According to the document, the railways have unique advantages: they are a safe and clean mode of transport, and show great potential for contributing to the development of
sustainable transport in Europe.
However, rail transport in Europe has an image problem, having declined steadily from the 1960s to the end of the 20th century. Both goods and passenger traffic volumes have fallen in relative terms compared with the other transport modes. Rail freight has even shown a decline in absolute terms: loads transported by rail were higher in 1970 than in 2000.
The traditional railway undertakings were unable to offer the reliability and good timekeeping their customers expected of them, which led to a shift of traffic from rail to the other modes of transport, chiefly road. Though passenger transport by rail might have continued to grow in absolute terms, this increase seems very limited compared with that of road and air transport.
This trend seems to have reversed recently, but there is still a long way to go for rail transport to become sound and competitive. Particularly in the rail freight transport sector there continue to be major difficulties which call for public-sector action.
