The Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia and Portugal are the only countries in the European Union, with Switzerland included for its transit role, where rail freight’s modal share has grown between 2005 and 2023. Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, confirms this trend. For Europe as a whole, the figures are far less encouraging: rail’s market share fell from 18.5% to 16.9% over the same period, despite sustained investment in network infrastructure and terminals.
Portugal recorded the strongest increase, with rail’s modal share rising from 9.2% in 2005 to 14.1% in 2023, a gain of more than 50%. Germany, Italy and Croatia also saw growth, though less marked in percentage terms. Germany went from 18% to 20.6%, Italy from 10% to 12% and Croatia from 20% to 22.7%. Switzerland and the Netherlands experienced only marginal gains, albeit from very different starting points. In Switzerland, rail rose from an already impressive 33.6% to 34.3%, while in the Netherlands the increase was from 6% to 6.4%.
The Baltic republics present a case of their own, where external factors have triggered a collapse that can hardly be described as structural. Estonia’s share plummeted from 80% to 20.4%, while Latvia and Lithuania also posted dramatic losses, from 84.1% to 44% and from 73.6% to 39.1% respectively. Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic each saw rail’s modal share fall by around a third, while in Luxembourg it halved. Even discounting these extremely negative outcomes, most other European countries registered declines in favour of road transport, also compounded by a shrinking share of inland waterways where available.
The Eurostat figures provide a snapshot of how the rail freight sector has evolved over almost twenty years, from 2005 to 2023. A number of factors suggest the outlook may remain unchanged for at least another decade. Much of the problem lies in the state of Europe’s rail infrastructure, which remains inadequate in many regions. Several national rail operators are pursuing ambitious network modernisation programmes, but these projects will take years to complete and, in the meantime, often result in reduced line capacity. This reality sits uneasily with EU ambitions to promote more sustainable modes of transport in line with the goals set out in the NextGenerationEU recovery plan.
Piermario Curti Sacchi
