At the same time, we adopted an action plan to boost long-distance and cross-border rail. Although the number of people travelling by train has increased (see Figure 1), only seven per cent of rail kilometres travelled between 2001 and 2018 involved cross-border trips. It is clear that rail cannot fulfil its potential without a Single European Railway Area, in which trains can easily cross borders.
New signalling and automation technologies will deliver much greater capacity and reliability at a fraction of the cost of new physical infrastructure.
To encourage more people to consider the train for trips abroad, the action plan sets out concrete measures to remove barriers to cross-border and long-distance travel. By 2030, the European Commission (EC) will support the launching of at least 15 cross-border pilot projects to test whether this approach is working.
This year we are turning our attention to freight. While road passenger transport is responsible for the largest share of transport emissions (see Figures 2 and 3), we can also make significant cuts to emissions by looking at how we move freight; for example, a 740m-long freight train can replace approximately 52 lorries.
Our Greening freight package will cover:
- Revised rules on rail infrastructure capacity and traffic management to create much-needed additional capacity and reduce disruptions
- A revised Combined Transport Directive to strengthen incentives for multimodal transport
- Our evaluation of the Weights and Dimensions Directive, which will assess whether rules for heavy-duty vehicles in road freight transport impede progress towards greater sustainability in road freight transport
- The ‘CountEmission EU’ initiative, designed to make the environmental footprint of different transport options more transparent. This will also help logistics operators and freight customers to ‘green’ their logistics chain.
For interoperability, my services are currently working on a proposal to revise technical specifications. This is important as rail becomes more digital, which it must. New signalling and automation technologies will deliver much greater capacity and reliability at a fraction of the cost of new physical infrastructure.
The proposal will also revise the data exchange structure for electronic rail ticketing, improve EU level operating and traffic management principles, and introduce updates largely requested by stakeholders or administrations.
Driving digitalisation
Digital lifecycles are shorter than that of a train, which is why we must plan for regular digitalisation‑related hardware updates. Today, however, updates require the re-engineering of entire vehicle IT systems, which makes them overly expensive and uneconomic. So that digitalisation can happen more efficiently (low-cost, limited interruptions to operations), we have defined a modular system in the TSI revision: it defines standard interfaces between components so that individual elements can be updated without affecting the rest of the system.
Meanwhile, the Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking (EU‑Rail) is doing the groundwork for those future updates. Next generation signalling, traffic management and digitalisation are all areas in which huge European added value can be created by individual actors working together.
EU-Rail is promoting and supporting major initiatives, such as the migration to Digital Automatic Coupling (DAC) for freight wagons by 2030.
With a budget of almost €1.2 billion coming from the EU and rail stakeholders, the EU-Rail has the resources to drive the transformation to a more efficient, flexible, and reliable network. This is an immense opportunity, and we must deliver. On our side we will ensure a coordinated roll‑out across Europe. Digitalisation must be for the benefit of all customers.
2021 was the European Year of Rail. But, that was just the beginning of the story – the prologue if you will. I am now eager to move ahead with the chapters that follow – the technical, technological and infrastructure changes that will set rail up to play a leading role in the transition to more sustainable transport.
Adina Vălean is the European Commissioner for Transport. Before taking office on 1 December 2019, she was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for 12 years. As an MEP, she served as the Chairwoman of the ITRE Committee (July-December 2019), Chairwoman of the ENVI Committee (2017-2019) and as Vice President of the European Parliament (2014-2017). She was also a Member of the Romanian Parliament between 2004 and 2007. Adina holds a Master’s degree in European Integration Studies and Security and a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics.
