12 million EU inhabitants are affected by railway noise during the day and 9 million during the night. This study lists measures, funding and regulations to reduce it. The introduction of modern rolling stock will lower noise most significantly. In the short run, the replacement of cast iron by...

The assessment of the current impacts of extreme weather conditions on transport systems reveals high costs in specific locations. Prominent examples for Europe are the economic consequences of the harsh winter periods 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 and the floods in Austria, Eastern Europe, Germany...

This paper discusses a range of business model innovations taking place out-side the rail transport sector with a direct impact on rail transport. The paper also discusses business model innovations that may have been developed elsewhere but could be transferred to the rail transport sector. The...

The paper asks how the modal shift from road to rail in the freight sector is sup-ported by institutional change. Following North (1990), institutions are understood as the "rules of the game" in the rail freight sector. Based on the literature on institutional change, four different...

This paper feeds into Stream 2 of the LowCarb-RFC study. It seeks to construct a Business-as-Usual scenario and a more ambitious Pro Rail scenario for freight transport along two major European rail freight corridors: RFC 1 (Rhine-Alpine) from the Dutch seaports to northern Italy and RFC 8...

This publication is one of nine working papers compiled within the study "Low Carbon Rail Freight Corridors for Europe" (LowCarb-RFC). The LowCarb-RFC study concentrates on ways for de-carbonising long-distance freight transport along major European corridors as this sector is among the most...

The past 15 years has been characterized by a high density of record-breaking weather extremes in Europe. These include the extratropical cyclones Lothar, Kyrill and Xynthia across western and mid Europe; the major floods in the UK, Germany and eastern Europe; the heat waves in 2003 and 2007 and,...

This chapter explores the feasibility and possible benefits of amending the German Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) motorway toll system by adopting different pricing and revenue use rules. Economic efficiency and equity effects are assessed using the MOLINO partial equilibrium model and the ASTRA...

After a long period of political debate and technological difficulties, the German heavy goods vehicle (HGV) toll system was finally put into operation in January 2005. This paper is divided into two main parts. The first section discusses the German HGV toll in detail, with a focus on fee...