Completing the European Rail Network for Competitive Freight: Three more EU Rail Freight Corridors up and running

Completing the European Rail Network for Competitive Freight: Three more EU Rail Freight Corridors up and running

Today three EU Rail Freight Corridors (RFCs) – the Scandinavian-Mediterranean RFC, the Baltic-Adriatic RFC and the North Sea-Baltic RFC – have become operational, marking the completion of the European Rail Network for Competitive Freight totalling nine corridors. Six other RFCs have become operational already in November 2013.

European Commissioner for Transport Violeta Bulc commented: "I would like to congratulate all Member States, rail infrastructure managers and stakeholders who have been involved in the establishment of these three Rail Freight Corridors. It is an achievement which strengthens the competitiveness of rail on the European freight transport market. The Rail Freight Corridors will now enter into a new phase, which requires ambitious developments in terms of quality of service, capacity and standards. Rules and procedures must be harmonised and the corridors must develop as a network, focused on market and customer needs."

The RFCs form the rail freight backbone of the multimodal Core Network Corridor of the EU. They are a key initiative of the Commission to achieve a truly Single European Rail Area for rail freight; the Commission is providing co-funding for their activities through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). The RFCs foster co-operation across borders both at the level of Member States and rail infrastructure managers and strengthen the involvement of users in the development of the European rail freight system, most importantly through Advisory Groups for Railway Undertakings and Terminals. The RFC concept aims at providing capacity of good quality for international freight trains by co-ordinating capacity planning, traffic and infrastructure management and setting up Corridor One-Stop-Shops as single contact points for the customers.