Freight stays on road
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by David Harris • Roadfreight in Europe will grow even more in the next 15 years despite efforts to promote alternatives, a Labour party conference was told last week.
Philip Lowe, advisor to European Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, said that roadfreight will grow from 70% to 84% of Europe's total by 2010 while rail's share halves from 10% to 50/0. "Rail will inevitably decline because it cannot compete on short distances and a big rail expansion would cripple public finances," he added.
But Lowe stressed that specifically-targeted rail schemes can be successful, citing the 4 5km Rotterdam-Antwerp line which took the equivalent of 40,000 truck loads off the road last year.
Lowe was speaking at Labour's latest conference on its transport policy which was officially launched last week.
Lord Tony Berkeley, one of Labour's transport team in the House of Lords, says that Railtrack appears to have no serious intent to expand railfreight. "If we can get railfreight to be more flexible and if the cost of transfer from road to rail can be reduced then we would have the best of both worlds," he believes.
Supporters of the expansion of the European rail network received another blow last weekend when the EU's showcase transport network was delayed indefinitely. Both Britain and Germany blocked the financing needed to launch the infrastructure projects.
Most of the projects are for high-speed rail links across national borders and combined road/rail schemes such as that between Lyon and Turin.