Freight transport by rail showed an upward trend and increasing competition in 2016. This becomes evident from the latest annual report by Schienen-Control GmbH, the Austrian government’s regulatory authority for the rail transport market. With 114.9 million net tonnes of transported goods, freight transport increased by 1.9 percent (+ 2 million tonnes) compared to the previous year. At around 22.8 billion net tonne kilometres, the traffic volume rose by about 0.9 percent compared to the previous year (2015: 22.6 billion).
Competition has intensified in the freight transport sector, and the competitors have been able to improve their performance. Four new railway companies started operating in the Austrian rail network in 2016. CD Cargo will launch transport services in Austria before the end of this year. By the end of the year 2016, 63 railway companies were registered in Austria. Their market share in terms of volume (net tonnes) rose from 27 percent in the previous year to 29.1 percent. With regard to transport performance (net tonnes), the market share rose by 2.5 percentage points on a year-on-year comparison, from 23.6 to 26.1 percent. In 2016, the transport volume (gross tonne kilometers) increased on almost all parts of the network.
The internationalisation of freight transport is growing steadily. Instead of carrying out international freight transports in cooperation with other companies, the trend among European railway companies is to carry them out by themselves. This results in increasing internationalisation and increased competition on the railway. A total of seven Austrian companies were operating abroad in 2016.
