In the last ten years rail freight achieved a growth rate of 10% in EU-25, road transport 38% and the combined transport of the UIRR companies a growth of 48%. In international traffic, the UIRR companies were particularly successful in transferring road traffic to rail. Intermodal freight is especially successful on long distances and where geographical and administrative obstacles complicate road transport. About two thirds of the continental traffic is transalpine. The alpine transit countries, mainly Switzerland and Austria use high road tolls, night traffic bans and other measures to limit road traffic on one side, but they also invest in rail infrastructure and grant financial help for rail on the other side. With the enlargement of the European Union and in response to increasing traffic other countries will introduce or increase road tolls and will use a number of instruments to limit road traffic and ensure road safety. Those instruments are weekend and night traffic bans and more severe controls of the technical conditions of trucks, of licences, of rest times, of speed limits etc. All this, together with the saturation of roads will ameliorate the competitive position of intermodal transport as a more secure, reliable and environmentally friendly alternative, cutting for example CO2 emissions by half compared to road transport. Logistic companies can save personnel costs,especially when they have regular traffic. With the same investment, theycan handle much more traffic, as a given number of motor vehicles enablesmore efficient use by using containers, swap bodies or trailers movable by crane. In European countries like France, Germany, the Alpine countries and Italy the saturation of the road, the environmental and safety problems had led 35 years ago to the creation of intermodal transport operators and to the foundation of their umbrella association, the International Union of combined Road-Rail transport companies. In the last decade most of the continental European intermodal traffic is transported in complete trains which are directly linking major terminals without passing through marshalling yards. This operational scheme has reduced costs and led to higher commercial speeds. The unaccompanied transport of loading units, in the long run the most economical form of intermodal transport, is minimising thedead weight to be transported on rail. But this technique requires long term collaboration between road and rail. The road hauliers and logistic companies should have regular traffic possibly with backload, to achieve maximum benefits. The use of accompanied transport requires on the contrary no special investment or organisation and rolling motorways may also be used occasionally, or only in one direction. The basis for intermodal trafficis standardisation. The best known units are the ISO containers which have since 50 years revolutionized the world trade and of which several millions are used in maritime transport.In road traffic or on the rolling motorway the accompanying driver is able to directly inform his company in cases of delay or problems. To ensure the same information level in unaccompanied traffic most intermodal transport operators are offering EDI tools forcustomers. On medium and long distances and therefore especially in international traffic, intermodal transport already plays an important role. Standardised loading units allow the transfer of nearly all types of goods to rail. Combined transport develops particularly well where governments support intermodality through favourable framework conditions and are supporting investment in railway lines and terminals. The most important factor to encourage intermodality is to raise the productivity of rail by favouring European technical interoperability and introducing competition. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract