Private operators gain ground on German market, sector overall loses to trucks

Private operators in Germany have expanded their share of the rail freight market. In 2023, they walked away with 61 per cent of the total market share, two percentage points more than the year prior. State-owned DB Cargo claimed 39 per cent. At the same time, the sector as a whole lost out to road transportation.

The success of private rail operators in Germany is explained by their reliability, lean structures and customer proximity, according to branch organisation Die Güterbahnen. Moreover, private parties are more innovative than DB Cargo, the organisation says, echoing an EU study published last week. For example, private companies pioneered dual-mode locomotives as an alternative to diesel locomotives, an example which DB Cargo followed only later.

Losing out to the road

Nevertheless, the fact that private operators managed to walk away with a part of DB Cargo’s market share does not mean that rail freight as a whole saw its position improve.

According to the German Bundesnetzagentur, the sector’s performance declined from 140 billion tonne-kilometres in 2022 to 127 billion in 2023, a fall of nearly 10 per cent. By contrast, road transportation fell by only 4,7 per cent. As a consequence, the share of rail freight in transport overall fell from 19,3 per cent in 2022 to 19 per cent a year later.

Die Güterbahnen attributes the negative development to infrastructure-related disruptions and cost pressures. Moreover, it highlights that Germany is spending 4,2 billion euros to build new highways over the course of six years, whereas rail can only count on maintenance and renovations rather than expansion.