White paper is short of short ambition

The long-awaited Roadmap 2050 has, despite the Commission’s ambitions to both increase mobility and reduce emissions, let down a large part of the inland port sector in its assumption that “freight shipments over short and medium distances (below 300 km) will to a considerable extent remain on trucks”.

“This statement” says Ms Ryckbost, “even ignores the current reality.”

She points to the modal split in the smaller EU Member States and, she says, you don’t have to look far to see the fast developing links between the big seaports and the inland ports. “It is thus clear that other factors are far more decisive for choosing other transport modes: type of product, volumes, infrastructure and transhipment facilities available, to name some.”

However, she adds that there are many other interesting ideas in the paper and says it wouldn’t be fair to reduce the issues to the one of the 300 km threshold.