Market Trends of Poland Rail Freight Transport Industry
This section covers the major market trends shaping the Poland Rail Freight Transport Market according to our research experts:
PKP Cargo holds the Largest Share of Rail Cargo transported
In 2021, the market share of the five largest railway operators in Poland was about 60% in terms of transport performance. In spite of losing a considerable market share between 2004 and 2018 (from 80% to 41%) PKP Cargo remains the dominant railway operator in Poland with about 37% market share. The other main operators are Lotos Kolej, DB Cargo Polska, PKP LHS, CTL Logistics, and Freightliner. In international transport, PKP Cargo has about 45%, followed by PKP LHS, DB Cargo, and CTL Logistics.
PKP Cargo is the market leader, it was spun off in 2000 from Polskie Koleje Państwowe (PKP), the Polish state railways after a restructuring program that had the mother company split into 24 entities. Since 1 October 2001, PKP Cargo is part of PKP S.A. Group which is the largest shareholder (with a 33% share). On 30 October 2013, PKP Cargo was listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE). The company became the first rail freight operator in Europe to go through an IPO. Outside Poland, PKP Cargo operates in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Lithuania. PKP Cargo also accounts for the largest share in intermodal transport.
Continuously Falling Share of Rail Freight Transport
The share of rail freight transport in Poland continues to fall in relation to road transport (from 42% in 2000 to 10% in 2020), because of the very high growth dynamics of road transport, more than a 5-fold increase over this period. The percentage of rail transport in total inland freight transport in Poland decreased to 22.6% in 2020 compared to 2019. Thus the percentage of rail transport in Poland saw its lowest number in 2020 at 22.6%.
The whole European freight rail industry has seen a steady decline over the past 70 years. Freight rail's modal share has decreased from around 60% in the 1950s, and 30% in the 1980s, to roughly 15% today, driven mainly by large industry shifts. The European Union has set a bold ambition to reverse this trend. It plans to double freight rail's modal share by 2030, both to reduce the transport sector's CO2 emissions and to ease the congestion of major road connections. Achieving this ambition would see freight rail volumes grow by around 6% a year in ton-kilometers (tkm).
