Railfreight corridors
What are rail freight corridors?
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) regulates the Dutch railway market. Since late-2013, railway infrastructure managers have been creating routes for rail freight transport. These international routes are called rail freight corridors. These rail freight corridors span the entire European continent, and are meant to stimulate the rail freight market.
What do these rail freight corridors mean for the Netherlands?
The Netherlands is connected to three rail freight corridors. Undertakings that wish to use one of these corridors can file a request for capacity with the so-called Corridor-One-Stop-Shop (C-OSS). The C-OSS makes it easier for these undertakings because they can file their capacity request with a single agency rather than having to file separate requests with multiple infrastructure managers. Each year in January, C-OSS offers these rail freight corridors to the market, and capacity is allocated in April. The Netherlands is connected to the following three rail freight corridors:
- Rail freight corridor 1 (Zeebrugge - Antwerp / Rotterdam / Aachen - Cologne - Mannheim - [Basel] - Milan / Novara - Genoa);
- Rail freight corridor 2 (Rotterdam - Antwerp - Luxembourg - Metz - Dijon - Lyon / [Basel]);
- From 2015: Rail freight corridor 8 (Bremerhaven/Rotterdam/Antwerp - Aachen/Berlin-Warsaw- Terespol (Polish – Belarussian border)/Kaunas)
What is the connection between ACM and these rail freight corridors?
Undertakings that file capacity requests for a rail freight corridor may be dissatisfied, for example if C-OSS turns down their capacity request. In such situations, they can file a complaint with a national rail regulator. In late-2013, ACM agreed to cooperate with other European rail regulators with regard to rail freight corridors 1 and 2. Thanks to these arrangements, undertakings that wish to file a capacity request for one of these rail freight corridors, they can do so with any national rail regulator involved with these corridors. Undertakings can file their complaints with ACM in both Dutch and in English.
Complaints and questions about rail freight corridors can be sent to railfreight [at] acm [punt] nl. Complaints and questions can be sent by regular mail as well, but it might take longer before ACM can respond to them.
The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM)
Muzenstraat 41
2511 WB The Hague
The Netherlands
Telephone: +31-70-722-2817
Email: railfreight [at] acm [punt] nl (railfreight[at]acm[dot]nl)
More information about the complaints procedure can be found in the following cooperation agreement:
Complaints about rail freight corridors that are not related to any cross-border issues can be sent to the national rail regulator in question. Contact details of each of the national rail regulators are listed below.