Evaluation of EU Regulation on Rail Freight Corridors

Evaluation of Regulation (EU) No 913/2010 concerning a European rail network for competitive freight

The evaluation support study covered all the provisions of the Regulation, all the European countries participating in a Rail Freight Corridor (RFC) and addressed the period from the establishment of the RFCs until 2020.

The key overall challenge addressed by the Regulation is the need to improve the competitiveness of rail freight compared to other transport modes. The starting point of the Regulation is that the quality of the rail freight capacity provided by the infrastructure managers to the operators of international rail freight services needs to improve in order to make it happens.

The study identified the impact of the Regulation by comparing the actual developments in the rail freight sector, i.e. with the Regulation in place, with respect to a baseline situation describing the likely developments that would have occurred without this policy intervention.

The study also took into account the activities related to the RFCs going beyond the provisions of the Regulation, addressing for instance technical and operational interoperability along the RFCs. Furthermore, the study covered the activities of the rail sector undertaken in the period of analysis and contributing to the objectives of the Regulation.

Practically, the study examined the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, coherence and EU added value of the Regulation. The analysis was based on data collected from a range of primary and secondary sources and direct input from concerned stakeholders, collected using interviews and surveys with national authorities, the rail industry and the Commission’s open public consultation.

The study has found that the Regulation has been implemented as far as the designation, the governance and the investment and management of the RFCs are concerned. The concerned stakeholders have fulfilled the provisions of the Regulation in a formal sense and within their actual scope. Viewed on its own, however, the Regulation has had a relatively limited impact in achieving the general, specific and operational objectives and has not led to a broad adoption of the tools, which have produced the intended effects only to a limited extent.

TRT acted as leader of the study team built in partnership with M-Five (DE), MC-Vienna (AT) and TEPR (UK). TRT was responsible for (i) the design of the evaluation, (ii) the definition of an evaluation baseline, (iii) the analysis of the stakeholders consultation, (iv) the analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the Regulation and (v) the estimation of costs and benefits from the implementation.

For more information

• Evaluation of EU regulation on TEN-T rail freight corridors, the study carried out by TRT. Go to the publication