In light of the European Green Deal and the Commission’s goal to reach climate-neutrality by 2050, European rail freight plays an important role. The Rail Freight Corridors are the backbone of the sustainable movement of goods across Europe, and are also fundamental for a connected European economy.

After ten years of implementation the sector would like to take this opportunity to share its experiences of the Regulation. Overall, the Regulation has brought a host of positive developments for European rail freight transport, especially for implementing European interoperability. The RFCs have helped in interconnecting railway infrastructure and implementing a centralized platform for all stakeholders; offering to Railway Undertakings a tool to facilitate communication with railway infrastructure managers; creating a platform for cross-border harmonization; strengthening the focus on international traffic flows; contributing in establishing international processes and IT applications together with RailNetEurope (RNE) and creating legal structures for capacity allocations and facilitating pilot projects.

There is still fundamental room for improvement. The upcoming revision of the Regulation, as an important prerequisite for competitive freight and modal shift, should be shifting more from a corridor-focus to a European Rail Freight Corridor Network. Hence, the significance and relatively successful implementation of the RFCs should be supported by a flexible and enhanced European legislation. This European legislation should take the market needs of the sector sufficiently into account.

Therefore, CER and EIM warmly welcome the opportunity to take part in the revision process and would like to propose possible solutions and recommendations for the European Commission’s evaluation and revision of Rail Freight Regulation 913/2010. These solutions and recommendations aim at creating unified quality services for customers and boosting rail freight competitiveness.