Freight transport Master-Plan: rail organisations criticise "adjustments"

Berlin. The three largest railway organisations in Germany consider the federal transport ministry's so-called "re-adjustment" of its Master-Plan for Freight Transport and Logistics to be nothing more than an inappropriate amputation. In a letter to the federal government official responsible for logistics and the Master-Plan, secretary of state Dr Andreas Scheuer from the junior coalition partner CSU, leading representatives from the Pro-Rail Alliance, the VDB and the VDV criticised the fact that the target of "getting more transport onto the railways and inland waterways" has now been removed without replacement. "We cannot understand this at all," they wrote. The railway organisations view the move not only as a renunciation of parts of the coalition agreement. "Under the cover of a re-adjustment, the integrative approach of the old master plan has been exploited in a one-sided manner; it has been cut back and had its core removed," said the managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, Dirk Flege on Wednesday in Berlin. The Master-Plan, stripped of its major targets, is now not even suitable for describing the central problems facing transport, let alone solving them.

The German Railway Industry Association VDB criticised the new plans for no longer taking external costs into account. "This softening of the Master-Plan for Freight Transport and Logistics will not contribute towards making transport fulfil the criteria on sustainability and climate," said the VDB's managing director Ronald Pörner.

Apart from the dissatisfaction with the plan's substance, largely equating freight transport with road transport, which is what the re-adjustments amount to, the railway organisations also complain about the worsening environment for debate. Dr. Martin Henke, managing director of the Association of German Transport Companies VDV, criticised the ministry's approach. "The Master-Plan is clearly being re-adjusted in favour of HGV transport. It is like a throwback to the 1960s and has no place in today's world. Although transport minister Ramsauer is standing by what is stated in the coalition agreement, namely shifting transport to the railways, these objectives do not seem to be shared by everyone in his ministry."

Criticism was also made of the way the ministry coordinates and cooperates with the railway organisations. "A broadly agreed list of objectives has been turned into a bundle of PowerPoint presentations that are usually sent by email to the railway organisations the evening before talks begin," said Flege. "There is also no point in now simply calling the Master-Plan an 'Action-Plan'." With this approach, a debate based on substance is not possible, was how the letter from the Pro-Rail Alliance, VDB and VDV summed up the situation.