Almost 80 per cent of all goods are transported by truck in the EU. In order to meet the Paris climate targets, the EU wants to increase the share of rail freight transport from the current 17 per cent to 30 per cent in 2030. Although this target has already been met in Austria, the share of rail freight was higher in the past: in 2006, it was around 35 per cent.
In the context of the Ö1 programme ‘Dimensionen’, experts outline how it can be possible to make freight transport more environmentally and climate friendly, especially over long distances. For example, the Austrian rail network still has free capacity, which could even be expanded through increasing automation. Jürgen Zajicek, logistics expert at the AIT Center for Mobility Systems: ‘From 300 kilometres upwards, everything should actually be transported by rail or ship.’