C. The project of GCP within the framework of the corridors
of freight
The treatment of a railway route at priority freight constitutes
for the harbor community havraise only one answer partial to the question of
the improvement of the railway service road of the port. Measurements of
liberalization of the rail-bound transport are another point on which Le Havre
must carry its interest to develop its hinterland.
In July 1996, the White Paper of NR. Kinnock «a strategy to
revitalize the Community railroads » the need underlines for
introducing into the railway environment of the mechanisms of market and for
benefitting from the opening of the intracommunity borders. This document,
putting forward block speeds of trains often lower than 20 km/h taking into
account the technical stops in borders, suggests the creation of
« freeways » whose double objective aims, on the one hand,
to ensure the freedom of access to all the railway operators, and on the other
hand, to facilitate and simplify the use of the railway infrastructure, in
particular for the transport of transborder freight. The liberalization of
railway Europe, pursuant to the European Directive 91/440, envisages, in
addition to the free access to the national networks for any operator
established in the European Union and the separation of the owner of with the
management of the infrastructure, the installation of structures of
co-operation between the networks to simplify the exploitation of the transport
of transborder freight. This last objective gave place to the definition of
railway routes dedicated to the routing of freight, initially called
« freeways » then TERFF (Trans European Rail Freight
Freeways), corridors reserved for circulations of freight, opened with the
competition and controlled by a supranational authority. The TERFF must show
according to the respect of the European legislation (Directives 91/440 and
95/18-19) some characteristics :
· the access to the corridors must be granted on the basis
of nondiscriminatory criterion with all the operators
· the corridors must be opened with the coastal traffic and
the international traffic
· the terminals of freight must be opened with all the
railway operators
· the schedules of the furrows must be coordinated between
participating countries to give a better fluidity to the crossing of
frontiers
· the marketing of the use and management of the traffic of
the freeways must be operated by the means of a single counter called
« one stop shop » which will ensure the commercial
exploitation and in particular the reservation of the transport capacities for
each customer according to the availabilities
The single counter is the commercial structure representing all
the managers of infrastructure concerned with the corridor transeuropéen
created, charged granting the rights of access, tracing the circulation of the
trains and with perceiving the royalties of use for the loan of the corridor.
It is the single interlocutor for the customer in charge of coordination
between the various national managers of infrastructure.
Tariffing is carried out by the addition of the national
royalties. Tariff grids are thus installation. But of many differences in tolls
between Member States cause difficulties again because some feel, like France,
injured.
The owners of the national railroads will perceive only tolls.
The impact on the prices of transport could reach nearly 25% of
reduction. The new European agreement should reduce times of course of 20% and
generate at the same time an additional traffic from two to three million tons
per annum.
In the spirit of the European Commission, the freeways are only
short-term solutions to reverse the current situation and to mark points in the
battle against the road, while waiting for the final installation of
liberalization.
The installation of the railway first freeways was officially
announced in 1997 by the European Commission. Three layouts all, directed
North-South were defined. They leave respectively Rotterdam and
Hamburg/Bremerhaven to join according to the case, Italy or the Central Europe
of which Sopron worms in Hungary. Their installation will be done on the basis
of cooperation agreement between the companies managers. The networks are
connected between them and thus exchange traffics : these systems then
suppose a standardization technical (spacing of the ways, gauge of the vehicle,
system of attachment and braking), operational (composition of the layouts and
circulation of the material), commercial, tariff, legal and data-processing...
to take a step ahead towards the interworking of the circulation of the trains.
The times of routing could be reduced thanks to the technical improvement of
the possibilities of international transit in Europe and will make the railroad
more competitive. The block speed of the corridors could currently rise from 50
to 70 km/h instead of 16 km/h, thanks to reductions of waiting at the borders
(change of machine of traction and operating staff) going up to 80%.
Essential resource of the rail-bound transport, traction
revêt a acuter importance still in the implementation of the corridors of
freight. Prerogative of the railway companies- within the meaning of the
European Directive, traction requires an adaptation to the differences of
currents, indications existing in Europe result in imagining for these axes of
the machines poly running, only passes everywhere vis-a-vis the technical
borders of the networks which lengthen the times of routing and lower the level
of competitiveness. As 36000 Aristide who could go, by considering the only
collecting of the current, of Belgium in Italy via France.
Other routes are also envisaged and in particular a corridor
between the United Kingdom and Hungary.
One can notice that the first applications of the freeways are
with the service of the large European ports being given the stake which they
represent for the European economy that they feed by the terrestrial
distribution of the goods. In the current context, the massification of flows
of the ports towards their back-countries are thus a obene for the rail-bound
transport.
In addition, the installation of the European first freeways
causes the reserves even the reserves of the French actors, who they are the
political powers or of the operators because the first corridors defined by
Brussels are firstly directed North-South, thus serving the deepening of the
Hanseatic back-countries and scaldéens and avoid France remarkably.
Because the projects supported by the European Commission circumvent the
reticent countries with a greater liberalization. Thus, Belgium France and
Spain miss projects of Brussels. However, France, because of importance of its
flows of transit, cannot remain with the variation and thus see traffics
escaping to him. The French ports want them to also remain in the race of the
European ports and thus made pressure on the French government and the SNCF in
order to set up corridors of freight on the French territory. It results from
it that the SNCF proposed its own vision of the corridors of freight and
launched its project of « freightway ». This term was
selected to show that this concept differs from that of the European
Commission. France and its neighbors insist more particularly on the concept of
co-operation between the railway networks and national companies offering the
same quality of service as the European corridors, with costs quite as
competitive. Only the railway companies and the international regroupings
authorized by the managers concerned can circulate there. The difference is
also expressed in the design of the single counter : the managers of
infrastructure of each State can keep a control, and remain free to give or not
mandate to the single counter with regard to the technical, administrative and
financial agreements defining the conditions of access to the infrastructure.
The managers of infrastructure preserve a national law (for the national
needs).
Thus a legal and commercial combat between two currents is
announced : one preaching the road of cooperation on a technical treatment
of the routes, the other towards total liberalization and the opening of the
networks, both having all the same jointly the emancipation of the mechanisms
of market of the constraints of crossing of the borders. The French government
and the SNCF do not want liberalization « savage », which
would deprive them of the most profitable traffics.
In reaction to the publication of the first chart of the TERFF
established by Brussels, the SNCF, associated the railroads Luxembourg and
Belgian, announced in 1998 the creation of a railway corridor for freight
between Muizen, rail junction serving Antwerp, and
Lyon/Sibelin/Vénissieux. This corridor should be prolonged towards Italy
and Spain.
One can then include/understand the irritation of the port of Le
Havre when it discovered the chart of the European corridors on the one hand,
the creation of the freightway between Antwerp, competitor serious of Le Havre,
and the heart of the hinterland of the port native of Le Havre on the other
hand.
The French claims in particular relating to the release of a
corridor between Le Havre and Strasbourg and its prolongation until Sopron were
rejected a long time by Brussels because of German opposition. The French
approach of the railway corridor runs up against the very liberal design of
Brussels, supported by German and Dutch, who include the coastal traffic. It
seems however that the copy was re-examined and that the European railway chart
will grow rich in particular by a corridor connecting Le Havre with the east.
Indeed, in order to develop the share of market of the traffic freight between
the United Kingdom, the ports of Le Havre and Dunkirk and the center of Europe,
the dB AG, Eurotunnel, the ÖBB, RoeEE AG, Railtrack, RF and the SNCF are
agreed to create a corridor of freight between the zones of concentration of
the traffics of Glasgow, of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, London, Dunkirk,
Le Havre, Metz, Strasbourg, Frankfurt, Wurzburg, Nuremberg, Passau, Wels, Linz,
Vienna, Sopron.
The master agreement signed in Vienna the 3/3/1999 is the
concretization of the contacts established between these railway companies
which had ended the 3/7/1999 to the signature of a letter of intent for the
installation of a corridor between the west and the center of Europe. The
installation of this corridor is done pursuant to the European regulation, on
the basis of cooperation agreement between the companies managers of
infrastructure. Four international furrows were established and make it
possible to connect Sopron daily, in Mossend close to Glasgow or Le Havre. The
single counter, located in Austria coordinates the processes of planning of the
furrows and their attribution with the railway companies or the international
regroupings respecting the provisions of the directives 91/440, 95/18-19 which
make the request of it. However this corridor is only theoretical and exists
only on one legal level, no service was not marketed for the moment, the first
trains being able to be assured only after the payment many technical problems
which return the course much expensive too.
| 
