New Feeder Line Rail Freight Paradigm for the European Railways

Stane Božičnik

Abstract

The article deals with the development of the new paradigmof the European rail freight system predominantly suitable forthe feeder lines (market niches). Taking into consideration theso far adopted legal solutions of the EU Commission for internationalisation(liberalisation) of the European railway system,the concept of the new rail freight model was developed inorder to contribute to the increase of the quality, as well as to thegrowth of the volume of the rail freight services in Europe.Based on the findings about the disadvantages of the existingrail freight paradigm, the new solution consisting of the threeinterrelated and interconnected subsystems: institutional, technical/technological and organisational, is proposed. New liberalisedaccess to the entire European rail infrastructure networkwill increase the competition and most probably attractnew railway freight service providers. The introduction of thesuggested innovative solutions in form of small, self-propelled,bi-directional train formation that can be automatically coupledand decoupled and equipped with the innovative loadingand unloading equipment (enabling loading/unloading operationswherever the truck can stay parallel to the train), is to beexpected predominantly on the feeder lines (market niches) ofthe European railways.