Railways are not just losing market share due to the intensifying international competition.

The road freight sector is also at the same time constantly reducing its specific pollution (particularly air pollutant emissions and noise) and thus has been able to reduce its environmental disadvantage compared to railways. This is undermining the transport policy justification for giving preferential treatment to railways on environmental grounds.

In order to counteract this trend effectively, the freight train of the future must therefore increase both its economic and also its environmental productivity by certain factors.

With the introduction of railway reforms, the political framework conditions are created which break down certain barriers. The increase in productivity in the road freight sector should continue in the future: economically, the increased weight limits (in Switzerland, the removal of the 28 tonne limits), the freedom of cabotage as well as improved navigation systems have led to an increase in productivity, while in the environmental area further improvements can be expected, particularly in air pollutant emissions.

The current ideas on pollution limits (EURO IV) would, for instance, mean a further reduction in nitrous oxides of around 75% as compared with the current average.

At the same time, the circumstances of demand and therefore the requirements of customers have undergone a structural change: the increasing value of freight and the decreasing specific weight, changed stockholding strategies as well as the increased flexibility of production methods today require transport tailored to a high degree to meet the needs of the customer. Here, railways are at a disadvantage compared to road freight for the moment, due to the slow nature of large systems.

This project deals first and foremost with the productivity potential of railways on the supply side.

The central question is how and with what products and under what framework conditions railways are in a position to be able to double economic and environmental productivity so as to transport double the amount of freight and make double the amount of profit with the same costs and same amount of environmental damage. All in all, we describe this improvement as 'Factor 4' following v. Weizsäcker (1995). At the same time a strategic bridge is built between supply and demand.