Two percent annual reduction in CO2 emissions from the railways

Berlin. The climate record of the railways is improving year on year. Over the past 15 years, the CO2 emissions per train passenger and kilometre have sunk by a total of 27 percent. The reduction in the CO2 emissions from rail freight transport since the mid 1990s is even greater at 29 percent. Those are the results of an evaluation of the latest figures stored in a database for environment and transport (Umwelt und Verkehr). The database is regularly updated by the IFEU institute in Heidelberg on behalf of the German Pro-Rail Alliance, The German Railway Industry Association (VDB) and the Association of German Transport Companies (VDV).

"The progress made towards climate protection by rail transport is very gratifying. An annual reduction in CO2 emissions by almost two percent is certainly something to be proud of. However, in view of the zero carbon ambitions for rail transport by 2050, most of the hard work is still to be done," said Dirk Flege, managing director of the Pro-Rail Alliance, on Wednesday in Berlin. Flege added: "The greatest leverage for achieving zero carbon rail transport in the future is to increase the railway's share of regenerative electricity and to continue the process of electrifying rail lines." Innovative technologies and new rolling stock also make a considerable contribution to the rail transport's positive environmental record, according the VDB. The VDB's general managing director, Ronald Pörner, added: "In 2010 alone, railway technology manufacturers invested around 680 million euros in additional innovations to ensure that their products are more environmentally and climate friendly in the future. For example, as a result of lighter construction materials and more energy efficient traction technology, modern traction units use around 30 percent less fuel than predecessor models".

The newly founded platform Eco Rails Innovation (ERI), with a membership including rail industry companies, Deutsche Bahn and academic institutes, is pointing the way for the development of future innovations. "Within the platform, the industry and operators have joined forces and know-how to secure the future of the railways as a sustainable mode of mobility," continued Pörner. The managing director of the VDV, Dr. Martin Henke, said he was pleased that rail freight had extended its CO2 lead over HGV road transport compared with the previous year. "In a comparison of transport modes and climate impact, the railways are better than HGVs by a factor of four and are twice as good as cars. The results of our database analysis shows that the European Union was right to say in its latest white paper on EU transport policies that rail transport is an important solution to the problem of achieving the EU's environmental targets. After all, apart from the railways, no other transport mode is be in a position to reduce its CO2 emissions by 60% by 2050, as demanded by the EU.

The 'Environment and Transport' database was set up by the three railway organisations to create a user-friendly presentation of the so-called TREMOD data, which is produced for the Federal Environment Agency by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU Institute) in Heidelberg. The database 'Environment and Transport', a joint project between the Pro-Rail Alliance, the VDB and the VDV, provides comprehensive and fast access to information on the specific emissions values and fuel consumption of the various transport modes road, rail, waterways and aviation. It contains 5,000 data records for freight and passenger transport in Germany, covering a period between 1995 and 2009.

A chart showing the current environmental comparison of the transport modes and an overview of the environmental performance development since 1995 can be found here.