RailFreight.com — 2026-05-26
Land transportation
In an ongoing long-term trend, European rail freight has had declining market shares year after year. There are no signs of recovery. Official EU objectives run counter to this development and aim at doubling rail freight volumes in less than two decades. It is a good time to wonder if there is realistic market demand for rail freight now, and if there will be in the future.
The answer is that there is market demand, particularly in Europe’s most densely populated areas, including along the Rhine-Alpine and Scandinavian-Mediterranean TEN-T corridors. The demand for rail freight can currently not be met. This is because major challenges are hampering the market. In particular, the heavy burden caused by construction sites on the neglected infrastructure in Germany and the lack of political interest in France and the Iberian peninsula are proving to be serious obstacles.
This is reflected in a decline in service quality, amplified by inadequate coordination at national and international level. At the same time, there is also the lack of alternative routes, where capacity should be at least 90% of the trunk route. Rail operators, such as Bertschi, LkW Walter, BLS Cargo International, SBB Cargo International and Planzer agree with Hupac: “It is not that we do not see any market potential; it is there. However, our transport services are simply unable to operate at the required operational standard to exploit that market potential at present. Hupac had to cancel 25% of their planned North-South-trains in 2025 and over half of their trains were delayed by more than an hour. The result is that lorries return to the roads.”
The positive aspect
There are, however, factors that speak in favour of rail. For example, trains consume only a fraction of the energy of lorries and require less personnel for each loading unit transported.
Despite rail being the cheaper option over longer distances, it provides a mere and declining 17% of EU-wide land transport. As an example, rail transport for a 20-foot container from Hamburg to Munich costs between 300 to 600 euros, including terminal handling and local delivery. Road transport often costs 50% more for the same volume.
Furthermore, according to German statistics, rail freight causes less than half as much external costs than road from accidents, air pollution, climate damage, noise, upstream and downstream processes such as construction and disposal of vehicles and infrastructure, land use and fragmentation. A recent analysis for the Brenner route between Austria to Italy even found a fourfold discrepancy.
The policy aspect
The good news for rail freight is that European transport ministers have committed to doubling the volume of rail freight by 2050 — underscoring the urgency of transport emission reductions by 90% by 2050 to meet Europe’s climate goals. However, the International Transport Forum (ITF), an OECD body, anticipates an overall growth of more than 84% for European freight, all modes combined.
If total traffic is anticipated to be almost doubling during the same timeframe, rail’s share of total transport will not (or barely) change. Presumably, the other transport modes will also double their volumes. Nothing will be achieved. On the contrary: road congestion and delays, fine dust emissions from tyres, traffic accidents and energy consumption will all double. Therefore, decisions to create market conditions favouring rail must be taken.
What the data says
Is there a realistic gap in the market to upscale rail in the desired drastic way? Let’s take a moment to assess rail freight’s three segments: block trains, single wagonload (SWL) and combined transport (CT).
Statistics suggest that around half of all European rail freight transport in tonne-kilometres is carried out by block trains without the involvement of transshipment or shunting operations. In this area, rail, together with inland and coastal shipping, covers the entire stagnant or even declining market. The conclusion is that there is nothing to gain in this area.
Meanwhile, it is estimated that around a quarter of the rail freight volume is carried by SWL and CT each. If the rail freight transport volume is to be doubled, SWL and CT would therefore have to triple their transport performance within a quarter of a century, which corresponds to an average annual growth of almost 3%. However, CT has stagnated since 2016, and SWL has been declining for decades across Europe. A radical reversal of this trend and a gigantic effort will therefore be required to match the politically defined modal shift objectives.
Based on the Eurostat data above, we can come to some preliminary conclusions on the potential for a modal shift to rail. Air transport volumes are negligible, and one can assume that there is no chance that inland and coastal sea shipping will either give or take any considerable modal share to or from the land transport modes. This is because they have their limitations in terms of territorial accessibility and transport times, which makes them appropriate for slow bulk and liquid goods. In other words, the shift potential remains between rail and the road.
Optimistic and pessimistic estimates
Some studies suggest that rail transport might be competitive for transport distances greater than 200 to 500 kilometres, while there are nevertheless some specific cases across Europe covering much shorter distances. This establishes a high and a low shift scenario. The high shift scenario assumes a further 10% of tonne-kilometres under 150 kilometres distance could be shifted from road to rail across Europe, 20% for distances to 299 kilometres, 40% for up to 999 kilometres, and 80% for very long distances.
In this optimistic scenario, rail freight may not only double, but almost triple. Yet, even in the pessimistic low shift scenario, where we assume no shift potential for distances under 300 kilometres, 25% for distances to 999 kilometres and 50% beyond, there would still be a market potential to double rail freight.
This is a consideration on the basis of transport data of the past. Let’s look into the future, when overall transport volumes are expected to practically double. Meanwhile, the aim to reduce the use of fossil fuels, combined with an expected reduced population, will lead to a reduction of bulk and liquid freight volumes. This suggests that waterways transport may turn stagnant or will start falling. A larger share of freight will have to be moved on land by road and rail. Even if there are no concrete figures, it is clear that the market demand for rail will rise dramatically.
Still, this does not yet take into account the many obstacles making it currently impossible to meet this market demand. In order to make that possible, decisive steps have to be taken in terms of achieving a level playing field for the market participants as well as sufficient physical capacity.
This requires a better regulatory framework for rail, but also the familiar elimination of bottlenecks and finalisation of major infrastructure works: the Fehmarn Belt tunnel, the Brenner Base tunnel, and the Turin-Lyon. Action is required, because it is an illusion to think that the road can do it alone instead.