Brussels, 10/02/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 10 February, the European Commission published the third call for proposals under the second Marco Polo programme, which seeks to help companies introduce services that shift freight off the road and onto short-sea shipping, rail and inland waterways. Grants (worth a total of €62 million for 2009, two million more than in the previous year) will be offered for up to six years for the start-up phase of the projects. Successful projects should fight congestion on European roads and improve the environmental performance of the freight transport system. Funding intensity has been raised to €2 per 500 tonne-kilometres shifted off the roads - twice what was available in 2008. However, only projects capable of demonstrating sustainable non-road freight transport services - that is, projects that can survive on the market even after they cease receiving EU financial support - have a chance for a grant. The call is open to applications from EU and third country companies for five types of actions: - modal shift actions which will shift freight from the road to short sea shipping, rail, inland waterways or a combination of modes of transport; - highly innovative catalyst actions which are aimed at overcoming structural barriers in the freight transport market in the EU, such as low-speed of freight trains or technical interoperability problems between transport modes; - common learning actions which will improve cooperation and optimise working methods and procedures between actors in the freight transport chain; - motorways of the sea actions which shift freight from road to short sea shipping or a combination of short sea shipping and other modes of transport, offering a very large-volume, high-frequency intermodal maritime transport service; - traffic avoidance actions which integrate transport into production logistics in order to reduce freight transport demand by road. The text is available at: http: //ec.europa.eu/transport/marcopolo/calls/2009_en.htm (A.By./transl.rt)