Nederland investeerde twee keer meer in wegen dan in spoor. Ons land steekt daarmee ver boven landen uit als het Verenigd Koninkrijk en België. De vergelijking in uitgaven tussen spoor en wegen is ongeveer gelijk aan Duitsland en Frankrijk. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek door het Wuppertal Instituut en T3 Transport Denktank. In het onderzoek zijn de investeringen van alle 27 EU-landen, Noorwegen, Zwitserland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk in wegen, spoor en vliegvelden met elkaar vergeleken over een periode van 1995 tot 2018.
Het spoornetwerk in Nederland is sinds 1995 met 12% gegroeid, ondanks het sluiten van drie spoorlijnen. Alleen in Spanje en Kroatië is het spoornetwerk meer toegenomen. Nederland kent relatief weinig spoorkilometers waar met hogesnelheid op gereden kan worden.
Meer informatie en uitkomsten van dit onderzoek zijn te vinden in de factsheet en onderstaand persbericht:
European countries spent 66% more on roads than on railways over past three decades, dramatically shrinking the train network, new analysis shows
Amsterdam, 19.09.2023 – The EU-27 countries, Norway, Switzerland and the UK invested on average 66% more in expanding and refurbishing roads than in railways since 1995, according to a new study by Wuppertal Institut and T3 Transportation Think Tank commissioned by Greenpeace Central and Eastern Europe. [1] Despite growing climate concerns and the first global commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the 1990s, countries have since spent a substantial €1.5 trillion on road infrastructure, and only €930 billion on rail, incentivising private oil-powered transport instead of sustainable public transport. [2]
As a result of lopsided government funding priorities for transport, the length of Europe’s motorways has increased by 60% – more than 30,000 kilometres – since 1995. This contributed to a 29% increase in demand for motorised road transport until 2019, which is responsible for 72% of Europe’s climate-damaging transport emissions, while rail accounts for only 0.4% of transport emissions. However, at the same time, the total European train network has shrunk by 6.5% – or by 15,650 km, since 1995, in some countries such as France or Germany even by more than 10%. About 13,700 km of mostly regional railway lines and almost 2,600 railway stops and stations have been temporarily or permanently closed to passenger service, disproportionately affecting rural communities that have suffered from reduced access to rail and public transport. More than half of the closed railway line kilometres could be reopened relatively easily, according to the study.
Herwig Schuster, transport campaigner for Greenpeace’s Mobility for All campaign, said:
“Europe has systematically bled its regional and local rail network dry over the past three decades, leaving it in a desolate state in many regions, while pumping massive cash into roads for oil-guzzling cars that fuel the climate crisis. We’re seeing the severe consequences today, as Europe is battling through climate chaos, road transport emissions rise, millions of people in rural areas struggle to get proper access to public transport, and are effectively forced to own a car or stay at home. If Europe is to have a sustainable and equitable future, governments and the EU must stop closing regional train lines and stations, reopen disused rail infrastructure and massively shift funding from road and air to rail to ensure greenhouse gas emissions reductions and equal access to sustainable mobility for all. It’s high time European governments ended their favouritism for cars.”
Since 2018, the average funding gap between road and rail in Europe has narrowed from 66% to 34% more investment in road than rail. However, despite the additional investment in rail, many European countries continued to close further railway lines and stations, and to plan and build new motorways and airport extensions.
Transport remains the only sector in the EU that has not contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast to other sectors, greenhouse gas emissions from transport have actually increased by 15% in the period from 1995 to 2019, mainly due to oil-burning vehicles. At the same time, an average train journey in Europe produces 77% less greenhouse gas emissions than a car trip per passenger kilometre. Data shows that a dense and well-developed rail network is key to making public transport accessible and attractive to people, which will in turn lead to cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
After this summer’s deadly climate chaos across Europe, the report is a tragic reminder of the lost decades of climate action when it comes to the transport system, which is responsible for almost a third of the EU’s climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. Before European governments set their budgets for next year, Greenpeace is calling on policymakers to finally shift funding priorities from road to rail to ensure greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, better rail infrastructure is maintained, and additional funding is directed towards affordable ‘climate tickets‘ for trains and public transport that are available for domestic and cross-border travel across Europe. The EU should massively increase public funds dedicated to the upgrade and modernisation of rail infrastructure to make rail an accessible alternative to road transport, including in cross-border, peripheral and rural areas.
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Notes to editors
[1] The researchers examined data on the funding (public, and partly private) of roads (all roads, including urban roads in some countries), railway lines (conventional, high-speed, and in some countries urban metro/tramways) and airports (with a volume of over 150,000 passengers/year), and the expansion/closure of motorways (roads with at least two lanes in each direction and a barrier between the two directions), railways (conventional and high-speed) and airports (with a volume of over 150,000 passengers/year) in the EU27 countries, the United Kingdom, Norway and Switzerland since 1995, the first year for which data are available for all the countries analysed. The analysis does not take into account, if transport infrastructure shrank and expanded before 1995.
The data are mainly derived from public sources, including Eurostat, ITF-OECD, Worldbank and the European Commission’s Statistical Pocketbook, as well as railway companies. The report always takes into account the latest available data that allows for European comparisons. Current data on the investments (in Euro) in transport infrastructure are available for all but three European countries up to and including 2018, and for two thirds of the countries for up to 2021, as indicated in the factsheet. Data on the expansion and closure of transport infrastructure are available for most countries until 2022, or in some cases even 2023.
[2] For the sake of clarity, we have rounded the totals here. If we compare the unrounded totals (see table 2-1, p.10 in the report), we find that €1,545.86 billion was invested in roads and €931.41 billion in railways. This corresponds to €614.45 billion or 66% more invested in roads than in railways.