Freight transport demand

Trend in freight transport demand and GDP

Note: Green indicates faster growth in GDP than in transport while red indicates stronger growth in transport than in GDP. Figure 1 shows a large increase in freight tkm in 2004. This is due to a change in the methodology used to calculate the estimates for this year. (see metadata for more details) The main reason is that countries had to harmonise their surveys with the EU legislation, Freight transport demand is defined as the amount of inland tonnes-kilometre travelled every year in the EEA32. Inland freight transport includes transport by road, rail and inland waterways. The current version of the indicators is based on inland transport only. Although statistics on sea transport are already well developed, due to their predominantly international nature, there are conceptual difficulties in dealing with these modes in a manner consistent with the inland modes. Data from Lichtenstein is not included as it was not available as part of the dataset .The ratio of annual growth of inland freight transport to GDP, measured in 2000 prices, determines the amount of coupling between GDP and transport. The decoupling indicator, depicted by the green bars, is calculated as unity minus the coupling ratio; so a positive score indicates decoupling (i.e. transport demand grows less slowly than GDP), with a negative score showing the opposite (i.e. transport demand outpaces GDP growth).

Data source:

• Eurostat: Volume of passenger transport, Last update: 09-09-2010 (supplied directly to contractor via EEA) This statistic is not currently available via the Eurostat website, and was supplied to the contractor directly via the EEA by email.
• DG TREN Statistical Pocketbook 2010, http://ec.europa.eu/transport/publications/statistics/statistics_en.htm [accessed 2 September 2010]
• GDP data: EEA, September 2010 (supplied directly to the contractor)

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Overall in the EEA32, freight transport demand has grown significantly since the mid 1990s (40% since 1995), thereby making it increasingly difficult to limit transport’s impact on the environment. In the 10 years to 2008 the most significant growth by far was in road transport, growing by over one-third compared to around 13% growth in rail and 11% growth in inland waterways. However, trends vary widely between member states, as is discussed below.

As well as being the mode with the fastest growth, road freight is by far the dominant mode in inter-European freight transport, accounting for over three-quarters of freight movement (in tkm) in 2008. However, it is on the decline in some major economies: in the last decade there was a decrease in road freight activity in Italy, Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium (and small decreases in the UK and the Netherlands). Of these, only Denmark and Italy have seen an overall reduction in freight demand. In contrast, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania have all experienced a more than threefold increase in road freight demand in the same period. This may be a result of these countries starting from a relatively low level of demand, and experiencing a shift towards high-value production and service industries that have resulted in strong transport growth.

Rail freight has seen a much smaller increase in the EEA32 Member States over the 1998 to 2008 period. There is significant variation between countries, even within economic groupings – for example, Germany has seen an increase in rail freight demand of over 50% in this period, but France has had a decline of nearly 25% over the same time frame.  Many of the Member States that have seen large growth in rail freight transport have also increased their investment in rail infrastructure at some point in this period (see TERM019: Infrastructure investments). Overall, 17 Member States have seen a growth in rail freight in the ten-year period to 2008, and 11 have seen a decline.[1]

Inland Waterways (IWW) make up a much smaller proportion of the overall freight movement, with many countries experiencing declines or very small increases. Romania saw the most relevant increase with a doubling of freight transport by IWW between 1998 and 2008; they have also more than tripled their investment in IWW infrastructure in the same period (see TERM 19: Infrastructure investments). Two countries, Germany and the Netherlands, accounted for over three-quarters of freight transport by IWW in 2008. Germany also account for 60% of the investment in IWW infrastructure in the same year (data for the Netherlands are not available).   

For the EU-15 Member States, the main explanation for the recent dominant trend of tonne kilometres growing faster than GDP is that the internal market is leading to some relocation of production processes, causing additional growth in transport demand over and above the steady growth in GDP. For the EU-12 Member States, there has been a large shift in production away from traditional relatively heavy low-value industry towards higher-value production and services. This has led to strong freight transport growth, which has surpassed the growth in GDP. The EU-12 has seen an increase in freight transport of over 70% between 1998 and 2008, compared to a 20% increase in the EU-15. In addition, in 2008, when freight transport demand fell overall, it grew by 3% in the EU-12 (whilst falling by nearly 3% in the EU-15).

In addition to the internal shift of production processes within the EU, there has been a huge growth in international imports, particularly from the East, in the last decade. Imports from outside the EU-27, for example, have risen by around 60% between 2000 and 2008, and the share of imports originating from China has more than doubled in that time (Eurostat, 2010). If the growth in international shipping to and from Europe were to be taken into consideration, the overall growth in freight demand and therefore coupling with GDP would be even more pronounced.

Development of the Trans-European Networks under the TEN-T programme may facilitate further growth in freight volume due to the focus on relieving bottlenecks and expanding the infrastructure capacity. The revised guidelines have some provisions for environmental issues, namely a call on Member States to perform a Strategic Environmental Assessment of national transport programmes and a requirement that funding for TEN-T projects be conditional on compliance with EU environmental legislation. However, environmental concerns are secondary for the selection of projects and the overall environmental impacts have not been assessed.

Share of land freight transport by mode

Note: Percentage share of land freight transport between road and rail transport mode for EU12, EU15 and combined EU27.

Data source:

Eurostat - Statistical Office of the European Communities. Transport demand by mode. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/transport/data/database [accessed 20 September 2010]

 DG TREN Energy & Transport Statistical Pocket Book 2010. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/publications/statistics/statistics_en.htm [Accessed 2 September 2010]

 

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Freight transport demand by mode - EU27

Note: Freight transport demand by mode - EU27

Data source:

DG TREN Transport & Energy Statistical Pocket Book 2010, Table 3.2.2, EU27 performance by mode: Freight Transport. http://ec.europa.eu/transport/publications/statistics/statistics_en.htm [accessed 2 September 2010]

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In terms of mode share, road freight has by far the largest share at 77% in 2008, whereas the share for rail and inland waterways (IWW) are 17% and 5% respectively. The modal split has changed little in the last two years, and in the period 1998 – 2008 the share of both rail and inland waterways has declined gradually. As a result, the objective outlined in the Common Transport Policy (CTP) of stabilising the mode shares of rail, inland waterways, short-sea shipping and oil pipelines, and shifting the balance from 2010 onwards, will not be achieved unless there is a significant reversal of the current trend.

The relative split of overland freight between road and rail in the EU-15 is similar to the situation in the EEA-32 as a whole: road has dominated over the period shown, with little change until the last two years, when the share of rail has begun to increase very slightly. Since the economies of the EU-15 are larger, the overall trend is most strongly influenced by this group of Member States. In the EU-12, however, road and rail exchanged positions in mid 1990s, with road transport’s share increasing strongly and reaching 73% (of market share between road and rail) in 2008 at the expense of rail transport. This can be explained primarily by historical preference for rail transport in the centrally-led economies in the EU-10 (not the case in Cyprus and Malta). Liberalisation of markets led to the decrease in heavy industry in those economies alongside an increasing demand for more flexible road transport.

The current dominance of road freight transport can be explained by looking at the type of goods transported. This plays an important role in choice of mode. Perishable and high-value goods require fast and reliable transportation - road transport is often the fastest and most reliable form available, providing much flexibility with pickup and delivery points.

Because the transport system allows it, modern production prefers 'just-in-time' delivery of goods. Transport speed and flexibility are therefore of great importance. Despite congestion, road transport is often faster and more flexible, and more reliable than rail or water transport. In addition, as a result of spatial planning and infrastructure development, many destinations can only be reached directly by road, and combined/intermodal transport is so far used only to a limited extent. Furthermore, the road sector is liberalised to a great extent, while the inland waterway and rail sectors have only relatively recently been opened up to broader competition (with only limited success to date in the case of rail). The average tonne of goods carried by road travels about 110 kilometres, a distance over which rail or inland waterways are less efficient because road transport is needed to and from the points of loading. Moreover, in using multi-modal transport for such short distances, valuable time is lost due to lack of standardisation of loading units and convenient and fast connections between inland waterways and rail. For short-sea shipping, the average tonne of goods is carried more than 1,430 km. Here, time is less of an issue. The low price of shipping is probably of overriding importance.

However, in terms of all freight transport volumes, sea shipping dominates when international sea transport is also included. Due to methodological and data reliability problems, sea transport is frequently omitted from transport statistics, but volumes should not be underestimated. Data is available for the EU-27 and it shows that the demand for intra-European short-sea transport is roughly equivalent to the level of road transport.