2024 Memorandum on increasing the competitiveness of rail freight
In an ongoing effort to promote the industrial development of the Belgian Regions and tackle major societal challenges such as road congestion, climate change and the energy transition, Lineas has released a 2 pager memorandum highlighting the crucial role of rail freight. This memorandum presents the key strategies and actions that are needed to improve the competitiveness of the rail freight sector, ensuring it remains a sustainable transportation option.
Importance of rail freight
Lineas halved its losses in 2023 and is optimistic about approaching break-even in 2024, with profitability expected in 2025 – provided the Belgian and Regional Governments address some key priorities.
Indeed, rail freight plays a critical role in connecting the Belgian industry and ports with Europe, safeguarding our competitive advantage over neighbouring countries such as France and Germany. Moreover, Lineas is essential to the success of rail freight in our region: with its customer centricity and quality focus, Lineas stands out as the first and largest private rail freight company in Europe.
Proposed actions for supporting rail freight
This short memorandum highlights five key actions that are necessary to support the shift from road to rail and to ensure a level playing field:
- Competitive fairness: the distortion of competition by State-owned competitors should be addressed, by stopping (illegal) State aid.
- Reciprocity in facility access: There must be reciprocity in access to essential facilities in Europe such as shunting yards to create a level playing field for competition.
- Balanced support for road and rail: Lineas recommends reducing support for road transport and reallocating it to rail infrastructure and safety projects, such as ERTMS.
- Infrastructure investment: The implementation of Infrabel’s multi-year investment plan and the optimization of capacity allocation between passenger and freight trains are essential to improve the use of rail infrastructure.
- Multimodal transport promotion: Creating incentives for road transport companies to adopt multimodal solutions, this will improve the integration and efficiency of all modes of transport.
This memorandum emphasizes the need for a collaborative effort by Federal and Regional Governments to strengthen the role of rail freight within a sustainable industrial development and a competitive transport market.
Read the essentials of the memorandum here.