In the dynamic world of logistics and transport, finding sustainable and efficient solutions is paramount. Transport capacity has been highlighted as a key challenge hampering competitiveness and growth in regions such as Japan. Over ALICE Summit November 2024, similar symptoms were perceived in Europe on the subject. Intermodality is a major lever for decarbonisation and critical to increase sustainable transport capacity in Europe.
Recently, UIC/UIRR report on Combined Transport in Europe highlighted that despite there is no growth in rail freight overall, combined transport has experience and important growth in the last decade.
However, the journey towards increasing the use of intermodality is fraught with challenges. ALICE is at the forefront of efforts to address these issues. Earlier this year, with the support of TRANSPOREON, ALICE published a comprehensive white paper titled “Increasing the Use of Rail and Intermodal Transport in Europe: Integration of Rail Freight Information with Other Supply Chain Solutions.”
This document addresses the main challenges faced by the sector, based on surveys, interviews and workshops. It also identifies the factors that hinder the integration of rail and intermodal transport into broader logistics solutions and the different perceptions from different stakeholders groups:
- Shipper
- Logistics and Multimodal Transport Operators
- Rail sector on the same competitive factors.
In the policy field, several pieces of legislation are under review as part of the Greening Freight Package. With the new European Commission in place since 4th of December, these policies and legislative initiatives are expected to resume in the coming months.
The reality and perception of modal shift
Despite the clear benefits of rail transport in terms of reducing carbon footprints and reducing road congestion, the sector struggles to attract consistent additional traffic. ALICE’s 2023 survey and workshops, which involved shippers, rail sector experts, and other stakeholders, identified significant barriers to achieving the European Commission’s targets to increase rail freight by 50% by 2030 and double it by 2050 compared to 2015 levels.
One of the key findings of this research is the disparity in perceptions between stakeholders. Shippers, logistics service providers (LSPs), and rail operators assess performance through different lenses. For example, shippers assess on-time performance by looking at the entire journey – origin to destination – while rail operators often focus only on the terminal-to-terminal segment. This distinction highlights a gap in understanding, as rail freight punctuality expectations are not aligned with the tighter delivery windows typically managed in road transport, where hauliers are often scheduled within 20-minute slots. Shippers using comparative data can assess the performance of rail against road over both long and short distances, leading to more rigorous assessments. …
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