Rail freight accounts for just 1.1% of all UK domestic freight CO2 transport emissions. That was the headline on a press release I received today. You will not be surprised to hear that it was from EWS Railways.
Also predictable was the comment of “Graham Smith, Planning Director for EWS, who said: “This report from Professor McKinnon should be read by every company with a haulage requirement that is committed to reducing CO2 emissions. For the first time in one report the true scale of the domestic freight transport market’s carbon emissions can be studied.
Well maybe. He is correct in saying that it is an important report on the key issue of emissions but it is a very complicated story. The report says that freight transport accounts for 33 million tonnes a year of carbon. Of that 95% comes from road transport. But that is hardly surprising as road transport is the overwhelmingly dominant form of transport. Of course it accounts for a high proportion. What is more interesting is how the carbon output of rail and road compare per tonne kilometre. That is very difficult to calculate but it does seem to be lower than road.
But overall it is not going to make much difference. As the report says: Given the short average length of haul in the UK, the very low proportion of
industrial premises connected to the rail network, the country’s industrial mix and
the heavy use of our rail network by passenger traffic, it is unlikely that rail will be
able to capture more than 10-12% of total freight tonne-kms in the UK in the
foreseeable future.