International Railway Journal - January 2008 - (Page 21) to 392 billion tonne-km in 2005. But during this period, rail’s share of European inland freight dipped from 20.7% to 17.4% while road’s share increased from 72.3% to 76.8%. This trend has been particularly pronounced in CEE states. In Poland for instance, domestic road haulage by Polish-registered vehicles soared from 51.2 billion tonne-km in 1995 to 111.8 billion tonne-km in 2005. The country’s motorway network also doubled in size during this period. Railfreight volume meanwhile fell from 68.2 billion tonne-km to 50 billion tonnekm, although the fall has now stabilised. In Hungary, rail achieved a modest increase in tonnage in 1995-2005, but road freight volumes almost doubled. Speakers at Terrapinn’s CEE Rail conference in Budapest last October were unanimous in their view that governments must take urgent action to arrest the decline in railfreight’s market share. Almost without exception, they compared their contribution to infrastructure costs with those of road hauliers. MÁV Cargo CEO Mr Tamás Kozák said that his company paid ƒ70 million in access fees in 2003, but it is now paying around ƒ150 million per year, even though volumes have increased by less than 9 million tonnes. Mr Ákos Érsek, strategic director of the Hungarian railway association Hungrail, supported Kozák by calling for a 20-30% reduction in access fees. “Hungary has the sixth highest track access charges in the EU and it’s damaging the competitive ability of rail,” he said. “The government had pledged to introduce road tolls, but this has already been put back several times and may not happen until 2011. We cannot wait that long for fair competition between road and rail.” Obstacle In the case of Slovakian Railways’ freight arm ZSSK Cargo, infrastructure fees account for 33% of its overall costs, or around ƒ150 million per year. “This is the biggest obstacle to the development of railfreight in Slovakia,” said CEO Mr Matej Augustin. He pointed out that infrastructure fees for freight in Slovakia are among the highest in Europe at around ƒ9/km for a 1400-tonne train more than double the rates charged in neighbouring Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic. Augustin also argues that the government is still using freight revenues to pay for passenger services through inflated access charges. “This is having a very positive effect for the government because they do not have to subsidise passenger services. They just use our money to pay for them.” With 269.4 million tonnes of freight transported in 2005, Poland has the second largest railfreight market in the European Union (EU) and also one of the most open, with more than 60 operators vying for business. Polish State Railways (PKP) freight subsidiary PKP Cargo is the second largest railfreight operator in Europe, carrying 149 million tonnes of freight in 2006. PKP used the 677km east-west route across Poland from Rzepin on the German border to the Lithuanian border crossing near Suwalki as a graphic illustration of how infrastructure charges in Poland are stifling competition with road. The vignette tax for a TIR lorry in Poland is ƒ7 per day, while the access charge for an 1100-tonne intermodal train on this route is ƒ890. Assuming the train is carrying the load of 25 TIR lorries, the infrastructure charge for rail is equivalent to ƒ36 per lorry, making rail seven times more expensive by access fees alone. Of course, a simple comparison of these costs doesn’t tell the whole story because road hauliers are subject to a different taxation regime from rail operators. National taxes on lorries were equivalent to around ƒ1.40 per trip in 2005, while tolls and user charges made on a distance/weight basis were around ƒ12.40 per trip. Even after adding fuel excise duty (which also applies to rail operators), this is still a long way short of the charge made to the rail operator. Despite a price reduction of 11% last year by infrastructure manager PKP PLK, operators still pay most of the network’s costs. According to PKP, track access fees cover 91% of the total costs of Poland’s rail infrastructure more than any other EU country except Lithuania and Latvia. This reflects a clear east-west divide between the proportion of infrastructure costs covered by access fees in the CEE countries and the rest of the EU. Of the 10 CEE states that joined the EU in 2004, only Slovenia covers less than half of its infrastructure costs from access charges. Conversely, of the original 15 EU members, only France, Germany and Denmark cover more than half their infrastructure costs through access charges. The charging regime in Sweden was cited by a number of speakers at CEE Rail as the model other governments should adopt, with fees set at corresponding levels for road and rail. Here access fees cover around 5% of infrastructure costs and are intended to cover only the incurred marginal costs of the infrastructure manager. However, this requires a sustained commitment from the public purse that would require immense political will and stability to maintain. While infrastructure charges are far from the only issue restricting railfreight’s ability to recover modal share in the CEE countries, many operators remain adamant that the current level of charging is unsustainable and a barrier to the future success of the industry. The ability to tackle the issue as part of a broader transport strategy is hampered by the rapid political cycle in many CEE countries, with governments often lasting no longer than a single term. But as these cycles lengthen, and concerns about climate change advance up the political agenda, there is a glimmer of hope that the imbalance between road and rail infrastructure fees may at last be addressed. IRJ 21
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.