Public policy instruments to promote freight modal shift in Europe: evidence from evaluations

A modal shift of freight from road to rail and waterborne transport can contribute to reduced negative externalities (mainly air pollution) from freight transport. The purpose of this paper is to identify modal shift public policy instruments in Europe and analyse their performance based on existing ex post evaluations. This analysis identifies 93 public policy instruments, in which 20 ex post evaluations were found. The evaluations mainly consider subsidies/grants at the national level or regulations and directives at the European Union (EU) level. The results suggest that evaluations of subsidies and grants at the national level most commonly describe a positive performance, while several evaluations at the EU level describe a poor or mixed performance. Well-defined targets and simpler application processes are mentioned in several ex post evaluations as suggestions for improving the performance of modal shift policy instruments in Europe.