UNIFE PRESENTATION AT 9TH RAILWAY CONFERENCE – SIL LOGISTICS DIRECTORS SYMPOSIUM

“SHIFT2RAIL, a dream that is becoming a reality” added – Massimo Marianeschi – UNIFE General Manager, now that the Commissioners Siim Kallas and Máire Geoghegan-Quinn decided to support politically and financially the Initiative and thanks to the parliamentary increasing sustain. He reinforced the key point that large scale, “close to market” research is paramount for the rail sector to overcome its problems and achieve step-change improvement in Rail’s competitiveness. During the conference he took the occasion to present in particular the elements of SHIFT2RAIL which are focused on Freight. During the presentation it was emphasised that SHIFT2RAIL will help to bring about innovations which rail freight desperately needs to ensure that it can provide the right level of capacity and quality of service to compete with other transport modes, and therefore contribute to meeting the objectives set out by the Commission in the 2011 Transport White Paper. It is now essential that the Member States, including Spain, make explicit their support to the Initiative, he concluded.