According to a report by the European Court of Auditors, EU rules are leading to a further increase in the proportion of more environmentally harmful freight transport on the road. This is around 77 percent compared to other transport options such as trains – and the Court of Auditors announced on Monday that the trend is rising. There are currently not the same competitive conditions for trains and inland waterways. Railway or port authorities would have to continue to use paper documents to be stamped because the workflow had not yet been digitized.
The auditors also noted that the EU does not have a specific strategy for intermodal freight transport. This means transport using two different modes of transport, for example a combination of train and truck.
There are also problems with the infrastructure, for example the EU freight transport network in its current form is not yet suitable for intermodal transport. The use of 740 meter long trains – the maximum length permitted under EU law – is one of the best measures to make rail more attractive than road. However, trains of this length could theoretically only be used on half of the most important long-distance connections.
EU targets such as doubling rail traffic and increasing the use of waterways by 50 percent are “simply unrealistic”. However, according to the auditors, it is not possible to assess whether the combined national efforts are sufficient to meet the EU’s overall modal shift targets.
