Poland Rail Freight Transport Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023-2028)

The size of the Poland Rail Freight Transport Market is valued at around USD 1.55 billion in the current year and is anticipated to register a CAGR of over 4.5% during the forecast period. The market is driven by the huge volume of rail freight in the country. Furthermore, the market is driven by increasing cross-border trade.

Key Highlights

• Poland is the second-largest rail freight market in the EU. The German rail freight market continued to be the largest with 108 billion tkm in 2020. The Polish rail freight market accounted for 52 billion tkm and was at the same mark as in 2004 and 2008. Practically the only segment of rail freight in the volume increased is container transport. Significant growth was seen in the volume of rail container transport, reaching 2.7 million TEU in 2020.
• Poland was the second largest contributor to the rail freight transport performance in the EU after Germany, with 54 billion tkm in 2021, which was followed by France with 36 billion tkm. In mid-June 2021, 41 public-service rail-road terminals operated in Poland. The overall handling capacity of these terminals is 9.2 million TEU, of which 4.2 million TEU of 35 land terminals. About 50% of land rail-road terminals’ capacity is concentrated in three urban areas: Katowice, Poznan and Warsaw, and another 10% around Wroclaw and Lódz.
• Three leading intermodal operators owning (or/and managing) the road-rail terminals are HHLA/Metrans (Polonia), PKP Cargo Group and PCC Intermodal. Concerning international trade, the Polish Eastern and Western borders, respectively with Belarus and Germany, are well developed. The Polish borders with Belarus and Germany were the busiest in 2021, with respectively 9,399 and 6,193 trains crossing.
• Due to the impact of the war in Ukraine on the growth of the intermodal transport volume along the New Silk Road, 307.2 thousand TEUs were transported via Poland from China to Europe, 8.7% less than last year, in the first half of 2022. In the past few months of 2022, rail freight between Poland and Ukraine has taken on a whole new role. Several terminals were added to the network to facilitate the new trade route this summer, such as in Mostyska, Zamosc and Sosnowiec. These terminals have added much-needed capacity to the route. The new reality Poland is facing after the war on Ukraine was at the heart of the discussion at the Railfreight Summit 2022 in Warsaw, which was held on 7 & 8 September 2022.
• Within a few months, the role of Poland in the international rail freight market changed completely. Whereas it used to be the gateway to Europe for traffic from Asia with the most heavily consumed border crossing on the New Silk Road, it needs to reinvent itself as a result of the war in Ukraine. In the years 2021-2027, the total value of investments in Polish rail transport is roughly estimated at EUR 16 billion (USD 16.94 Billion). By 2025, several major railway undertakings in Poland will use only renewable energy when moving freight on electrified mainlines. It is CTL Logistics that has become the first rail freight operator in the country to use the energy generated from the sun and wind. Moreover, the Polish railway sector is committed to significantly reducing the consumption of energy in the coming years.

Poland Rail Freight Transport Market Trends

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 Panstwowe (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).

Poland Rail Freight Transport Market Competitor Analysis

The Poland Rail Freight Transport Market is consolidated in nature, with the top five players holding more than 60% of the market share. Some of the major players are PKP Cargo, Lotos Kolej, DB Cargo Polska, CTL Logistics, Freightliner, and many more. However, more logistics players in Poland are growing in preference for rail. This increasing number of players is intensifying the competition in the market. In this competitive environment, some of these companies look for an opportunity in market niches, i.e. transporting goods on selected routes or transporting specific commodity groups.

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