Rail freight traffic in Austria showed a reverse trend in 2018. On the one hand, the transported volume of 117.9 million tonnes was down 0.8 per cent on the previous year (2017: 118.8 million net tonnes). At the same time, the goods transport performance has risen again to around 23.7 billion net tonne-kilometers, exceeding the record level of 2017 (23.5 billion).
“More and more transports are shifted to the westbound corridor, meaning the trains having to cover longer distances. On average, that is about 4 kilometers more per train than in 2017,” explained Maria-Theresia Röhsler, Managing Director of Schienen-Control GmbH, at a press conference in Vienna on 8 July.
Rail Cargo Austria (RCA) still had by far the largest market share of all freight traffic indicators. However, the private competitors were able to catch up in 2018 and expand their market share again.
Their share of revenue (net tonnes) rose from 30.2 per cent in 2017 to 33.3 per cent. On the other hand, the transport volume (net tonne-kilometers) also increased by 3.8 percentage points year-on-year, from 26.9 per cent to 30.7 per cent.
“Most of the competitors are operating on the Brenner route,” says Maria-Theresia Röhsler. The strongest competitor of the RCA in 2018 was Lokomotion with almost five per cent, followed by the LTE Group with 4.37 per cent and TX Logistik Austria with about four per cent
