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Current, Press Release, The Company
Kombiverkehr KG at mobility conference of the Heinrich Böll Foundation: call for strong rail
11/15/2019
  • Managing director Armin Riedl highlights opportunities for transformation in mobility through intermodal freight transport
  • Rail the lowest-cost mode of transport for future requirements of climate protection
  • 7 million fewer tons of CO2 by 2030 thanks to CT


(Frankfurt am Main, 15 November 2019) "Construction site mobility" was the theme of a conference of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin on 6 November. Kombiverkehr KG, Europe's leading operator in intermodal rail freight transport, set out the current challenges facing climate protection and transport and presented possible solutions. Armin Riedl, managing director of Kombiverkehr KG, called for greater efforts towards fast, intelligent and networked mobility for people and goods.

"Germany can only achieve its climate targets if freight transport by rail is strengthened," Riedl said. "That is where there is the greatest leverage for CO2 reductions in the transport sector." Riedl is confident that Combined Transport alone could save over 50 million tons of the greenhouse gas by 2030. "That's if politicians set the right parameters in the climate package and at least no longer put rail at a disadvantage to trucks on the road."

If the framework put in place by politicians is the right one, according to Riedl, freight volumes in intermodal transport could rise by almost 80 per cent from 2010 to 2030. A new approach to the sustainable optimisation of national combined transport would then be achievable, such as with MetroNet. Riedl's vision is for MetroNet to make it possible in future to reach the major German industrial centres by rail several times a day in Combined Transport. The standardisation and industrialisation of Combined Transport would then produce a network of national shuttle trains for the long-distance transport of freight, based on the rapid urban transport system for passengers, that offered comparable reliability to a truck in terminal-to-terminal transport alongside low production costs per unit carried.

Kombiverkehr's concept is complemented by innovative mega-hub concepts modelled on the terminal facility currently under construction in Hannover-Lehrte, the expansion of rail infrastructure for the operation of 740-metre trains, and new incentive schemes based on eliminating toll charges on the initial leg from and final leg to the terminal.

Riedl: "Costing just about EUR 37.69 to eliminate each ton of CO2, Combined Transport certainly leads the way. In comparison, switching a car from an internal combustion engine to an electric motor comes in much worse at EUR 122 per ton of CO2 saved, while renovating a building costs EUR 90. This should be a clear sign to the federal government to strengthen rail as a mode of transport in general and Combined Transport in particular and to tailor the individual measures within the climate package accordingly."