The Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda will invest 8,000 million euros to double the share of rail freight transport to 10% by 2030, compared to the current 5%, as approved by the Council of Ministers of this Tuesday.
The current European average stands at 16%, so the Mercancías 30 plan will try to put an end to this anomaly, which adds to the problems that are already occurring in road transport due to the lack of truckers.
The plan provides for actions in road infrastructure, terminals and improvements in capacity management, digitization and an aid program for companies to improve the competitiveness and complementarity of this sector with other modes of transport.
The Ministry argues that the railway is almost five times more efficient than the road and its direct emissions are 12 times lower in non-urban areas, so it stands as a “fundamental lever” to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the efficiency of land transport, carried out mainly by road, which represents almost 95% of these emissions.
The planned investments in the short and medium term are financed in part from the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan and in another part from the General State Budget.
Specifically, the ministry will allocate some 1,500 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism to boost the efficiency of the freight transport and distribution system by promoting intermodality and the modernization and improvement of distribution nodes, with special emphasis on the rail system.
The program includes more than 300 million euros in aid to companies in the railway field for actions such as the implementation of the ERTMS standard in railway vehicles, the purchase and renovation of wagons or locomotives with environmental criteria, the adaptation or improvement of cargo terminals and their connections to the rail network or digitization.
