Eurotunnel is to freeze some track access charges and reduce others in a bid to double the number of trains using the Channel Tunnel over the next four years.
Freight charges will remain unchanged until 2018 and off-peak freight access charges will be reduced by 25 per cent under the proposals.
The measures are an extension of the Eurotunnel Incentive for Capacity Additions (ETICA) programme which was put in place in May 2013. They will take effect from June 2014 following a consultation with the Intergovernmental Commission.
Other incentives include a reduction in the charges for access during maintenance periods from three nights a week to two.
Eurotunnel will also remove a surcharge introduced by the French infrastructure manager Réseau Ferré de France (RFF) for security at the terminal in Fréthun.
Although freight traffic has continued to rise through the Channel Tunnel in the first quarter of 2014, Eurotunnel believes there are further steps that could boost traffic through the fixed link.
Eurotunnel said its aims could be achieved more easily “if the other involved parties, amongst whom the principals are RFF and Network Rail supported the creation of a European Freight Corridor between Continental Europe and the United Kingdom and helped to remove the barriers which limit interoperability between networks”.
