Eelco den Boer, Huib van Essen, Femke Brouwer, Enrico Pastori (TRT),  Alessandra Moizo (TRT)
CE Delft, March 2011

This study covers both freight and passenger transport and focuses on medium- to long-distance transport. It includes an assessment of existing studies on overall modal shift potential, an assessment and extrapolation of illustrative case studies and an analysis of existing and future infrastructure capacity. 

The assessment of existing studies affirms that rail freight transport has a significant potential. Studies show that the maximum potential share of rail freight transport in the relevant market is in the range of 31-36%, compared with 18% today. This would imply that rail becomes the dominant transport mode for long-distance transport. While other studies have reported more limited effects, these have generally only considered isolated (policy) measures. To assess the extent to which the maximum potential can be indeed instrumented by government policy and supply-side measures would require investigation beyond the scope of the present study, however.

Also in passenger transport, rail may have a significant potential for growth. However, the potential growth of rail passenger transport is less well documented in the literature. One study estimates that in 2030 rail passenger traffic could have more than doubled compared with the baseline scenario for that year. This significant growth is calculated under the assumption that rail transport further improves its competitiveness with private car transport in terms of speed and costs on links where private car transport is currently more competitive. This requires improved rail supply factors and instrumented political support. For this scenario, too, further research is needed to define the required policies and increased services supply by the rail sector for achieving the potential.

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