Rail freight continues to fall in 2019

www.actu-transport-logistique.fr

The report by the L’Autorité de régulation des Transports (ART) finds that rail freight traffic continued to fall in 2019, even though the load factors of the trains have increased.

Article from www.actu-transport-logistique.fr

The report reveals that industrial action severely impacted freight activity from December 2019, and that traffic has fallen by 2% in train-km. It amounted to more than 58 million train-km. The tonnage of goods transported, on the other hand, remained relatively stable at nearly 33 billion tonnes-km. Operators have therefore increased the average tonnage transported by train to 560 tonnes.

There has also been a steady decrease in the share of Fret SNCF. The incumbent operator now only holds a market share of 56%, down 2 points compared to 2018 and three points compared to 2017. Euro Cargo Rail (ECR), for its part, gained one point to 13% while VFLI (subsidiary of the SNCF group) follows immediately behind with 12%.

All the other railway companies (twenty in total) remain stable, starting with Europorte with 6%. Régiorail, for its part, occupies fifth place with 4%. Finally, the fifteen other railway companies which carried out goods transport fell by one point to only 2% of market share.

The figures communicated by ART also highlight a slight improvement in the punctuality rate of freight trains. At the 30-minute and 1-hour thresholds, they improved by two points to 85 and 93%, respectively. This is good news from the perspective of a modal shift which has been announced many times but which is definitely slow to materialize. For the time being, rail freight therefore remains at its current 9% modal share.

However, the shift towards the 18% ambition for 2030 by the 4F Alliance is, to say the least, urgent as the network continues to contract. Since 2015, 700 km of lines have disappeared, reducing the length of the network to only 28,100 km. Even more worrying, and despite the modernization programs undertaken, 2,693 km of freight branch lines have an average age of 72 years.

ART Report: LE MARCHÉ FRANÇAIS DU TRANSPORT FERROVIAIRE

Download the ART Report here.

Also see this article in RailFreight.com:

This is an article in railfreight.com reporting on Emmanuel Macron’s plans to revive rail freight in France. He has said he wants to massively redevelop the Republic’s railways, with an emphasis on increasing the share of freight carried. The President signalled a radical change in freight transportation, as part of a huge programme of reforms announced in a Bastille Day interview given to French television. The 14 July interview also promised a revamp for regional services and overnight trains, and an examination of “small lines”, potentially meaning reactivation of some of France’s mothballed infrastructure.