Combined transport directive review: Getting more goods off EU roads

The European Union's efforts to reduce the negative impacts of transport include promoting a shift from road freight transport to lower-emission transport modes. This also includes combined transport operations, which consist of at least one road leg for initial or final haulage and one non road leg on rail or water.

The 1992 Combined Transport Directive set out measures that were meant to increase the competitiveness of combined transport against road-only transport. In 2017, 25 years after the directive entered into force, the European Commission conducted a legislative review and proposed to simplify the existing rules and make combined transport more attractive by means of economic incentives.

The initiative is part of the 'mobility package', a set of legislative proposals presented by the Commission to make EU transport safer, greener and more modern.

In the European Parliament, the TRAN committee was due to vote on its report in July 2018, while the Council of the European Union had found solutions to several issues, and published a progress report on 18 May 2018.

EP: EPRS: Briefing: EU Legislation in Progress http://epthinktank.eu/eu-legislation-in-progress/

European Parliament: European Parliamentary Research Service: Briefing: Implementation Appraisal, July 2017: Multimodal and Combined Freight Transport: Implementation Appraisal http://www.europeansources.info/record/multimodal-and-combined-freight-transport-implementation-appraisal/

ESO: Key source: Intermodal transport http://www.europeansources.info/record/intermodal-transport/

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