Freight Transport and Logistics Masterplan - Bundesministerium für ...

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transport policy measures, the rising levels of
freight traffic would not only have a significant
impact on the environment and people’s
quality of life. They would also entail the risk
of our mobility coming to a standstill in total
gridlock on certain transport arteries. This has
to be prevented.
With regard to freight transport, the Federal
Government thus believes that maximum
efficiency in traffic management, optimized
control of logistics processes and the removal
of bottlenecks in the transport system are
absolutely essential to ensure that avoidable
journeys do not actually take place. Avoiding
unnecessary journeys by means of greater efficiency
will cut operators’ costs and thus also
benefit the industry. Logistics strategies have
to be evolved so that freight transport operations
can be consolidated wherever possible
(e.g. in city logistics) and incentives have to be
created for an ever greater reduction in the
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number of empty journeys. It is up to operators
to step up their investment in innovative
technologies and make their contribution to
avoiding unnecessary journeys.
In addition, the Federal Government will
vigorously lobby at European level to ensure
that transit traffic in and through Europe
moves efficiently and sustainably. Germany recognizes
its European responsibility as a transport
hub and transit country. That is why it is
necessary, in Europe, to find ways of strengthening
the Lisbon process and minimizing the
impact of transit traffic on the environment
and quality of life.
C Shifting more traffic to the railways
and inland waterways
The Federal Government is pursuing the
objective of shifting much more traffic to the
railways and waterways. For this reason, it will
establish a regulatory framework and investment
priorities that will enable the rail mode
to increase and sustain its share of freight
traffic by 2025. The measures designed to
strengthen rail freight may at the same time
help to enhance the capacity of the railways in
the passenger sector.
Strengthening the railways and waterways
is a major contribution towards making
our transport system more climate-friendly
and more environmentally friendly. In addition,
shifting traffic to the railways and waterways
will also help to free up capacity on
the roads and tackle congestion. Thus, road
transport will also benefit from a strengthening
of the railways and waterways. It is thus
in no way a question of playing the individual
modes off against each other. Rather, the Fede­
ral Government’s aim is that, within an integrated
transport system, the individual modes
should be used and interlinked in such a way
that they can deploy their inherent strengths
in an optimum manner.
The Federal Government supports
measures that will result in more competition
in rail transport. European integration, with
the opening-up of the market for international
rail freight, is thus viewed positively. The Federal
Government supports the continuation of
European liberalization efforts. The fact that
there is still a lack of harmonization must not
be used as an excuse by individual countries
to back-pedal on liberalization or suspend it.
Enhancing competition in rail transport will
improve its competitiveness vis-à-vis the other
modes of transport. A start should be made
by evolving the regulatory framework. The
Federal Government will also lobby at European
level for fair conditions of competition
between the modes of transport.
D Upgrading more transport arteries
and hubs
Avoiding unnecessary journeys, efficient
traffic management and a modal shift will not,
by themselves, be sufficient to secure our mobility
in the long term. There are already noticeable
bottlenecks in our transport infrastructure,
and the volume of traffic is forecast to
rise significantly. Against this background,
the Federal Government will step up its efforts
to upgrade the transport infrastructure on a
human scale and in an environmentally sound
manner. In doing so, it will take account of
noise mitigation as well as the other aspects
of environmental protection and nature
conservation, plus the interests of agriculture
and forestry. Plans are to be geared to an even
greater extent to the needs of the people in the
local communities.
In order to take account of the future
upgrading requirements as well as the rising
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