The liberalisation of European rail freight market has just undergone a major milestone. While in 2010, the share of incumbents was still at 75%, as of 2021, their market share already dropped down to 49%. The majority, 51%, was taken over by rail freight companies that have not been national rail freight carriers before – or, as they are called, challengers.
These numbers were published by Independent Regulator’s Group – Rail (IRG – Rail), a network of independent rail regulatory bodies from 31 European countries. Within a decade, the market share of challengers rose from 25 to 51%. This proves that the liberalisation of the rail freight market was a success. It offers more choices for customers, as well as better options to compete with heavy fossil-fuel based transportation forms with new services. IRG - Rail also notes that in most cases, new companies on the markets have not taken the business from existing trade flows, but they have created new markets for rail freight, mostly in the intermodal segment.
As European rail freight gets more and more internationalised, European Rail Freight Association (ERFA) notes the need for national and European legislation to keep up with this trend. Poor international coordination, strict language requirements and outdated combined transport legislation are mentioned as the biggest hurdles limiting the rail freight growth. At the same time, detailed and reliable cost–benefit assessments, realistic implementation and financing plans for imposed investments for market players must be considered in order to help rail freight segment to help EU’s modal shift commitments.
