridors. But investments
alone are of course not enough to
make railway more competitive and
increase its market share. An extensive
harmonisation of operational
and commercial rules would significantly
improve performance and
make borders invisible for clients.
A common traffic and price policy
considering external costs is also absolutely
essential.
To deal with all those important
issues a concept of the Rail Freight
Corridor (RFC) was defined in an
EU Regulation as a “backbone” of
the TEN-T core network. The RFC
organisation consists of an Executive
Board with the representatives
of Transport Ministries; a Management
Board representing the Railway
Infrastructure Managers; a
Corridor-OneStopShop (C-OSS) as a
single contact point for the Railway
Undertakings and Advisory Groups
of which the members are Railway
Undertakings as well as Terminals
and Ports Managers. Thus, such an
organisation envisages close cooperation
between all players in the rail
freight chain. Furthermore, a good
connection to the multimodal terminals
and ports allows a complementarity
and synergies between
different transport modes.
Of the nine RFCs
in Europe, four go
through Austria.
So it is quite obvious that having
four different regimes in one country
is simply not practicable – that
again leads to a great need for harmonisation
between all RFCs. Therefore
we are already speaking about
the RFC network. And this exactly
is the strategy of the European Commission:
to start with the corridors
first in order to achieve full harmonisation
of the whole rail network.
One of the most important corridors
for Austria as well as for Europe
is the Baltic-Adriatic RFC 5, which
will go into operation in November
this year. Its route connects Italian
industrial areas and Adria ports to
the powerful industrialised areas
of Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic.
The connection to Poland’s
ports in the North links those eastern
European industrial centres to
the Scandinavian countries as well
as to the world trade flows of Asia,
Africa and America. Furthermore, a
significant shift of shipping to Adria
ports is expected over the next few
years and therefore the hinterland
connection provided by RFC5 will
become increasingly important.
Thus, RFC5 will serve as an infrastructure
backbone and will support
the growing together of the connected
economies.
For Poland, Slovakia and Czech
Republic strong economic growth
leads to a rapid increase in freight
demand. Especially in the last five
to ten years, this growth was very
much covered by road transportation.
Rail infrastructure investments
and strengthening efficiency of rail
freight operation through introducing
Rail Freight Corridors will enable
growth of rail freight traffic!
MMag. Diana Gasanova
Chair of Management Board RFC 5
ÖBB Infrastruktur AG
The European Business and Investment Magazine iconannual 83