The contribution of rail in a ‘low carbon’ economy – Part One

If Australia is to achieve its climate change goals to 2030 (as set out in the Australian Governments White Paper), its new generation of transport policies should include more direct public investment in rail infrastructure, according to the latest report of the Cooperative Research Centre for Rail Innovation.

By Jennifer Perry

It also states that any new policy should include the recovery costs generated by long distance truck users by a mass-distance-location charging regime.
The report, Transforming Rail: A Key Element in Australias Low Pollution Future was released on March 3rd and outlines the reasons why a major change in the transport sector will be necessary to pursue even the modest global stabilisation target of 550 ppm CO2-e.
Reducing transport emissions will in turn require a substantial modal shift from road to rail, as well as lower emissions intensity in all transport modes. These changes will not be achieved by emissions trading alone, but need a new generation of transport policies, states the report.
The CRC research team responsible for the report, led by Professor Peter Sheehan, is not alone in seeing a favouring of road transport over rail in the Governments Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).
Craig Wilson, Ascianos national manager environmental sustainability planning, said the CPRS protection of road users (passenger vehicles protected for three years and heavy road vehicles for one year) does not make sense when the aim of the Scheme is to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
The industry recognises the Governments concerns about implementing the scheme and wants to minimise the immediate impact on the economy through protecting cars and trucks, but this protection should have extended to the rail industry.
From a freight perspective, trucks are getting a free ride for a year; rail is much better than road from an energy advantage which translates into a much lower carbon footprint for the service provided.
Wilson said that passenger rail will be affected by the rise in electricity costs, which will not be as great for users of liquid fuels.
The dilemma for rail is passenger rail prices will go up how do you recover that?
Few passenger rail operations are profit makers, instead the Government recognises the whole cost benefit through providing mass transportation.
Passenger rail companies will need to focus on how to reduce their electricity use to compensate for the energy price increases, said Wilson.
In Australia, transport currently represents 14 per cent of GHG emissions (NGGI, 2005). It is also the second-fastest growing source of emissions as a result of continued growth in car transport. According to the NGGI, the rail sector is responsible for 2.7 per cent of the total emissions from transport, with the road sector having the largest contribution with more than 87 per cent. Innovation has been dominated by incremental improvements to existing fossil-fuel dependent technologies.
While accepting that emissions trading is a valid response to climate change, the report concludes that the proposed CPRS is not sufficient to efficiently reduce emissions and states that, A sharp reduction in transport emissions will be required if Australia is to pursue even the modest global stabilisation target.
The CRC reported that a modal shift from road to rail will have large environmental, economic and social benefits, as rail is typically a more energy efficient form of transport than road, with lower energy use per passenger kilometre or per tonne kilometre.
The report describes the current transport system as riddled with market failures, especially externalities, sunk costs and coordination failures, and that the economic and social costs of current transport patterns are enormous.
The social costs arising from transport are estimated at A$52 billion or 5.6 per cent of GDP in Australia in 2005, before including congestion costs.
The CRC for Rail Innovation defines social costs as including accidents, noise and air pollution and GHG emissions.
These social costs are mainly due to road transport, and rail contributes only nine per cent of them, the report states, despite rail carrying 53 per cent of the Australian land freight task, in addition to a large number of passengers.

The Transforming Rail: A Key Element in Australias Low Pollution Future report is available on the CRC for Rail Innovations website at www.railcrc.net.au

To read the second part of this report click here.