Increasing the modal share of rail in line with EU 2011 Transport White Paper targets would result in an estimated reduction of 238 Mtpa of CO2E, equivalent to 19% of EU27 transport emissions in 2010.

That is one striking figure in the new booklet – Rail Transport and Environment – on rail and environment released today by the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies (CER) and the International Union of Railways (UIC).

2015 is a big year for climate change policy, for which transport still presents a major challenge. The new booklet, jointly published by CER and UIC, aims to support decision makers with comprehensive data on the environmental impact of the different transport modes. It demonstrates that rail is an enabling factor for sustainable mobility because:

• travelling by rail is on average 3-10 times less CO2 intensive compared with road or air transport
• rail’s share of transport energy consumption is less than 2% despite a market share of over 8.5%
• land use per passenger-km for rail is about 3.5 times lower than for cars
• rail’s average external costs are more than four times less than road’s for passenger services, and more than six times less for freight services.

In order to drive continued improvement of rail’s environmental footprint, CER and UIC’s European members have agreed targets until 2030 and a vision for sustainable mobility until 2050. These targets, adopted in 2010, have now been updated with increased ambition for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and are presented in the booklet.

The booklet can be downloaded from:

http://www.uic.org/IMG/pdf/facts_and_figures_2014_v1.0-2.pdf

CER Executive Director Libor Lochman said: “Rail contributes to reducing the transport users’ environmental burden on society with its exceptionally low total external costs. However, very limited progress has been made at EU level in addressing internalisation of external costs across all transport modes.

"CER looks forward to the Road Package for measures towards full and mandatory internalisation of external costs for road as for rail transport as advocated by the 2011 Transport White Paper.”

UIC Director-General Jean-Pierre Loubinoux commented: “This booklet contains data and analysis of the European rail sector’s performance. It charts the primary role that rail has in sustainable development and clearly illustrates the unrivalled efficiency of the European rail system."