Germany’s market volume for products and services will rise by an average of 3.4% per year over the next five years, according to the latest report made by SCI Verkehr GmbH. The market volume for infrastructure, system technology and rolling stock will increase from EUR 12.5 billion (in 2016) to EUR 14.6 billion by 2021.
Currently, transport revenues are about EUR 22.7 billion in turnover.
With increasing digitisation, the railway sector is changing drastically and established processes are put to the test: digital products and services are gaining in importance, especially in the classic railway product markets – infrastructure, system technology and rolling stock. Already today the total market volume for digital products and services amounts to about EUR 1.23 billion, with a rising trend.
“The industry is increasingly faced with the challenge of combining the multitude of currently available approaches as well as high investments in digital technologies into an overarching digital strategy in order to realise the benefits of digitisation in the different parts of the value chain. At the same time, digitization is also making the railway industry attractive for suppliers who have not yet been part of the industry,” Maria Leenen, CEO of SCI Verkehr GmbH said.
Agreements and progress in the establishment of important market fundamentals, such as the provision of public funding in regional passenger transport as well as the approach of establishing a level playing field in intermodal competition in rail freight transport, form the basis for the high investments.
Structural uncertainties in the financing of the regional passenger transport, including its infrastructure, have been solved in recent years, not only with the revision of the “Regionalisierungsmittelgesetz”, but also with the establishment of the Railway Regulation Act (ERegG) as well as the continuation of the Municipal Transport Financing Act / Unbundling Act. In the rail freight transport sector, the “Masterplan for rail freight transport” recently presented a set of measures designed to permanently strengthen rail freight transport and make it more attractive to compete with other modes of transport. This includes, among other things, the “clear” reduction and lowering of train path charges, for which already EUR 350 million are to be provided under the budget of the Ministry of Transport in 2018.
Photo: Christian Bedeschinski
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