Rail can be the lowest-carbon transport option, but costs and convenience mean it is rarely the first choice
OPERATOR PLANS
Rail operators across Europe are looking at ways to decarbonise all aspects of their operations beyond power purchase agreements
SIMPLIFYING STANDARDS
Easing cross-border rail travel for freight and passengers could promote decarbonisation Europe’s transport sector
KEY QUOTE
To succeed, we don’t need endless new infrastructure, but instead to make better use of what we currently have
As emissions and energy use from transport in Europe continue to rise, renewed attention is being paid to rail transport and the role it can play in the future of European mobility. Transport in Europe, in stark contrast to most other sectors, is lagging on emissions reductions. In fact, the sector’s emissions rose by a third from 1990 to 2019 and now account for 21% of all emissions so there is increasing pressure to turn this around. Rail might provide part of the solution. In both freight and passenger contexts, it has the lowest energy demand and carbon emissions per passenger-kilometre. At just 33 grams of CO2-equivalent per passenger-kilometre travelled, rail on average emits just a fifth that of the average flight or car. In freight, the picture for rail in comparison to other modes looks even better, emitting five times less than heavy goods vehicles (HGV) and 98% less than air cargo, according to data by the European Environment Agency. These favourable numbers for rail are despite the fact that only half of Europe’s rail network (56%) is electrified today, with much still relying on diesel. As this proportion has grown and efficiency gains were made through system upgrades, rail has been the only transport mode to reduce emissions and energy use in the past decade. DIFFERING SUPPLY The power mix of a country is also an important factor to consider and rail operators have a vital role to play. “Simply electrifying will not be enough to make rail a true low-carbon option, as the current power mix in most European countries is not green enough,” says Lena Donat, from think tank GermanWatch. “[Germany’s rail operator] Deutsche Bahn for instance still has a contract to purchase coal-generated power, which was 18% of its supply in 2020. Operators must make a bigger effort to use only renewables, not only through power purchase agreements but also building their own renewable capacity and providing additionality to the system,” Donat adds. 
Step by step Germany’s Deutsche Bahn wants to supply all of its 10 terawatt-hours (TWh) of demand for power from renewables by 2038
Dutch operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen, an early adopter, has claimed that their trains have run on 100% renewable power since 2017, which they back up through Guarantees of Origin (GOs) certificates sourced mostly from outside the country. However, not all operators agree that the GO approach is the best way forward. A senior vice president for energy at Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français (SNCF), France’s state-owned rail operator senior vice president for energy describing it in a media interview as a “bullshit market”, shunning GOs as a ploy that does not provide any additional renewable capacity. Deutsche Bahn is taking a more gradual approach with a target to supply all of its 10 terawatt-hours (TWh) of demand for power from renewables by 2038, from 61% today. To reach this goal, the German operator is replacing contracts for fossil power with renewables through power purchase agreements (PPAs), a strategy being widely used by operators across the continent to meet their climate targets. However, in Germany as elsewhere, domestic supply of PPAs is proving insufficient, with the operator having recently completed a first cross-border PPA for Norwegian hydropower via the NordLink interconnector. While many claims about being “100% renewable” exist amongst Europe’s rail operators, many only refer to the power used by the trains themselves and therefore only covers a fraction of the energy the companies use to heat, light and power thousands of train stations, offices, service vehicles and rail infrastructure. To help resolve this issue, and not have to rely on the limited PPA market, Infrabel, a Belgian rail operator, has jointly developed a 50 megawatt (MW) wind project situated on their land.
MISSED GOALS Lawmakers across Europe recognise there is a need to decarbonise the transport system. The European Green Deal calls for transport emissions to fall 90% by 2050 to realise a carbon-neutral economy. A central pillar of the European Commission’s strategy for the future mobility system will be to leverage rail’s low-carbon credentials with a goal to triple high-speed rail traffic and double rail freight by mid-century. Whilst the detailed numbers behind these targets are lacking, it equates to approximately 375 billion passenger kilometres and 800 billion freight tonne-kilometres by 2050. Analysis by the New Climate Institute, a German research group, says a shift from road to rail use will reduce energy use in Europe’s transport sector by as much as 63% between now and 2040, to roughly 1,500 TWh per year. Additionally, this shift will place additional pressure on deploying new low-carbon technology across the road and aviation sectors, making it a critical lever in decarbonising the rest of the transport sector in the coming decades. For decades the EU has had grand visions of passenger and freight transport shifting to rail. “However, the EU has made no progress, with rail share remaining static and emissions from transport continuing to increase,” says Donat from GermanWatch. The EU’s own numbers show rail’s share of land-based transport remaining static over the past decade, carrying approximately 8% of passengers and 18% of freight. “To succeed we don’t need endless new infrastructure, but instead to make better use of what we currently have, targeting improvements at signalling, electrification and a few bottlenecks in the system,” Donat adds.
COMPETITION ON THE TRACKS Historically, rail has been dominated by state-owned incumbent operators, providing service levels that were insufficient to grow passenger numbers. “If you look at how few lines in Europe have real competition, it becomes clear why the development of rail has been so poor. It is only with competition are you successful, otherwise the state incumbents lean back and provide poor service,” says Erich Forster at the Alliance of Rail New Entrants in Europe (ALLRAIL). “Wherever you have real competition on the track, you see that the fares come down and an increase in passenger numbers of at least 50% within five years.” Forster continues. In Sweden and Italy for example, where private operators have been allowed to operate more freely alongside state incumbents in the past ten years, passenger numbers have gone up by 44% and 60% respectively. 
PAINKILLERS OR REMEDIES One of the most troublesome aspects in need of repair is increasing and improving cross-border and long-distance connections that can provide a real and attractive alternative to taking a car or plane. Today, cross-border train travel is a minefield for both passengers and operators to navigate. Booking a train from Madrid to Lisbon, or Paris to Copenhagen, requires a myriad of connections with different tickets from several operators. It can also cost three or four times the price of an equivalent ticket to fly, not to mention longer journey times, especially on routes over 500 kilometres. Operators meanwhile are contending with various safety, signalling and power systems, different width railway gauges, diverse archaic national regulations and prohibitively high charges to use the tracks—complexity that increases passenger ticket prices. “We can’t just take painkillers, we need to remedy the problems through long-term solutions,” says Carl Adam Holmberg, from Swedish operator Snälltåget, which recently relaunched a new night train service connecting Scandinavia with Hamburg and Berlin. “It’s a matter of standardisation, from signalling systems to certification of rolling stock, which will give us the confidence to expand our services.” Standardisation and mandatory data-sharing would also help to fix the current ticketing nightmare, learning lessons from the aviation sector to create well-coordinated search and purchasing options. “It’s possible to handle such procedures in a more pragmatic way,” says Holmberg. “But we see some operators blocking the development by saying ‘that’s how we have always done it’. That’s one reason why international long-distance trains are struggling to take off because the industry hasn’t found long-term solutions to these very practical questions,” he adds. Recent policy decisions indicate a possible light at the end of the tunnel for rail, with Austrian Airlines’ Covid-19-recovery funding contingent on the cancelling of some domestic flights. Meanwhile, France introduced a ban on domestic flights where the destination can be reached within 2.5 hours by train. But similar measures across the rest of Europe are lacking. Legislators could go further to level the playing field by removing the VAT exemption on jet fuel and bring down track access charges. “Forcing people to change isn’t enough, you have to provide more services and punctual services at a perfect quality and reasonable price level, then it’s not a pain for people to make that shift to trains,” says Forster. It is only in this way that consumer trust can be instilled and get more people onto the trains. “People should be really satisfied taking the train. Now it is the job of the railways to deliver that,” he adds. •
TEXT Nic Craig