At EU level, the economic crisis resulted in a decrease in road and rail freight transport in 2008 and 2009, after several years of an upward trend. In the EU27, road freight transport was down by 10% in 2009, after a fall of 2% in 2008. Rail freight transport was down by 17% in 2009, after a drop of 2% in 2008.

However, quarterly data indicate that both transport modes have begun to recover from the effects of the economic crisis. For both road and rail freight transport, there was a gradual improvement throughout 2009, confirmed in the two first quarters of 2010. Compared with the same quarter of the previous year, road freight increased by 3% in the first quarter of 2010 and by 4% in the second quarter, while rail freight rose by 8% in the first quarter and by 14% in the second quarter.

These figures are published in two reports from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, on road and on rail freight transport in the EU27.

Road freight transport more than 4 times larger than rail freight transport

On an EU level in terms of tonnes-kilometres (tkm), road freight transport is more than 4 times larger than rail freight transport (1 690 billion tkm compared with 370 bn tkm in 2009). In 2009, road freight transport was the dominant mode of freight transport in all Member States, except Estonia and Latvia.

In 2009, all Member States showed declines in their road freight transport compared with 2008, except for Bulgaria (+16%) and Poland (+10%). The largest decreases were found in Romania (-39%), Latvia (-34%), Estonia, Ireland and Cyprus (all -27%). Six Member States accounted for 70% of total EU road freight transport: Germany (308 bn tkm, -10% compared with 2008), Spain (212 bn tkm, -13%), Poland (181 bn tkm, +10%), France (174 bn tkm, -16%), Italy (168 bn tkm, -7%) and the United Kingdom (140 bn tkm, -13%).

For rail freight transport, decreases were observed in all Member States, except Estonia, which remained nearly stable. In 2009, the largest declines were found in Bulgaria (-33%), Belgium (-29%), Luxembourg and Spain (both -28%) and Romania (-27%). Four Member States accounted for just over half of total EU rail freight transport: Germany (96 bn tkm, -17% compared with 2008), Poland (43 bn tkm, -17%), France (32 bn tkm, -21%) and the United Kingdom (21 bn tkm, -15%).