Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-16-Speech-2-272"
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"en.20000516.11.2-272"2
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"Mr President, I hope that the two members due to speak before me were not travelling by train and have been delayed. I think they are in the House and will arrive in time. Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that we are fighting numerous problems on the railways which are a legacy from the past. For example, in 1970, the railways’ share of the freight traffic market was 21%, compared with just 8.5% now. The railways have lost out massively in freight traffic and their share of the passenger traffic market has fallen from 10 to 6%. The winner has been road freight traffic, which is increasing constantly and winning market shares: 16% per annum on the eastern borders of Austria, for example. It is now 2.4 times higher than in 1990. If you take lorries and buses from eastern Europe on the A1 motorway, which is the most important east-west route, traffic increased sixfold between 1995 and the year 2000. In other words, freight traffic, especially transit freight traffic, is growing massively. According to forecasts, it will rise by more than 100% between 1995 and 2015.
That is why it is important and urgent that we concern ourselves with the European rail network. It totals 156 000 kilometres in length, of which 78 000 km are accounted for by the TEN network. 12 600 km of new lines for speeds of over 250 km/h should be constructed by 2010, with at least 16 300 km of lines due to be upgraded for speeds of over 200 km/h. The total costs – and they are huge – are estimated at EUR 186 billion between now and 2010. So it is obvious how important this investment is for the European Union and that is why we are being called on here to set the priorities quickly.
I think that it is high time we adapted the railways to the market economy, so as to ensure that the railways invest more money more often in customer requirements and that we can jointly set the priorities and draw up a tight, efficient timetable.
The main requirements are, of course, to harmonise the gauge throughout Europe, especially where more than two countries cooperate. At the moment, we still have five different gauges. We need uniform electrification, especially in relation to voltage and frequency. In other words, the technical properties of the electricity must be brought into line so that extra electricity can be bought from the national grids and fed into the national grids without any significant losses.
The third, and I think the most important point is the safety of trains. We really do need external inspection and certification agencies. We cannot have a situation in which the agency operating the railway is also responsible for inspecting it. No-one questions the fact that cars and lorries are inspected by external certification agencies. I think there is an urgent need, given the recent train crashes, for external inspection agencies to look after the safety of passengers in Europe."@en1
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