During those 10 years, road freight grew in every EU country except for Luxembourg, Greece and Portugal. The largest increases were recorded in the Baltics and Romania. On the other hand, rail freight has been decreasing since the turn of the century. Between 2005 and 2023, only six European countries increased their rail freight modal share, with a much more contained growth compared to road freight.

Unreachable goals?

The picture painted by Eurostat is definitely a bleak one. Years of setting goals and talks on how to increase the modal share of rail have led to the exact opposite results: more trucks on EU roads. When available, data from 2025 showed that this trend is far from over and it is also impacting rail freight strongholds such as Switzerland.

Rather than getting close to reaching 30% in 2030, as dictated by the goals set by the EU, rail freight has been walking the opposite path. Some countries are trying to solve decades of ignoring the railway by implementing massive upgrade projects, which are causing just as many issues due to lines being unavailable.

The largest rail freight operators continue to lose money and are forced into restructuring to avoid bankruptcies or EU sanctions. Fragmentation remains a problem when it comes to implementing continent-wide initiatives such as DAC and ERTMS. There is some optimism transpiring for the future due to the conclusion of many construction projects, but the survival of companies until then keeps being uncertain.

A defeat on all fronts

In terms of total tonnes, none of the countries included in the dataset showed any growth. The most affected have been the Baltic states, mostly due to the severed ties with Russia after its invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago. Moreover, a general drop in weight transported by rail could also be explained by a shift in types of goods moved. For example, the transport of heavy coal is being reduced while intermodal transport, often lighter, is growing.

However, this explanation would not justify the same trends identified with the other performance indicators. In terms of tonnes-kilometre, only Slovakia and Portugal managed to have better figures in 2024 than in 2022. Slovakia went from 7,838 to 8,113 million tonnes-kilometre, while Portugal recorded an even smaller growth, from 2,190 to 2,214 million tonnes-kilometre. Regarding trains-kilometre, only Sweden advanced, but here as well it was marginal: from 37,177 to 37,218 thousand trains-kilometre.

Even in the countries where rail freight moves higher volumes, numbers have dropped. This is the case for Germany, Poland, France and Italy but also Switzerland and Austria, where the sector has historically been stronger. The current outlook is also reflected in the modal share of rail freight, which increased in only six European countries between 2005 and 2023.

Why is it happening?

The reasons behind the downfall of rail freight can be many. The fragmented outlook of the European Union, far from being a cohesive and cooperative environment, is surely one. Rail freight is mainly an international business, or at least it should be if international collaboration would be better coordinated by EU institutions. This brings us to a possible second cause: the absence of concrete policies to favour rail freight. From the Greening Freight Package to national initiatives, very few measures have been beneficial for the sector over the past few years.

The countries where rail freight decreased the most are the three Baltic states, especially Estonia, which went from 80% to 20.4%. Latvia and Lithuania also recorded disastrous numbers, from 84.1% to 44% in the first and from 73.6% to 39.1% the second. In Poland, Slovakia and Czechia, the modal share of rail freight fell by about one-third in each country, while it halved in Luxembourg. Rail freight lost its popularity also in every other European country equipped with a railway network.

The rise of road freight

The data provided by Eurostat highlighted that rail freight is not the only modality losing volumes. Inland waterways, for example, have seen fewer cargo in all European countries where this type of transport exists. The most notable drops were in Bulgaria, from 30% to 17.9%, and Luxembourg, from 13.1% to 6.9%. The volumes left behind by rail freight and inland waterways were vastly picked up by the road sector, which can often provide cheaper, faster and more flexible solutions.

The Eurostat data showed the situation between 2005 and 2023, but the scenario is likely to remain unchanged, if not worsen, for another decade. For rail, the infrastructure is still outdated in many areas of Europe. Some countries are undertaking massive railway upgrades, but these projects are also causing issues due to temporary capacity restrictions. For inland waterways, the increasing unpredictability of water levels will keep being a problem.

However, this trend goes against the sustainability policies for transport proposed by the European Union. The sustainable development goal for industry, innovation and infrastructure (SDG9) explicitly calls for the opposite trend. Transport modalities considered more sustainable, rail and inland waterways, should be gaining volumes in favour of the road to lower the impact of the supply chain in the Old Continent. In reality, though, more and more trucks are running on EU roads with all the pollution and risks that come with it.

The information comes from a dataset released by Eurostat this week. It should be noted that Eurostat measures the EU member states rail freight performance by taking into account what it calls “main undertakings”, meaning that the criterion for a Railway Undertaking to be included in the data measurements is to transport “a total volume of goods of at least 200 million tonne-kilometres or at least 500,000 tonnes.”

When comparing the data with 2021, a slight decrease is visible. However, when comparing them to 2019, rail freight performance has improved since then, with the latest marginal fluctuation between 2021-2022 signalling relative stability rather than underperformance.

Germany the champion

For 2022, Germany remained Europe’s rail freight champion since it reached the highest tonnage-kilometres performance (125 million), contributing to the overall EU performance by 31 per cent. Germany was followed by Poland and France, which reached 59 and 35 million tonnes-kilometres in 2022, respectively. Poland led the growth between 2021 and 2022 with a 5,4 billion tonnes-kilometre increase, while Germany also grew by 1,5 billion.

At the bottom of the list, one can find Greece and Finland, both experiencing a decrease of 20,9 per cent and 17,7 per cent in 2022, respectively. In general, countries like Portugal, Denmark, Bulgaria and Ireland maintained a positive trend with growth characterising their rail freight operations last year.

Tonnage also down

The tonnage metrics were also on the downside for 2022, considering that 14 of 25 EU member states noted a negative performance. In this case, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland and Greece are again leading the decrease, with their volumes decreasing by 39, 24, 22 and 20 per cent, respectively. In fact, and in absolute terms, Lithuania experienced the highest drop with 20 million tonnes less between 2021 and 2022, followed by Finland and Czechia, which saw a decrease of 9 million tonnes each.

On the other hand, Denmark, Croatia and Bulgaria led the growth trend with a 12, 7 and 6 per cent increase in transported tonnes, respectively. At the same time, Germany and Poland also grew slightly compared to 2021. Additionally, the Netherlands registered an increase between 2021 and 2022 in terms of tonnes transported while they recorded a fall in terms of tonne-kilometres, which reflects a reduction in the distances covered in the country.

Also read:

• EC report: rail freight volumes grow, but modal share is dropping

• Fluctuating Baltic rail freight figures reflect challenging transition

• Polish rail freight figures showcase years-long stagnation