Rail freight of tomorrow

The ideal alternative

In the face of problems like infrastructure saturation, road safety and pollution, rail transport would appear to be the ideal solution for moving merchandise. SNCF is therefore doing research aimed at increasing the efficiency and competitiveness of rail freight, which would in turn allow a significant shift in the modal split for freight transport.

The first challenge in this programme is to improve customer service and provide guaranteed delivery times by introducing NICT (intelligent freight trains) to permit better management of rolling stock (GPS positioning) and merchandise tracking (information on the status of vehicles and consignments).

The second challenge is to boost productivity in a situation where 50% of European freight operations are performed in an area with very dense traffic and scarce infrastructure capacity. The solutions involve increasing train capacity (doubling up trains) and achieving network and rolling-stock interoperability at the European level.