Green house gas emissions of freight transport : How could France reach its commitments for 2012?

Posted on January 27, 2009 by Matthieu Desiderio

In 2007, the French government organized a big event related to sustainable development issues, called Grenelle de l’environnement. All the working sessions were held as think-tanks. In this regard, companies, environmental associations, professional federations and various ministry departments participated to the distinct sessions. The aim consisted in defining objectives for the whole range of the sustainable development related issues and to discuss the possible ways to reach these objectives.

In France (in comparison with other countries where electricity production does not entirely depend on nuclear sector), the transport sector is the most important CO₂ producer in France with 34% of total emissions. Therefore, the Grenelle de l’environnement concerns mostly focused on addressing transport sector CO₂ emissions issues.

Objectives for the freight transportation sector…

In particular, the freight transportation represents the third of total transport emissions with 35.4 millions of CO₂tons in 2006; road transport being responsible for 34.6 millions of CO₂ tons. Conclusions of the workshop in charge of freight issues therefore concentrated on how transferring goods from road to other modes. In the end, very ambitious objectives were defined:

modal share of non-road transport : a 25% growth;
a 25% growth of the rail market share;
improve environmental performances on the road transport
prepare the future by developing R&D

This objectives have been translated into modal shift scenarios for 2012 as you will find in the following table:

Table : Objectives for the freight transportation sector, Source : French Transportation Department (2008)

Transport mode	Technical solution	2006	2012	Growth
Transport mode	Technical solution	Gtkm	Gtkm	%
Rail	Rolling highway	0.03	3.8	–
	Combined (intermodal)	9	18	100%
	Full load train	18.2	22.9	26%
	Wagon	13.8	13.8	0%
	Total rail	41.03	58.5	43%
Inland waterways	Combined (intermodal)	0.57	1.7	198%
	Bulk	7.38	6.7	18%
	Total Waterways	7.95	10.4	31%
Total		48.98	68.9	–
Non-road traffic modal share		13.6%	17.6%	29.4%

More recently, another workshop was held in 2008 to identify the solutions that would enable France to reach these objectives. Different options were considered. The following points are only the main ones.

Combined transportation…

First, it might relevant to reinforce the structure of financial supports for combined transport, specifically for rail transport. Basically, the current support forr operations (€12 for the handling) will be maintained and additional aids will be provided for new services. On the whole, this measure will require 200 M€ between 2008 and 2012, which is an about twice higher amount than the one over the 2003-2007 period (€103 millions).

Rolling highways…

Also, the workshop insisted on the need to develop the rolling highway concept for corridors where there is a lot of road traffic and for crossing of mountains bed. Technically speaking, it led to:

- prepare the request for proposal of the definitive service for the Autoroute Ferroviaire Alpine (rolling highway between Aiton (France) and Orbassano (Italy) across the Alps / more information here). The service should start in few years near Lyon in the Rhône-Alpes region.

- clarify trucks sizes and dimensions: the service between Perpignan (South of France) and Bettembourg (Luxembourg) suffer since the beginning in march 2007 from a size problem. It seems that some trailers are not compatible with the GB1 gauge, which deprives the service of a whole range of market segments. The workshop strongly recommended to remove this technical barrier as soon as possible.

- start off a new service: the Atlantic axe, which should link southwest of France to Paris and in the future to North of France.

Rail effectiveness…

Some general measures were proposed to improve the rail effectiveness:

- to extend the train length from 750m to 1000m in a first step and to 1500m in a second one.to accompany the implementation of proximity rail operators, which would be in charge of putting together breakbulk wagons from different shippers on a same geographical area.

- to support the development of express rail freight between the main European town, like the Carex project (more info here) or the Fret GV (postal freight).

- to create a regulation authority for the rail sector in order to make sure that the market is competitive.…

Inland waterways and short see shipping…

For inland waterways, it was decided to:

- realise the Seine-Nord canal (more info here )

- authorise the use of 44 tons trucks for transport to and from waterways ports.

- improve the interaction between maritime and waterways transport: e.g. by constructing the waterways lock in the Le Havre Port.

On the short sea shipping, the workshop announced its support for the different schemes in favour of short sea shipping on the Atlantic coast and in the Mediterranean. A €80 millions plan is expected to finance the range of projects.

Transport expertise analysis

If only looking at the potential of the additional capacity by the transport infrastructures to be created, a 25% rise of the modal share for non road transport is possible. However, the shippers willingness to transfer goods from road to train will be a key factor in making successes of the various projects. If these latter are quite reluctant, in the end of the day, French Government will only have fincanced the creation of brand new infrastructures which will not be used.

Even though the Grenelle de l’Environnement has enabled to make aware (through the media covering) the population and the companies of sustainable development situation, 2012 seems to be a too close deadline to reache the objectives initially set.

The new tax on trucks (TE article on the subject) might influence shippers comportments, nonetheless, the incertitude on petrol prices (it could stay at low level as it could fall down to $40 per barrel) and the low liability of rail traffics could lead them to go rather for not transferring goods from road to rail for economic purposes. For instance, since January 2008, freight SNCF has known a fall of its traffics which led some journalists to estimate a €350 millions loss in 2008. Moreover, whereas of big haulier groups (even among ones with a strong historical culture for road) had projects on the way to include combined transport within their transport plan, the financial crisis caused most of them to step back and postpone (at the best) or call off the schemes they were working on. In such a context, how could France reach its objectives, then?

In conclusion, 2012 appears as a little bit too ambitious. However these objectives can definitely be reached and we really think this is an opportunity for French freight sector to show that it can have stop the non-road traffic decrease by creating a proper alternative to road, the one the European commission is hoping since 2001 and its white book.

References

Report : Les enjeux du Grenelle pour le transport de fret : here
Website : Freight transportation information on the french transportation department website : here
Website : Rolling highway between Aiton (France) and Orbassano (Italy) across the Alps : here
Website : Seine-Nord canal : here
Website : Carex project : here