Abstract

The paper analyses the main technical and economic elements of the current European rail freight market and presents the basic concepts of possible new technologies in the rail freight system. They would enable the railways to enter the more rewarding niches of the freight transport market. In an attempt to understand better the problems of introducing innovations into the transport sector this paper also considers the theoretical framework and analyses the implementation paths of the proposed technological innovations. New technologies are confronted with various barriers and difficulties created by the existing and dominant technological paradigms. These are often powerful enough to prevent the introduction of alternatives and promising innovations. The empirical part of the paper focuses on the possibilities of combining the existing innovative rail freight technologies which could, with the appropriate organizational solutions (time-tables) and political support, increase the competitiveness of the rail freight transport in new and promising market segments.