New rules for better rail capacity management

Rail has a key role to play in making EU transport more efficient and sustainable, in line with the goals of the EU's sustainable and smart mobility strategy. Increasing passenger and cargo volumes requires investment in infrastructure but also a more efficient track capacity management, particularly for cross-border services. Regulation (EU) 913/2010 introduced cooperation mechanisms to ensure sufficient, flexible and high-quality infrastructure capacity along EU rail corridors for rail freight operators. Unfortunately, Regulation (EU) 913/2010 did not achieve its objectives, due to the difficulty of managing capacity separately for corridors and for freight without involving the rest of the network and passenger traffic.