01.09.06
Wake up by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee to Government on emissions welcomed by the rail freight industry
The Rail Freight Group (RFG) has been campaigning for several years for the Government to recognise the environmental benefits of rail freight. The Department for Transport’s own report on ‘Rail Contribution to the Energy Review’ shows that rail freight produces eight times less carbon dioxide per tonne.km than road freight.
RFG agrees with the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee that the failure of transport to reach even the lower end of the Government’s 2000 projections for carbon saving ‘betrays a dismal failure of purpose from the Department for Transport’.
It notes that the DfT’s priorities include reducing the amount of fossil carbon in transport fuels and making vehicles more fuel efficient, which can clearly bring advantages, but fall remarkably short of the eight times saving that transferring more freight from road to rail can achieved by creating and implementing the right policies in which rail freight will prosper.
Such policies include reducing track access charges to a level that not only is affordable in competition with road freight but reflects the marginal costs of an efficient rail infrastructure manager, creating the more capacity to meet the growing demand for freight alongside passenger demand, and developing capability such as gauge enhancement, longer trains, heavier axle loads etc.
RFG Chairman Tony Berkeley asked, “why then has the Government increased the costs of diesel fuel for rail freight by 50% whilst abolishing the fuel duty escalator for road freight?”
Mr. Berkeley concluded “by far the best way of reducing carbon emissions in the surface transport sector is to proactively encourage the transfer of freight from road to rail. It will cost the Government much less than projects such as widening the M6 and building hundreds of miles of roads and will, at the same time, contribute to the Department for Transport’s efforts to achieving its carbon reduction targets.”
Tell us what you think – have your say below, or email us directly at [email protected]