Until now roads have captured the main growth in volume of transport, while a determined policy to change to intermodal travel is still awaited.
Environmental benefits with Factor 4! France is supporting the goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions in the world by 2050, which means cutting French emissions to a quarter of their current levels. The transport sector is at the forefront of this drive, since it generates 35% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions and 27% of its CO2. Cars in particular account for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions from transport, but there is no let-up in road traffic. They are used for the lion's share of urban community journeys, with public transport only accounting for 8 - 10%.
Until now, France has tried to ensure the market share of the railways remains stable, while Europe has focused on progress in the technologies used in cars. The report issued by the European Environment Agency in February 2007 for the first time questions whether this progress will be enough to solve the problem of emissions. It makes reference to the medium-term review of the Transport White Paper * dated 2001. Would Europe be willing to take measures to tackle transport levels?
* The Transport White Paper defines a European transport policy for 2010, with priority objectives and measures.
Passenger transport: share of rail traffic to double Whether for short or long distance journeys, the objective is ambitious but realistic. The SNCF has a part to play in meeting the challenge.
We are increasing speeds to reduce journey times. We are rolling out intermodal transport by connecting TGVs to regional trains and transforming stations into multimodal transport hubs. We are making prices more attractive by extending multimodal transport offers for commuter journeys and providing more cheap offers on the TGV to make it accessible to all.
The switch from road to rail transport will require political will and determined policy-making.
In terms of local transport, employers could offer to partially pay for monthly season tickets, as is already the case in the Paris region, urban toll could be used to pass on the cost of private vehicle use to the users.
When it comes to the high-speed rail, two key measures will be important. Firstly, seeing air and rail travel as truly complementary and only using plane connections when there is no alternative to the TGV. Secondly, accelerating the construction of the European high-speed network, which is set to triple in size to 15,000 km by 2020 thanks to support from the European Union.
Making way for rail freight Rail freight offers significant environmental benefits, with energy efficiency that is 15 times higher than for trucks and CO2 emissions that are 60 times lower. But freight volumes have continued to fall over the last 20 years in France, and rail freight now only accounts for 12% of all goods traffic, as in the rest of Europe.
Freight transport requires a European approach and a European policy. The issue is to do away with national borders. This means creating major freight corridors and encourage the grouping of goods flows. The starting points has to be the black spots on the Freight map, the congested ports and the overcrowded transit routes through the Alps and Pyrenees. A rail highway approach is required, to encourage the transport of HGVs.
Finance and decision-making Support from the EU in developing infrastructure and interoperability systems will be a decisive factor. Some sources of funding have already been identified: implementation of the Eurovignette directive, a specific tax on heavy goods vehicles over 3.5 tonnes, taxation of the kerosene fuel used by airlines (to date entirely exempt of tax).
Establishing fair competition between different modes of transport is the key for success in terms of changing customer behaviour. This can be realised by means of regulation, tolls and CO2 emission and road transport quotas, all aiming at a single objective: incorporating the environmental cost to the community in the price paid by the end customer. If this can be done, rail transport will be seen to have a competitive advantage.
