Freightliner is continuing to push for government support to hit rail freight targets.
In December 2023, the government announced the UK’s first ever rail freight growth target, with ambitions to grow volumes moved by rail by at last 75% by 2050.
Continued private sector investment from freight operators and their customers will be vital to achieve the growth target. Freightliner is calling on the government to introduce three policies to support this investment and stimulate rail freight growth:
Tim Shoveller, CEO at Freightliner Group, said: “It is a positive commitment that the Government have set the first ever target for rail freight, but this now needs to be supported by positive policies that will enable modal shift.
“Policies that address the cost gap between road and rail and ensure sufficient capacity for freight services to run on the network are necessary to provide confidence to the private sector to continue to make the significant investment within the rail freight industry that will deliver the growth.”
Freightliner even has ambitions to surpass the government’s targets, and has looked to Europe for ideas to drive rail freight. In Germany, for example, electricity rates have been capped for rail freight, which enables electric freight trains to run economically and competitively.
Louise Ward, Safety and Sustainability Director at Freightliner added: “Freightliner wants to further extend rail’s environmental credentials and increase the amount of electric freight services that we run.
“We are calling on the government to commit to fill in some of these small gaps on the network that currently prevent us from increasing our use of electric freight trains and support the industry in using alternative fuels for the parts of the network that are not electrified.”
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