Brussels 6th February 2001

UNIFE expresses concern on behalf of the railway supply industry that rail will be given a lower priority than road in the coming white paper.

With demand for passenger transport set to increase by 20% and freight by 40% by 2010, according to forecasts given out by Ms De Palacio in her speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, it is even more important to invest in rail today so that the EU citizens of tomorrow will have the benefit of a cost-effective high-quality transport system. This opinion was expressed on behalf of UNIFE by its President, Mr. Herbert Steffen, to the Commissioner for Enterprise and Information Society, Mr. Erkki Liikanen at a meeting prior to the UNIFE Annual reception on the 6th of January.

UNIFE believes that environmentally friendly modes of transport should in general be given further support in order to achieve a truly sustainable transport system. However, it must be remembered that rail requires long term planning and investment. It cannot provide quick-fix solutions to transport problems, as is often the case with road. Furthermore, increased capacity of road infrastructure is often short lived. It is the long-term costs of these types of solutions that the citizens of the European Union will have to live with such as the damage to the environment, noise pollution and congestion.

Rail, however, is very energy efficient – a fully loaded train requires only one third of the energy per passenger kilometre of a fully loaded car and only one tenth of that of an aeroplane. Furthermore, some believe that rail will not be able to absorb the expected growth in the transport market. If we look at the statistics this does not seem to ring true. The industry is currently experiencing over-capacity. With regards to passenger and goods capacity, the external costs of rail are much less. This is particularly important in urban areas where one train can replace 6km of road traffic. Also, suburban rail can relive urban congestion and adverse economic effects. High-speed rail is also the best solution in high-density traffic corridors - especially due to small space requirement per unit capital.

Therefore, UNIFE would recommend greater intermodality and increased complimentarity between modes. UNIFE has included these recommendations in its Vision 2010 report for the rail industry.

We would like to see the European institutions continue to put rail as a priority and we hope to see the Commission continue to play an instrumental role in the improvement of transport in general.