Defying the roads’ dominance
How are the railways and inland waterways faring vis-à-vis trucks? The modal split remains something of a problem child. The political will to promote alternatives to road transport has achieved little so far against the forces of the market. A look at the current situation in Europe reveals some promising approaches, however.
The overall conclusion is rather sobering. The shift of freight transport volumes from the roads to the railways and to ships isn’t displaying the desired momentum in the European Union as a whole.
According to the figures in the Eurostat database the share of rail in the European Union’s freight transport landscape still stood at around 17% in 2021. Inland navigation’s share only came to about 6%.
Road transport, on the other hand, increased its share once again. Whilst about 74% of freight transport was handled on the roads in 2011, the figure rose to no less than 77% in 2021.
Regional rail transport differences
Even if the overall result is not satisfactory, the development of railfreight transport varies considerably from region to region, for example.
In 2021, rail commanded the largest share of transport in the Baltic states of Lithuania (63%), Latvia (53%) and Estonia (40%). In Slovenia, 34% of all freight transport was handled by rail, in Switzerland 34% and in Austria 30%.
Countries such as Sweden and Finland were in the middle of the range, with 29% and 27% respectively. Germany with 19% was slightly above the EU average of 17%, with Italy (13%), France (11%) and Spain with a rather poor 4% ranking below. The modal share was calculated on a tonne-kilometre basis (tkm).
Inland shipping is rather volatile
Inland navigation developed more positively in 2021. In that year its transport volumes increased in ten European countries, compared to 2020. The largest relative increases in 2021 compared to the previous year were recorded in Lithuania (+315%), Sweden (+80%) and Czechia (+23%). Bringing up the rear with the highest declines were Poland (a fall of 30%), Bulgaria and Croatia (both recording falls of 7%).
An overall increase of 3% in tkm and 4% in volume (19 million t) in 2021 was in line with a trend. In absolute terms, Germany recorded the highest growth in 2021 with approximately 2.2 billion tkm.
This is already history again, however, because last year in particular was a year of decline for the industry. The statistics show, for example, that Germany’s inland waterways lost approximately 8.4% of its total tkm in 2022.
Increasing the share of the railways and of inland waterways in freight transport remains a key goal of the EU, which – thanks also to its green deals – wants to become climate-neutral by 2050. This is still a long way off in the context of the modal split.