Recent data published by the Community of European Railway and Infrastructure Companies at the end of June shows a continued recovery from the economic crisis for freight companies in Europe, after the financial crisis which has seriously affected its evolution and the freight volumes carried in the past three years.
In 1Q2011, rail freight operators increased tonne-kilometres by 12.5% in Eastern Europe and by 4.2% in Western Europe. The data are compared to the same period in the previous year.
Despite the continued and steady recovery in Eastern and Western Europe, the level of tonne-kilometres remains more than 15% below the 2008 pre-crisis level in both regions. However, in this context it should be recalled that competing modes are in a situation similar to that of railway transport. For example, recent EU27 freight data from the International Transport Forum show that although the impact of the economic crisis on the road sector was less severe than on the rail sector, the road sector remained at 13.5% and the rail sector at 16% below pre-crisis level in 4Q2010. In the first quarter of 2009, at its peak, the figures published by CER reveal a -15.2% for road compared to -25.3% for rail.
Rail tonne-kilometres increased by 45% in EU15 and decreased by 6% in EU12 between 1993, the year with the lowest value, and 2007, the pre-crisis year. Consequently, as seen in Graph 3, the economic crisis resulted in a significant loss in freight traffic in 4Q 2008 and in the financial year 2009, after which rail freight in both regions started growing again in 2010. While the most recent data on the performance of the rail freight sector in Western Europe shows that the positive growth trend between 1993 and 2007 is being continued, it remains unclear whether the recent positive growth in tonne-kilometres since 2010 will lead to a stabilisation in Eastern Europe.
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