4 ms·

By your own references the EU28 transports around 75% of its freight by truck while the US is around 40%. Seems like a huge difference to me. And EU28 stats ar

By your own references the EU28 transports around 75% of its freight by truck while the US is around 40%. Seems like a huge difference to me. And EU28 stats are distorted by Northern and Eastern Europe where rail freight is big. Italy and France are over 80% truck and France and the UK are over 90%. Even Germany - famous for its freight rail network 150 years ago - transports only about 19% of freight by rail and 72% by truck. While I understand why US doesn’t have a national rail passenger network - the distances are simply too far between most population concentrations - it is somewhat of a mystery why so little freight travels by rail in Europe and so much by truck. Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? If passenger trains just replaced freight trains and trucks replaced cars, is this really the model to emulate?

Symbiote 8y ago
>> Perhaps this simply makes sense given the differing situations. I think that's the only reasonable conclusion. There are so many differences: in economies, wealth distribution, consumer preference (e.g. for local produce), population density, landmass shape (international shipping isn't in the EU statistics, but is at least as significant as coastal shipping in the USA), infrastructure (EU has no problem building new pipelines), ... I can't find a good source of statistics, but it seems very possible that the USA simply transfers far more goods for more km (overland) than the EU. > Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? I'm aware of a shortage of rail capacity in particular places, e.g. traversing/avoiding London, but I don't think that's a general problem. More likely, the same types of journey on both continents moved to road (e.g. farmer to local market/distribution centre, factory to another factory in the same general area), but in the US long distance transport of imports from Asia increased.

Symbiote 8y ago

>> Perhaps this simply makes sense given the differing situations. I think that's the only reasonable conclusion. There are so many differences: in economies, wealth distribution, consumer preference (e.g. for local produce), population density, landmass shape (international shipping isn't in the EU statistics, but is at least as significant as coastal shipping in the USA), infrastructure (EU has no problem building new pipelines), ... I can't find a good source of statistics, but it seems very possible that the USA simply transfers far more goods for more km (overland) than the EU. > Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? I'm aware of a shortage of rail capacity in particular places, e.g. traversing/avoiding London, but I don't think that's a general problem. More likely, the same types of journey on both continents moved to road (e.g. farmer to local market/distribution centre, factory to another factory in the same general area), but in the US long distance transport of imports from Asia increased.