C. A new context favourable with the development of the
rail-bound transport
The service road of the Le Havre-native back-countries is
dominated, one saw it, by the road mode which took a dominating place in a
logistic context of flows tended on the short ones and average distances. A
thing is however certain, the option any road appears less and less bearable
economically, socially and ecologically with the industrialists chargers, the
public and the policies. After having channeled, taking into account its
flexibility and of the immediate economic repercussions, the greatest part of
the investments as regards infrastructure, the increase in the road
infrastructures is more possible only in one limited measurement, as well for
reasons of space saturation as for environmental contingencies.
The road transport actually was the symbol of development of the
period of strong economic growth according to war (« Thirty
Glorious ») marked by a change of the industrial modes of
production : the tangible properties (product finished and semi-finished)
took the place of metallurgical heavy industry. The European States largely
centered their plans of regional planning on the use of the road axes to serve
urbanized spaces and to connect between them the great industrial centers. In
France, the Delegation with the Regional planning and the Regional Action
(DATAR) a long time considered and used the road transport like the privileged
tool of the development of the regional territories. The policy of
« any truck driver » was employed a long time. During this
time, the rail-bound transport knew a reduction generalized of its networks
towards the most important axes and most profitable. Today, the road occupies a
situation of monopoly on European transport of goods which was that of the
railroads with 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1995, the road
transported 72% of the freight of the European Union.
Between 1970 and 1995, the market of European transport increased
by 70%. The share of market of the rail-bound transport in Europe on the other
hand passed from 32% to less than 16%. It is the road which profited in
priority from this strong growth. According to the European authorities and if
no measurement were taken to stop the monopolistic situation of the road
transport aiming at rebalancing the modal shares of European transport, the
share of the railway mode would pass from 16 to 9% in the next years whereas
one can expect a growth of the freight of 30%.
After the decline of the railway mode in the modal share of
transport in Europe and the protectionism of the networks of the Member States,
the European Commission made several provisions aiming at developing iron at
the European level, the great potentialities on long distances- field of
predilection of iron, the short ones and average distances being the
prerogative of the road mode.
The governments gave to iron a dominating role in the defense of
national space, these same railway national spaces which caused at the European
level of many dysfunctions which caused the retreat of the rail with respect to
the road. The States undergo budgetary constraints which weigh increasingly
heavy and which, in the long term, will return the situation of the
insupportable railroads. If nothing is done, this situation would emerge with a
massive rationalization of the networks, i.e. that the networks would be
reduced to some large axes. It is necessary, consequently, to set up a drastic
treatment so that the rail reappears. The single solution so that the railroads
reappear is to continue the liberalization started by the European directives.
Because only liberalization can save the rail. The wish of the European
Commission is to manage to make the mode railway as interesting as the other
means of transport, on a European scale. For that, the rail-bound transport
must open with the free competition.
Since January 1, 1993, the borders of the Member States of the
European Union were abolished. Europe entered the single market. From now on
thus, the scale of transport is European, it is not theoretically more
tributary of the borders which blocked a homogeneous economic development
thanks to transport ? The intracommunity international exchanges
consequently, with the opening of the borders, literally exploded : the
experts thus envisage for the next years a growth of European freight of about
30%.
In June 1993, the Twelve members of the EU charged French J.
Delors, the president of the Commission, to reflect on the policies to carry
out in order to leave the economic crisis which Europe at this period
undergoes. Mr. Delors then presents his reflections at the time of the Council
European of Brussels de Décembre 1993 pennies the shape of a White Paper
entitled « Growth, Competitiveness, Employment. Challenges and tracks
to enter the 21e century » which preaches the installation of a
policy of great work of infrastructures in the transport sector taking part in
the economic development of Europe.
According to the orientations of the White Paper, the European
Union supports then, in the framework of the Common Market, the liberalization
of the whole of the means of transport in order to reach a durable and
homogeneous mobility on the European territory, and this, particularly at the
railway level whose national monopolies prevent the opening of the networks and
thus the development of the transnational intra-Community trade by railway way
which however has large potentials. For déréglementer the
rail-bound transport and to propose an alternative to the road and to thus
attenuate European imbalance modal, the European Commission founded the
directive 91/440 which goes in the direction of the liberalization of the
European railroads.
This directive relates to two principal aspects, namely
management of the railway companies and the access to the infrastructure. In
short, the Directive imposes countable separation between the railway company
and the manager of infrastructure. The railway company becomes any operator of
transport and the infrastructure is opened with competition for any operator of
transport which would like to borrow it.
The railway operators, very often national, must be equipped with
a statute of independence with respect to the State, and are constrained,
consequently, to reach obligatory financial balance for the operation of very
undertaken (« deprived »).
In France, the authorities set up the strict application of
Directive 91/440 : they separated the infrastructure from the
exploitation.
Shoed network of France (RF) is created the 13/12/97 to manage
the French rail network. However, this new publicly-owned establishment
remained very related to the SNCF.
If the European Commission imposes on the Member States of such
resolutions in the railway field, it is that the latter A a role to be played
prevalent in transport in Europe and seems an outlet with the enormous
potential in the routing of the goods.
The road transport, principal mode employed in Europe has serious
problems. The road causes initially harmful effects : pollution air, sound
and visual which is less and less tolerated by the company. The European major
roads know then today chronic problems of saturation, the roads on are used and
the often blocked accesses of the great agglomerations, whereas the
potentialities of the other means of transport like the railroad and the water
way under are exploited.
This is why the European Commission founded Directive 91/440 in
order to « to break » the national monopolies which, by
managing and protecting the national interior traffics, blocked the European
railway potential.
Because the rail is gravitational with respect to the road for
massive transport at long distances : it can admit great quantities of
goods without increase proportional in the expenses. The major asset of the
railroad resides indeed in the transport of heavy loads (up to 3000 tons) on
long distances, with a power consumption and a cost of transport (if the
traffic is bulky) moderate.
The cost of transport is an essential criterion in the modal
split of the chargers, the owners of the transported goods. This one breaks up
into two terms : fixed, independent of the distance, and proportional to
the distance covered. The railway mode is characterized by a cost fixes higher
than the road and a kilometric cost lower than that of its competitor. It
results from it that the rail-bound transport is more profitable than the road
on the long distances and, conversely that the road mode is at coulters and
average distances. Iron is thus factor of widening of the market.
It is necessary also that the traffics massive and are balanced,
i.e. that they make it possible to fill several trains, in the two directions
and with a sufficient frequency. The rail links are thus carried out between
important economic zones generating much freight.
Railway mode present in more one energy effectiveness up to three
times higher than that of the road transport which makes it possible to reduce
the costs appreciably, especially on long distances.
Another of the principal assets of the railway mode is thus its
capacity to treat important traffics, on the same axis of transport. The
traffic by complete trains is effective on « segments »
quite precise relating to not very desirable bulky flows on the road. Trains of
1200 or 1500 tons of payload are common. Vis-a-vis the competition of the road
and plane, the revival of the rail passes however by the increase speed and
capacity. New material of circulation and a co-operation between the national
networks making it possible to reduce waitings to the borders is here
necessary.
As for the other means of transport, the transport capacity is
closely related to the fluidity of the traffic (a number of ways, slope, radii
of curvature, mode of traction).
The rail is also adapted to the new tendency of polarization of
the territories and to the concentration of flows on less and less many but
increasingly heavy axes. The double policy of the rail which has as an
orientation the removal of the lines considered to be too not very profitable
and the maintenance, to see the reinforcement of the service road on the large
axes accompanies this evolution.
The rise of the maritime intercontinental exchanges in addition
requires future transport modes allowing the massification of the containerized
routings of freight. This tendency opens new outlets with the rail-bound
transports because the ports are generating of railway freight.
The professionals of the rail-bound transport know it well, today
the shippers think in term of intermodality, of complementarity when they
should imagine the routing of their freight. Transport plays from now on an
important part in world trade, it represents the challenges of the 21e century
in term of post-routing of the once unloaded goods with quay and the place
which the rail can and must take in these surface transports. Because the ports
know that in the future, the characteristics of the rail-bound transport will
be essential to the flow of the flows of goods massifiés coming from the
super door containers.
The research of a productivity increased for this large equipment
leads their promoters then to integrate from the start the railway tool
necessary to their strategy of massification of pre and terrestrial
post-routings of limp.
But on this market, competition became and will remain wild
between the various involved modes and the requirements of the chargers and
ship-owners exert all on the level of the cost that to that of the quality of
service. In this field, the road remains very competitive.
In addition to the fact that the rail-bound transport can be
under certain conditions more competitive than the road and to be substitutable
with this one, the rail can also be the complement of the road mode : the
increase in the frequentation of the railway highways with large volumes can
reduce the congestion of the road highways and thus optimize for this last
quality this service by reducing the transit time and the costs of transport.
The two means of transport can also function in synergy : by adding the
advantages with the one and other, one can have offering means of transport of
the services more interesting and competitive for the chargers. Transport
combined rail/road is thus dedicated to a promising future, framed moreover by
the European Commission.
The influence on the ground, very important at the cost of the
infrastructure as well as visual pollution remains more modest for iron for
transported masses potentially more important than the road mode. The impact on
the consumption of space is thus less strong than the road, the influence on
the ground is approximately six hectares per railway km of line against ten
hectares per km of highway.
On the level of the air and sound pollution, iron is there too
gravitational. The control of pollution became a major concern for the European
countries and the companies, low fuel consumption power of iron, its weak
influence on the ground, the reduction of the sound harmful effects and the
rejections of pollutants and its great safety make that the carriage of goods
per railway way becomes impossible to circumvent.
In short, the rail adapts to the new conditions of the carriage
of goods vis-a-vis the road by :
· increase in the power of traction of engines for the
routing of weighty products or not
· the use of specialized coaches and great capacity
· commercial flexibility
· concentration of the heavy traffic on specific routes,
preferably on the lines with weak passenger traffic
· the organization of trains with homogeneous load (only
one product) and of trains blocks (non-stop trains of the station of formation
at the station of destination)
· the organization of express trains and direct of various
products
· the use of a suitable material for combined transport
The rail-bound transport is likely all to play one of the key
roles for the process of European integration. With the increase envisaged in
the carriage of goods in Europe pushed by the massification of the maritime
transport, the effectiveness of the rail-bound transport will lie in the
optimization of the speed and of its transport capacities within a broader
geographical framework, on the continental scale and an alternative effective
and more powerful than the road mode could be thus proposed.
The European authorities consider with the introduction of the
European directives the solution of the rail a such element of integration to
strong capacity. European economic integration lengthens the distances from the
exchanges : under these conditions, iron finds decisive advantages on the
other means of transport. This is capital, provided that integration, the
opening of the national networks is concretized shortly and that the
infrastructures are improved.
To involve this Community integration, the harbor communities
which misent on a rail-bound transport « liberal »
stimulate the implementation of services by shuttles on the principal centers
of production and consumption of a hinterland which they embrace on a European
scale. An interministerial decree of the 15/03/99 thus authorized in France the
Port authority of Le Havre to take a participation in the capital of the
company promotionnant the circulation of trains blocks per direct connection
called Le Havre Shuttles (LHS).
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