Tips for policy and marketing

Train routes

Travelling by train and ferry will become increasingly popular. Governments can help stimulate this growth, instead of stimulating demand for flights. For example:

- Put everything at work to make better use of capacity of existing railways, upgrade where necessary, open up markets and open up data by national rail operators.

- Facilitate public transport travel to the most scenic national parks. European parks can often rival those on other continents, if only they are accessible and better marketed to approach by long distance train.

- Promote combinations of destinations. A city can be great fun just for half a day, as a stopover to another destination.

- Fix metropolitan Paris as a hub. Build that extra platform in Marne-la-Vallee to allow fast connections between north and south, avoiding difficult subway connections between train stations in Paris.

Maritime routes

Continents and islands are very poorly connected by maritime ways, which are much easier to decarbonize than flights. Remaining ferries often exist mainly for passengers wishing to haul their own cars, which make them oversized and more difficult to decarbonize. Passengers arriving by train and bus can feel like unwanted guests, having to navigate between cars through uninviting corridors. Both in routes, experience and marketing, a lot can be improved:

- Connect Shetland and the Faroe Islands by ferry again, for example with an extra Smyrill line stop in Lerwick. This way Iceland will be connected by ferries to the British Isles and a combination of destinations will be possible

- Create a (non-cruise) ferry connection between Iceland and Greenland and Greenland and Canada.

- Stimulate a ferry connection between Greece and Egypt, for example between Crete and the small port of Marsa Matruh, to minimze distance and connect to Egyptian high speed rail once completed.

- Facilitate integration of foot passengers with cargo ships and customs regulations. Especially where maritime routes connect to trainstes.

- Choose maritime corridors that provide a short connection between main land corridors and create connections for foot-passengers only.

- Start a fair-pricing system on car and passenger ferries, based on emissions relating to weight of cars versus foot-passengers and their respective required services.

- Stop airport discounts for car rental agencies and facilitate locations in ports or near main train or bus stations.

- Create inviting infrastructure for train / bus - boat transfers and allow for comfortable transfer of luggage.

- Stimulate marketing for low-carbon maritime travel, including multimodal low-carbon transportation packages.