Kombiverkehr ended 2025 with transported volumes down 13.5% year on year, falling to 665,981 road-rail consignments over the year. The Frankfurt am Main-based intermodal operator announced the results at its shareholders’ meeting on 24 June 2026, attributing the decline mainly to insufficiently coordinated transport policy and the impact of extensive maintenance works on the German rail network. The challenges in 2025 were broadly in line with those of the previous year: a weak economy and sluggish industrial demand affected the transport market, while high energy and infrastructure costs weighed on the company’s accounts. Diversions and longer transit times also undermined service reliability, increasing the use of resources, including financial resources.
The reduction in the railway track access charge subsidy eroded rail’s competitiveness against road transport, which in 2025, until the start of the conflict in Iran, benefited from lower diesel prices and sufficient capacity. Line and tunnel closures added further pressure, particularly on services to Spain. “The transport volume of our company therefore remained well below expectations and plans. Although we maintained almost the entire service network, almost 4,000 scheduled trains over the course of the year were unable to run, often because of infrastructure problems or due to extensive maintenance works,” explained managing director Armin Riedl. The fulfilment rate in 2025 therefore stopped at 84%.
In detail, international transport fell by 13.3% to 510,573 consignments between January and December 2025, 78,003 fewer than in 2024. Domestic transport, including rail links to and from the German Baltic Sea ports of Kiel, Lübeck and Rostock, recorded 155,408 consignments by rail, down 14.2%. The largest segment remained services to southern Europe, with 277,770 consignments, down 5.8%, on routes to and from Italy and Switzerland, followed by services to northern Europe, which handled 85,807 consignments, down 19.4%.
Transport performance, measured in tonne-kilometres, fell by 10.3% to 13.35bn. Freight forwarding and logistics companies using Kombiverkehr’s intermodal products to transport semi-trailers, containers and swap bodies nevertheless made a significant contribution to climate protection: with more than 2,600 daily rail connections, around one million tonnes of harmful greenhouse gases were avoided in 2025. Turnover stood at €398.4m, €36.2m lower than the previous year; net profit for the year, after tax, was around €762,000.
The year 2025 marked an important stage in Kombiverkehr’s strategic development. The transformation process, which lasted several months, was completed in the spring despite difficult infrastructure conditions on the German rail network. The new collaboration between the various service providers and the internal processes progressively consolidated over the following months; in addition to traction services, the reorganisation also covered wagon management and order processing. “The last two years have been marked by far-reaching changes. Today we can say that the transformation has been a lasting success: we have an efficient and future-oriented corporate structure that gives us greater flexibility and control,” Riedl said. Looking ahead to the 2026 financial year, the Frankfurt operator is working with a network of established and new traction providers, laying the foundations for further growth in European combined transport.
Despite adverse conditions, and thanks to its strategic realignment, Kombiverkehr succeeded in launching new rail products during 2025. Capacity on the Brenner route was increased at the start of the year; a direct train was reintroduced between Lübeck and Verona, with three weekly round trips on the direct service and the same number via Hamburg. In mid-October, the direct Rostock-Verona Interterminal train increased frequencies to seven weekly round trips. Following a new partnership, the service to Poland was transferred to the Neuss Trimodal terminal in December 2025: since then, direct trains have connected the Poznan Clip Swarzedz terminal six times a week in both directions. The year 2026 opened with a new route between Mortara and Cologne-Eifeltor, currently operating five times a week in each direction. Demand strengthened in the first half of 2026, fuelling the company’s optimism over a possible return to stable growth. On this basis, further connections have already been introduced or are in the final activation phase: Rail Hub Duisburg-La Llagosta, operational since 24 June 2026, as well as the Hamburg-Munich, Rail Hub Duisburg-Malmö and Rail Hub Duisburg/Neuss-Barcelona Morrot routes, expected from September.
During the financial year, Kombiverkehr continued to refine its terminal strategy, strengthening key infrastructure hubs for European combined transport, with particular focus on the Barcelona Morrot and Rail Hub Duisburg terminals. At the end of May 2025, the joint venture UtE Rail Hub Morrot was established with Renfe Mercancías: Kombiverkehr thereby acquired a stake in the new company that manages the Barcelona Morrot terminal, one of Spain’s most important intermodal terminals and a link between the Mediterranean and the industrial regions of central and northern Europe. As part of a reorganisation of production processes, the German company identified the Barcelona Morrot terminal, together with the intermodal terminal in Ludwigshafen, as the central consolidation point for traffic to and from Spain, where operations have already begun. Once restoration work on the Rubi tunnel has been completed, it is expected that eleven trains per week in each direction will be able to run directly, without the need to form wagon groups.
With the new Rail Hub Duisburg, Kombiverkehr is deliberately strengthening a central European hub at the heart of Germany’s most important logistics regions. Greater operational integration should allow more efficient management of terminal capacity, process renewal and an overall improvement in customer satisfaction. “Since the handover, which took place on 1 January 2026 with operations unchanged, we have not only had a motivated team on site, but also a new IT infrastructure, including a modern terminal management system. The latest developments at Rail Hub Duisburg are an excellent example of close collaboration within the Kombiverkehr group,” said managing director Heiko Krebs.
Kombiverkehr also continued its digitalisation strategy during 2025, reaching important milestones in the modernisation of its IT system. Krebs identified the main points of this strategy as investments in modern software architectures, digital services for customers, data-based connectivity and artificial intelligence, with the aim of strengthening the company’s competitiveness and laying the foundations for efficient and sustainable transport processes in combined transport. Standardisation remains the central element, making digital access to intermodal transport as simple and efficient as possible.
The CT 4.0 platform, marketed in collaboration with customers, is making particularly good progress: more than 30 companies already use it for digital data exchange along the intermodal transport chain, while a further 55 have expressed interest in connecting. The platform enables all operators to connect efficiently and supports the exchange of data on timetables, bookings, tracking and terminal slots, among other information.
A further step was taken with the development of a new solution for emissions measurement. In collaboration with the Hamburg-based software company shipzero, Kombiverkehr developed an application that provides customers with precise emissions data as early as 24 hours after a consignment has been completed. The data can be viewed, analysed and documented as individual certificates through the myKombiverkehr customer portal, enabling the company to support customers in complying with growing sustainability reporting requirements.
The Frankfurt group took an important step towards AI-assisted transport planning with the completion of the Kiba funding project, dedicated to the study of AI and discrete load optimisation models to increase capacity utilisation in combined transport. The models developed make it possible to use train capacity much more efficiently, reduce reloading operations in terminals and improve network planning, with the aim of substantially reducing the planning required for up to 800,000 loading units a year while increasing the efficiency of combined transport.
During the presentation of the 2025 results, Kombiverkehr’s management expressed dissatisfaction and incomprehension over the current transport policy situation in Germany, which in its view does not address the urgent issues facing intermodal rail freight. Krebs commented on the general network modernisation plan as follows: “We already know, after the completion of the first major construction sites, that the plans presented by DB InfraGO are not reliable and that additional works are not being adapted to keep traffic flowing. One example is the interruption of rail freight services in northern Germany last month.”
Based on the experience gained so far, the operator’s management sees legal action as the most effective tool for limiting damage to all companies involved in combined transport. “It is obvious that we support the modernisation of neglected infrastructure. But it is simply incomprehensible to have to explain to the federal transport minister that our freight forwarding customers have to do without the reliable delivery of their products for six months or even more. Our alarm is such that we have joined other market operators in the Save Combined Transport initiative to defend the interests of the sector together,” Riedl added. According to Riedl, while politicians listen to one or two working groups, there is no impression that the issue is being taken seriously at the top of the ministry.
For Kombiverkehr, constructive dialogue on the current, increasingly critical situation is of fundamental importance at this stage. “We urgently need to work on managing the tension between infrastructure works and operational continuity better. Compensation schemes must also be introduced to ensure that railway undertakings, operators, freight forwarders and industry remain committed to environmentally friendly rail transport,” Riedl continued. Among the proposals put forward during the shareholders’ meeting were exemption from road tolls for the first and last mile in combined transport and a financial contribution to operators and railway undertakings as compensation, among other items, for traction and wagon costs arising from the additional kilometres travelled because of diversions.
The limited partners also elected the new Board of Directors for a three-year term. The seven representatives of the freight forwarders are Nils Buchmann of Paneuropa Transport GmbH, Georg Dettendorfer of Johann Dettendorfer Spedition Ferntrans GmbH & Co. KG, Stev Etzrodt of Spedition Bode GmbH & Co. KG, Ulrich Maixner of Hoyer GmbH Internationale Fachspedition, Ueli Maurer of Bertschi AG, Sonja Stich of Karl Schmidt Spedition GmbH & Co. KG and Ali Taskan of Lanfer Transport GmbH. DB Cargo AG, a 50% shareholder, appoints two members to the Board of Directors of Kombiverkehr KG; under the articles of association, the chairmanship is held by a representative of the freight forwarders, and at the constitutive meeting Ulrich Maixner was elected chairman, while DB Cargo AG will retain the vice-chairmanship.
Antonio Illariuzzi
