Sustainability supplement 2013

• Fair competition for sustainable railways
  Siim Kallas, Vice-President of the European Commission, responsible for Transport
  The European transport policy aims to boost sustainable mobility, promoting growth of the economy, providing jobs and reducing negative impacts on the society and the environment. Rail has an important role to play in achieving these goals, but the sector has to overcome substantial changes in order to play its full part in the EU transport system…
• Towards greener and cleaner rail diesel vehicles
  Judit Sandor, Sustainability and Environment Manager, UNIFE / Roberto Palacin, Senior Researcher and Head of the Rail Systems Group, NewRail / Henning Schwarz, Senior Consultant, Environment and Sustainability, Deutsche Bahn Environment Centre / Christian Kamburow, IZT (Institute for Futures Studies and Technology Assessment) / Michael Meinert, Head of R&D Group Energy Storage Systems, Siemens AG, Infrastructure and Cities Sector
  Rail is considered to be the most environmentally-friendly mode of transport. Rail exhaust emissions from rail diesel traction in Europe (EU27 & EFTA) are very low. Rail diesel traction accounts for less than 2.5% nitrogen-oxide and 4.5% particulate matters (EEA 20081) out of the total emissions from the European transport sector. Nevertheless, continuous improvement must be ensured by the sector. This is to be underlined as the European railways committed to reduce their total exhaust emissions of NOX and PM by 40% by 2030. To tackle the challenge of reducing rail diesel emissions, the railway industry launched CleanER-D – a research project partly funded by the European Union…